Believe it or not, the current council was elected almost three years ago. The next municipal election is scheduled for October 20, 2018. The Chief sat down with Mayor Patricia Heintzman for a broad-ranging conversation that lasted over an hour and covered everything from whether she will run again and economic development to the District’s relationship with the Squamish Nation and her affinity for blue trees. What follows is an edited version of that conversation.
Q: So, will you run again for mayor?
A: I actually don’t know. It is a sacrifice for sure – don’t get me wrong there are some great aspects to the job and I wouldn’t put my name forward if I didn’t want to do it – but it comes with some down sides and it comes with its limits of what you can do and even who you can be friends with.
And I enjoy conversations with people, but I don’t enjoy electioneering. Some people just thrive on that, but I am actually an introvert. I am not excited about electioneering.
But there is still so much work left that I want to get done in the next year. The thing that always motivates you to keep going is that there’s just that one more thing that you haven’t quite accomplished yet, that you want to make sure you shepherd that over the line. I think it will come down to next spring and me looking at where things are trending and what has been accomplished.
Q: What are some of your priorities for this last year of your term?
A: There is so much going on. We really want to see this educational campus down on the oceanfront clearly on path. That will really be the foundation of a lot of the economic development and a stimulus. That is obviously a big one. Also, getting the park started down there.
This term, right from the beginning, council said we know we are going to be busy on the development front and council was very clear we wanted to make sure that we weren’t falling down on policy, so we have done a ton of policy work, but we have also been having to deal with some major development work.
We have to get the Official Community Plan finished.
And we want to see the Mamquam Blind Channel pieces come together and really connect the downtown – that will dramatically impact the downtown and Squamish.
Q: A criticism of this term is around economic development – some say too little too late has been done. How do you respond to that?
A: We have more business starts than ever before. We didn’t have one new business in the business park for about 10 years and now we have tons going in – new, creative businesses. We haven’t had development in the downtown, the Conerstone building was the only one in about 12 years, now we have lots of stuff going in. So it is interesting that people say, “You aren’t doing enough economic development because we are growing.
Q: I think the criticism is more around hiring an economic development officer and not seeing what that is bringing us.
A: First off, she has only been here six months. Businesses are interesting; when they are coming, they don’t want to tell their competitors they are coming. [So things are in the works behind the scenes.]
Don’t get me wrong, we still have a long way to go and we don’t have enough of certain types of jobs and types of employment space for certain types of businesses to grow. Places are doing well, but they have challenges.
And there are always individuals who go, “I am not doing well, so everything must be bad.” Running a small business is hard and there are a lot of influences outside of local government.
Q: Is it possible we could get a trade school?
A: There are ongoing discussions; it is possible. Once you get this UBC clean tech, engineering campus on the oceanfront the businesses that want to be associated with the brain trust and the research and development that is happening on a campus start to come in and then of course you have them wanting them to do research and development and manufacturing and the technical skills of trades. That is all connected.
Q: Are you surprised at how big the issue of housing affordability has become during this term?
A: It was just emerging when we got elected. I wasn’t surprised. Housing in any place – I was at a conference once and the mayors of Helsinki and Vancouver and other successful cities were there – every single one of them had housing issues. Every place where people want to be, that has energy and vitality, has supply and demand issues.
I think what I was a little surprised by was that the developers were caught flat footed and none of them was really ready to go and a lot of them had let their development permits lapse so they had to go through the process again.
Then all of a sudden a whole bunch of them got ready realizing that the demand was there. Then we get slammed with a million applications. The process, for good reason, takes a certain amount of time, and then it takes a good two years to build anything. So it is a three-year process to get any development done. We are finally starting to see some of these come to completion.
Also, we are quite proud of council because we are working with BC Housing on two purpose-built rental buildings.
Q: What are you most proud of from this term, so far?
A: Under One Roof [Squamish Helping Hands Society social services and housing facility slated for Third Avenue]. I am proud of council for having the political courage to support that.
Also, really trying to open up meetings more to the public. It is a really hard thing to do because meetings can get derailed very quickly and we have business to do, but council has been really trying to make sure we are very open to participation and to listening.
I think we have come a long way with our relationship with the Squamish Nation.
It is still ongoing, but council is really committed to ensuring that we have a different relationship and really understand the history and really honour the history. We haven’t been 100 per cent successful yet, but I think it has come a long way.
Q: It is no secret that you weren’t supportive of liquefied natural gas or Woodfibre LNG. What have you taken away from that whole approval process?
A: It has been interesting. I know people who opposed it wanted it stopped so they are disappointed. Ultimately, world markets will determine the outcome of this project. I think the previous government did some things that are going to help it make more money, like the eDrive subsidy is huge and some other things.
Q: Is it a better project than it would have been if it hadn’t faced opposition?
A: Absolutely, ultimately any time there is opposition and there is some critical thinking, that will result in a better project. Absolutely, they did a lot. I think there are still things that need a lot of scrutiny, even once it is being built, ensuring that they are good corporate citizens, that they are good environmental stewards, that they are honest. We need the watchdogs in the world to keep everybody honest whether you are government or corporations.
Q: You have been a big proponent of public art and you have actually taken some heat for that. Why is it so important to you?
A: I think it is really important a community take pride in itself. And public art is one of those things, just like recreation that adds value to your community; it is an expression, it is provocative. And really, in the scheme of things, it costs very little money.
I know I took a lot of heat for the blue trees. But there was a misconception of what we spent on blue trees. We spent $40,000 on a two-year Biennale program that included two world-renowned artists coming here. We had people coming from all over the world just to see these things. We had artists in residence; we still have artwork in the community from them.
The blue trees was a tiny part of the program, it was just the last thing to happen. And this council takes the heat for the Biennale project, but it was actually passed in the previous council.
The value of the conversation that came out of blue trees! In fact, when people still begrudge the blue trees, it is money well spent. It had people talking about what is public art, what value is it, what do you want to see, how do we relate Squamish’s identity through public art. That conversation would never have happened unless you had an ignition point.
