What do you anticipate for 2008?
I think there are going to be a lot of things continuing on from what we started three, four, five years ago, last year. There's a lot of construction already taking place in the community. We're going into an election year, which is no big secret. Any real work will have to get done in the first six months of the year, after that it becomes very difficult to achieve any real work, especially anything that's even remotely controversial.
I think you're going to see Quest University continue to grow. I'm hoping that we have Capilano College attain status as a regional university sometime in 2008, which would be fantastic for Squamish. Hopefully we see some movement on expansion plans for Capilano College in early 2008, which again would be a huge benefit to our community.
We're also looking at the OCP being adopted sometime in 2008, which might be not so much of a headline grabber but it's certainly important piece of work for the district and for people who work here. The affordable housing policy will hopefully reach its conclusion sometime in early 2008. The downtown neighbourhood plan, another one that we'll work through the process and hopefully have some concrete direction early 2008. If we get those things all accomplished and done in the early part of 2008, that will put us in a reasonable position because, again, the simple fact of life is between July 1 and Dec. 1 it's unlikely we'll achieve a whole lot on a big scale.
How is the upcoming municipal election going to change to day-to-day workings of government?
Well, you know, people call it silly season for a reason. A fact of life, again, human nature, you'll probably see all of council weighing in, council making a lot more public comments, and you'll probably see people stating their position more. It's going be harder to achieve anything as you get closer to an election because sometimes people will be saying things that are popular as opposed to what might be best for the community. I think people like to take the opportunities to reinforce their own views, and reinforce their own positions.
Sometime in the spring, or whenever it happens, people are going to start turning their direction toward what they want to do for next year and what they're going to run on or what they're going to run against and the best place to do that sometimes is in council meetings.
Are you running?
[Laughs] I figure I've made up my mind what I'm going to do next year but I'm not going to say it yet. There are still a few factors that will impact the decision. I think I've known what I'm going to do one way or the other probably for the last six months. But a few things can change that one way or the other and I think it's important once you make it public that you're 100 per cent sure what you're going to do.
There's plenty of time to move forward and I think whether I run or not, there are going to be lots of people running for mayor and lots of people running for council. It's going to be a very interesting election this coming year.
What qualities in your opinion would make an ideal council?
First of all, I think you need and it's hard because council members are paid for their job, so you have very few who can actually do the job. You have to be basically retired, self-employed or independently wealthy to take on the job. That takes a big portion of the population. A lot of people just can't afford to take on the job. If you're paid by the hour it's very difficult to become a councillor. I think that has to be addressed all over British Columbia, all over Canada. Members of council are not paid enough for what they do. I think when you figure it all out, you make $1.50 an hour.
I think the ideal council, and the biggest challenge, especially a community of that size, is that the hardest for us to do as a council I think is to act as a board of directors and not managers. We spend far too much time trying to be managers. Trying to run the planning department, trying to run the engineering department, trying to decide on what time public skating should take place on weekends. All those issues that we hire people and pay people good money to make the decision for us.
The simple fact is no one on council's a planner, no one on council's an engineer working on these issues. So we shouldn't be trying to rewrite an engineering report, or rewrite a lawyer's recommendation or things like that. We should be looking at it as a board of directors looking at a big picture and managing the affairs as a board of directors, not as trying to decide where we should buy rope from or something like that.
We spend far too much time dealing with the day-to-day issues of city hall and I think probably that's the only reason why we have haven't achieved a whole heck of a lot over the last two years.
What would be the pros and cons of being mayor for the Olympics?
Everyone asks that, and going back five years I said no one should run for mayor because of three weeks taking place in 2010. The simple fact is there are going to be 1,500 to 2,000 members of a VIP group during the Olympics and if Squamish is there at all we're going to be way at the back of the stage and way at the back of the room. So other than to say you were mayor during the Olympics, I don't see any reason why that should enter into my thinking or anyone else's thinking.
I think the Olympics are going to be a great thing for the community. They're going to be fun, they're going to be exciting. It'll be just as fun and just as exciting if I'm Ian Sutherland, private citizen, as opposed to Ian Sutherland, mayor, and that goes for anybody because the simple fact is this is a huge event, it's run by the IOC and by the TV networks, and if anyone thinks the mayor of Squamish is going to be sitting at the front of the stage, it's not going to happen. You'll probably be in row 900.
What are you working on right now to leverage the Olympics for Squamish?
It's an on-going challenge. What we're really working on is that people have a chance to spend time in our community. We also want to make sure that people who live here now get a chance to enjoy and take part in the Olympics. Over the next probably four to five months there's going to be a few things announced by VANOC that will reinforce the important role that Squamish will play in 2010. We're unique, we're a bedroom community, we're not Whistler, we're not Vancouver, but on the other hand we're not Cranbrook and we're not Williams Lake so we fit somewhere, literally and figuratively, in the middle of all that. VANOC understands that as a community we're frustrated right now. Things like the Paralympic arena didn't work out. The cruise ship option didn't work out. The passenger ferry to Vancouver didn't work out.
So VANOC understands that I'm frustrated as mayor that council is frustrated and that probably many people in the community are frustrated. But at the same time I do have confidence that things like a transportation plan will work out, a homestay program can be something that would be very beneficial in Squamish, there will be excellent work being done by CALOC on the Callaghan Valley events, that's something we can take ownership of. The Wild At Art festival gets bigger and better every year. I still think a live site may be something we can look forward to as a community - a centre where all the activities take place during 2010 in our community. I think we have the opportunity to really play a key role in volunteerism during 2010 and how that plays out in getting heavily involved in that aspect of the Games. Loggers Sports is a natural to highlight during the 2010 Games. So there's all kinds of opportunities. Ironically, here we are spending all this time trying to figure out how we're going to get people here for 2010, probably by day three of the Games we're going to be trying to figure out how to get all the people out of our town [laughs]. So it will all play out. There will be lots that will involve Squamish that will be taking place during 2010.
Where is the 2010 transportation plan at?
Our big concern from day one is that we don't want buses simply going by through our community. And we don't want the Sea to Sky Highway to close down to vehicles either during 2010. So it looks like there will be some plan in place that will involve many people going up straight from Vancouver up to the events in Whistler. And our plan, our hope is on the way back, there will be a staging area for people going back down to the city -people will get off and change busses in Squamish and have the opportunity to spend more time in the community. And we also want to make sure that people who stay in Squamish itself during 2010 can have easy access to venues both in Vancouver and in Whistler so that they have easy transportation and get the same benefits as those who are traveling from Vancouver to Whistler for example, transportation included in the price of the ticket, and that sort of thing. We want to make sure that goods and services can flow through the community. We know that Squamish is going to be housing a lot of materials that Whistler is going to need during the Games. We know that the security people will be more or less based out of Squamish during 2010, which again will generate a lot of traffic. The hotels here will all be full obviously. We've told VANOC that even though they don't need their transportation plan completed from a operational point of view until maybe September of '08 we actually need it probably by February or March of '08 so we can plan around it because if we know for example that people will be getting off the buses in Squamish and spending an hour or two here, then we can build events around that and we can get excited about things around that. But stepping back for a second, we should be making sure with VANOC that the 2010 Games are the biggest and best Games in Olympic history and if that happens, Squamish will take care of itself.
Where do you see Squamish at this time next year?
In the middle of an election [laughs]. I think what's going to happen is because there's so much construction moving along right now, and to a lot of people construction looks like chaos, right? I think a year from now projects are going to be nearing completion and things will be going forward perception-wise in an orderly fashion. So I think we're going to see people a lot more comfortable a year from now with the pace of development. I think when you get Waterfront Landing starting the project on the former Interfor site, when you get more people living at Solterra downtown, people are going to see that there is a plan in place and there has been a plan in place.
People like to say "You're being helter skelter." We're not being helter skelter. We have an excellent planning department that has a very good idea of what they're doing. I think a year from now you're going to see that construction make sense to people.
The highway will probably be 80 per cent completed a year from now, which will alleviate a lot of frustration. I think there are going to be more companies setting up shop in Squamish as time moves forward, and, again it's not going to have 400 employees. It's going to have 20 employees and 25 employees and 15 employees, and that's all good. And I think you're going to see a year from now probably two or three really concrete, really positive takeaways from the Olympics in Squamish. Number one is the $600-million highway that will really reinforce to people the important role Squamish will play in 2010, and it will go beyond 2010. A year from now you will see Quest returning with more students and faculty. Hopefully a year from now we'll know exactly where Cap College is with the campus expansion. A year from now the Hilltop House expansion will be nearing completion. So it's all happening in the community and I always tell people even with the challenges sometimes, I'd rather be involved in a community like this on this council right now, dealing with all the big issues, as opposed to trying to decide whether to close down the arena or close down the swimming pool because, you know what? The simple fact is, a lot of communities that had lost a Woodfibre and an Interfor would be deciding whether to shut down the arena or shut down the swimming pool or the library. We're very fortunate that because of where we are, and that are things going on here, and yes that does mean construction and that does mean change, that we have a growing community with a very low unemployment rate with a very, for the most part, people who live here are very happy to live here. And we should be proud of that. At the end of the day, we live in a very good place, people are happy to be here, and the changes taking place now are ones that will benefit the community for the next 25, 30, 50 years.
