The District of Squamish is piggybacking off the sweat and tears volunteers pour into maintaining mountain bike trails, says Coun. Bryan Raiser.
At the Squamish council meeting on Tuesday (Oct. 4), Raiser unsuccessfully tried to get the district to match $15,000 raised by Squamish Off-Road Cycling Association (SORCA) to improve trails. It's just one more example of the municipality's lack of support for the mountain biking community, Raiser said, noting that the district is quick to advertise the sport's local amenities.
"The district has never gotten its act together when it comes to trail maintenance," Raiser said.
In June, council bypassed mountain biking when it dished out the $750,000 from the Olympic Sport Legacy Fund, he noted. Two months before that, a split vote wiped a $30,000 mountain bike trail maintenance line item from the budget.
Squamish's mountain bike trails have produced a number of world-class athletes, such as world junior downhill winner Lauren Rosser and Team Canada's Miranda Miller, Raiser noted, yet the district pours more money into sports that haven't seen the same success.
"Mountain biking is one of the biggest sports in this community," he said.
Last year, SOCRA approached the municipality with a trail use fee initiative, a bylaw the organization hoped would providing funding for pathway upkeep, SORCA vice-president Cliff Miller said. Put into effect in February 2010, the bylaw charges $5 per participant in an event that uses district-owned property, including trails, roads, road allowances or rights-of-way. But so far it has been a disaster, Miller noted.
"The district has screwed it up," he said.
The municipality has billed some events, while letting others fall through the cracks, Miller said. At this week's council meeting, district CAO Kevin Ramsay noted the RBC GranFondo, which saw 7,000 road cyclists pedal through Squamish, was one of them.
Miller said he has collected fee money from the bike races the Test of Metal and Just Another Bike Race, but he hasn't handed it in.
"Until they apply [the fee] fairly, I'm not paying it," he said.
The district has up to $50,000 budgeted for local trails, Mayor Greg Gardner said. It also recently spent $25,000 upgrading the Smoke Bluffs Park, which included work on its trails.
Many local mountain bike routes don't run on municipal land, which complicates such spending, Gardner said. One of the reasons Raiser's recommendation failed was he sought for money out of council's contingency fund, Gardner noted.
The contingency fund is reserved for emergencies, Coun. Doug Race said. Other council members, save Raiser, voted to defer the item until 2012 budget discussions. That way it can be discussed in the context of balancing all interests, Gardner said.
Gardner said he thinks the GranFondo, which is run by a private operator and benefits from local infrastructure, should have paid the $5-per-person user fee.
"But even if I am wrong, I think there is a strong principle argument that they should be contributing in any event," he said.
The district is finalizing a report that fine tunes the user-fee system, Gardner said. It is expected to be before council within the next month.
Squamish is served greatly by the thousands of volunteer hours that people donate to the town, whether it's people working on trails or people coaching hockey, Gardner said.
"We just make decisions to the best of our ability about how to allocate district resources for the benefit of the community," he said.
