The District of Squamish sat down with future voters at Howe Sound Secondary on Thursday to hear their vision for Squamish 2040.
The World Café event was organized with the school and its leadership students as a way to take ideas on priorities for the community in the coming years.
“It is the vision for the next 20 to 25 years for the community,” said Mayor Patricia Heintzman.
The World Café is a process for creating dialogue and sharing ideas in group settings as an “antidote” to the fragmentation and lack of connection in today’s world.
“The district came to us and we thought it was an amazing idea,” said Nav Tatla, Howe Sound Secondary’s student council prime minister.
Tatla and Heintzman opened the event, which included interactive stations for the students to identify their priorities for a range of subjects including recreation, housing, employment, environmental issues, arts and culture, First Nations, transit and transportation, community resources, sustainable businesses, even reducing the voting age.
“The topics were proposed by the students and by council,” said leadership teacher Kathy Cormack.
Leadership students, including the athletic and aboriginal leadership groups, took part in the event and helped to put ideas together for discussion.
The mayor was pleased for the district to have the chance to hear what is on students’ minds.
“Council and staff are really excited about this,” Heintzman said. “We want to know your opinion.”
From the outset, people could walk to stations with different topics and questions where they could post sticky notes or plunk marbles in jars as ways to make their priorities known.
Some of the ideas that popped up on sticky notes included the need for a movie theatre, another turf field, more job opportunities, a better transit system, affordable housing and the need for more local businesses. The students also expressed opinions on broader issues, such as concerns over the proposed Garibaldi at Squamish resort and Woodfibre LNG plant.
At the discussion that followed, the approximately 50 students spent the bulk of the afternoon in short sessions, moving from table to table, each devoted to a different topic, while district staff and members of council facilitated discussion and wrote down the ideas the students generated.
The district’s Squamish 2040 visioning process is part of its update of the official community plan. It has been taking input through means such as questionnaires and surveys, and in late January held a drop-in event at the West Coast Railway Heritage Park that attracted 350 people.
