He's not on it now, but that doesn't mean Drew Stotesbury won't jump aboard in the future.
On Tuesday (Nov. 1), the newly appointed director on the board that will help steer the future of Squamish's Oceanfront development announced he's declining the position.
Stotesbury's decision followed a split District of Squamish council vote last week over the new Squamish Oceanfront Development Corp. (SODC) board. Included at the board's table were newly appointed directors Stotesbury, Coun. Paul Lalli and Mayor Greg Gardner. While councillors Rob Kirkham, Doug Race and Corinne Lonsdale argued a smaller board, made up of directors with marketing and business planning expertise, was needed to move the project forward, councillors Bryan Raiser and Patricia Heintzman said council's appointments didn't achieve that goal.
Controversy continued to spin outside council, as former SODC director Tom Bruusgaard questioned the wisdom of appointing outgoing council members to the board.
The waterfront project - which proposes to re-develop 64 acres of municipal land into a "world-class work-live-recreate" community - has its challenges, which are only made more difficult under tough economic conditions, Stotesbury told The Chief.
The Oceanfront project is large, complex, capital-intensive, financially constrained, market-dependent and publicly owned, he noted. If Stotesbury was to sit on the board, he said, he would need be assured that council - the SODC's only shareholder - was supporting it.
"There needs to be everybody pushing in the same direction," Stotesbury said. "You can't have people on the outside not supporting it."
Stotesbury is familiar large projects. For more than a year he held the title of the SODC CEO. He was also president of Vancouver-based resort company Intrawest's real estate group. Stotesbury is currently working on an 840-acre development in Hawaii.
"I continue to believe the SODC has tremendous potential," Stotesbury said. "I think Squamish is a jewel within the Lower Mainland and it is kind of undiscovered for the people in the Vancouver area."
Stotesbury is not ruling out taking a place on the board if asked to do so in the future.
"If [the decision] was united and the mandate was clear, I would," he said. "But if it is going to go into some sort of spin cycle, I would have to respectfully decline."
At council on Tuesday, Coun. Corinne Lonsdale voiced her disappointment over Stotesbury's announcement. She said in-camera discussions didn't indicate that a split vote was likely.
Once the majority has voted, councillors need to get behind that decision, Lonsdale said.
"It is important that we show the board that they have council's support and confidence and it is important that the community know that council is solidly behind those appointments," she told council, adding that councillors were barely out of city hall before the news hit social media.
Lonsdale said that as far as she is concerned, council appointed public members to the board, noting Lalli and Gardner only have weeks left in their council terms. Getting the project to market is critical and therefore council didn't want to delay the appointments, Lonsdale said, adding that the SODC costs close to $2,000 a day to service debt and operations.
"I am concerned that we are going to get another letter or two [like Stotesbury's announcement]," she said. "I am hoping not."
The vote sent a message to the volunteer board that council was deeply divided, Coun. Doug Race said.
"I don't blame Stotesbury," he said. "I don't think I would want to be on a volunteer board that was kneecapped right out of the starting gate."
The Oceanfront development is one of the most important projects in Squamish and represents the future of the community, he said, noting Stotesbury is an extremely qualified volunteer.
Coun. Rob Kirkham said he was concern about the repercussions of the "unprecedented" vote. Council has been working hard to shake Squamish's anti-development reputation, he said.
Councillors were missing the point, Heintzman retorted. Even if council voted unanimously, the public "outrage" would have remained the same, she said.
"It is not simply about council not having consensus," she said, referring to the appointments of Lalli and Gardner while still in office, a move discouraged by the provincial government's Local Government Corporations Guide.
If council had passed the issue off to the newly elected council after the Nov. 19 municipal election, Gardner and Lalli would have been citizens, Raiser noted. Councillors may not agree on the appointments, but council as a whole backs the Oceanfront project, he added.
"We are not unanimous as to who was just appointed on the SODC board, but that does not mean we are not going in the direction we want to go," Raiser said.
