Is Squamish getting smarter? According to Mayor Patricia Heintzman, the District has embraced the smart city concept by leveraging technology and intelligent connectivity. She says a connected city serves the public “by making it more livable and alive.”
That policy has spawned an award-winning Geographic Information System, an evolving Digital Strategy, the Squamish Web Map, and monitoring sensors on our streetlights.
But lost in the rush to smart city status is the nagging feeling that we need to smarten up when it comes to routine day-to-day management issues.
For starters, many locals are still baffled by the District’s catalogue of gimcrackery, gimmicks, and gewgaws. The leading candidates in that pantheon of folly are the boundary and wayfaring signs, with a total proposed tab over five-years of $1,275,000, the $66,837 Biennale Vancouver exhibition, which included the much-maligned blue trees project, and a $40,000 artificial climbing rock downtown. More than a few residents wonder if those funds could have been put to better use if they were directed towards a water park for kids or the installation of a second ice rink.
When it comes to public venues, District officials continue to trumpet the eagle viewing area in Brackendale. And they should. The Squamish Environment Society’s Eagle Watch Interpreter Program is a first class operation. But the District keeps dropping the ball when it comes to site maintenance. Parking issues, a shortage of restroom facilities and a lack of snow clearing render the venue less than user-friendly at times.
The snow removal strategy on downtown streets is another area in need of a common sense upgrade. Given all the equipment ready for action in the municipal works yard, there should be no legitimate reason to pile a wall of the white stuff in the medians of Cleveland and Second avenues after a storm. As well, last year bylaw-mandated commercial and residential snow removal, especially in parts of the downtown core, was sketchy to non-existent. When it comes to bylaw compliance in general, for a growing number of folks, reasonable behaviour appears to have gone into hibernation, along with the bears in the woods around Alice Lake.
Speaking of our ursine neighbours, it took the District of Squamish years of hard work to achieve the “Bear Smart” designation. But as concerned Squamish resident Larry McHale noted in a letter published in The Chief, this community is becoming “Bear Stupid” because more of us are storing food attractants carelessly, with lethal consequences for habituated wildlife.
All the same, let’s not get our knickers in too much of a knot over the above inventory of indiscretions.
Stuff happens, and no one is suggesting we should be aspiring to Mensa level smarts. On the other hand, if we lose any more bandwidth we could slip into Densa territory.
