With a short 12 months remaining before the next municipal election, should we all genuflect in tribute to the incumbents on Second Avenue or set our hair on fire in a fit of outrage?
So far, at least publicly, this group has not engaged in the rancour and personality clashes associated with previous incarnations of council. There have been some notable successes, including moving the Oceanfront development forward, the re-organization of muni hall into five efficient departments and the adoption of the Service Squamish Initiative.
However, there is a distinct feeling among a growing number of residents that council will have to kick it up a notch or face pent-up voter backlash.
Before his trip, the mayor promised to pursue very specific business targets in China. We need to see a detailed follow-up plan with actual contacts and results related to these targets published on a regular basis.
As well, the Squamish-Whistler commuter bus issue will have to be addressed with considerably more urgency. The one-way fare price has gone from $5 to $8 and the clock is ticking down to the March 31 deadline when the Resort Municipality withdraws its funding.
The Service Squamish Initiative promises that staff will frequently engage the community and accept responsibility for the district's "actions and inactions." Evidently the commitment to accountability and meaningful discourse applies in some instances only to information that casts the DOS in a positive light.
Back in September the creator of a local online news service was threatened with legal action by the district's chief administrative officer unless he disclosed his sources and retracted a column about fire hall staffing shortfalls. At the time the Vancouver Sun reported that CAO Kevin Ramsay did not return calls to discuss the matter. To her credit, acting mayor Corinne Lonsdale at least made herself available when contacted by the press. The rest of council is still missing in action in terms of a follow-up to this story.
Too often the image of an efficient major league operation peddled by council and district staff has entered bush-league territory. The ill-advised Loggers' Lane beaver cull, the festering beer-in-the-fire-halls fiasco and the acrimonious departure of Fire Chief Ray Saurette, all of which were hung out like dirty laundry in the provincial media, are prime examples of this tendency.
On another front, in response to a concerted effort by a very vocal environmental lobby group, council took the politically expedient route and vetoed the Aquilini-bankrolled Garibaldi at Squamish development. Unfortunately, instead of sending an unequivocal message to Victoria, the provincial cabinet got the impression from council's ambiguous letter that the project should be reconsidered after more tweaking and fine-tuning. So we're back to another round of the tedious verbal jousting and grandstanding characteristic of this 30-year war.
Some observers will no doubt conclude that dredging up the aforementioned shortcomings is an exercise in negativity, but let's recall that councillors always have the opportunity to share their more affirmative versions of past events and future goals in this space over the coming months.
