Election questionnaire: Paul Lalli

Name:

Paul Lalli

How many years have you lived in Squamish?

47

How many council or committee meetings have you attended since Sept. 1, 2017?

3

What do you love most about Squamish? (150 word limit)

Squamish isn't just where I was born or where I am from...it's who I am. This is a community where I have lived for 47 years and where I choose to raise my children. This is the community that helped raise me, supported me but most importantly beleives in me. I am very thankful to all the volunteers and leaders in this beautiful town who have helped shape Squamish to what it is today. So what I love most about Squamish is its people.

Are you endorsing a particular candidate for mayor? (question for councilor candidates)

Paul Lalli

What do you think is the biggest single issue facing Squamish? (150 words limit)

Managing our growth. We need to ensure with growth we negiotiate better community amenity agreements with developers so we can afford to build more facilities at Brennan Park and other much needed infrastucture so we dont tax our current citizens. We need to start building reserve funds to pay for this much needed infrastructure that the community is desperatley in need of. We also need to ensure Squamish doesnt become a bedroom community therfore focusing on new emplyment opportunities for our cummunity is a high priority of mine.

In the last term, what was council's single greatest accomplishment? What was council's biggest failure? (150 character limit)

 Biggest accomplishment was the District receiving $3.9 million in Federal Gas Tax money for dike upgrades. Most people dont really appreciate that a large portion of our community lies in the flood plain and as a result dikes are an intregal and very important piece of infrastructure that helps protect our community...Good job Mayor and Council on receiving those funds. Biggest failure was not managing our growth and negiotiating poor deals with developers for recreation amenities like Brennan Park, as well not dealing with the poor parking conditions in Downtown Squamish

Residents often complain about traffic (speeding, parking etc.) What would you do to improve traffic and parking in Squamish? (150 words limit)

Parking is a major issue throughout our community in particular downtown Squamish. We need to update and revamp our inadequate parking bylaws. Currently we have approx $500,000 in a parking reserve fund. For any new development that requires a relaxation in parking we need to increase the fee to $30,000 a stall, we eventually need to build a municipal parkade from those funds for downtown public parking. Once that has been completed we need to ensure we have strick enforcement on parking time limits to ensure parking spaces are freed up and not tied up all day.

Squamish has a housing affordability crisis. What would you do to improve affordability? (150 words limit)

The pressure on housing supply and affordability is a big issue, a Lower Mainland issuev and a BC issue. We need to manage this issue. We need to do everything in our power to try and mitigate the impact on our community. We need to ensure we are supplying the right types of product to the market from rentals, to senior-oriented housing but if we only approve and encourage condo or multi family type housing then the single family market will cotinue to skyrocket.

Do you support stronger regulation of AirBNB?

I need to understand if there are community concerns around this issue. So far I have not heard of any

How would you attract new businesses and employers to Squamish? (150 words limit)

We will initiate and create an economic development committee made up of business leaders from various sectors. The main goal of this committee will be to create new employment opportunities in Squamish and we will ensure any employment based development will get high priority and receives their permits quickly.

Do you have a strategy to implement regional transit? (150 word limit)

Ride sharing through either the Jack Bell foundation and Modo. There are also opportunities within the private sector, I beleive with Greyhound closing its doors we need to request the province to free up competition in licensing in the corridor and allow more private carriers to operate. From a regional transit persepective I have always felt Squamish has been gouged at the gas pump and during some periods have paid equal or some times more than Vancouver when it came to gas prices at the pump...and we are not apart of Translink therefore our prices should be considerably lower. So I beleive we need to investigate why that is occuring and see how we can use those extra funds that the BIG gas companies are putting in their pockets and putting it towards regional transit either in the way of a subsidy to a private carrier or a public operated system which ever is more cost effective

Given limited financial resources, what do you think is the single highest priority for Brennan Park? (150 word limit)

I beleive there is no single highest priority here. I have met and talked to several user groups out at Brennan Park and quite frankly they are all important to me. We havent kept up with the growth. I will make this a big priority of mine to start ensuring we negotiate better deals with developers to put money towards Brennan Park. The District also owns land we could sell to pay for some of the upgrades but until we have the money in the bank its certainly not fair for me to promise any specific ammenity.

Do you support cannabis retail shops in Squamish?

Yes with restrictions

Would you consider yourself pro-WLNG or anti-WLNG?

Somewhat supportive (2)

Are you supportive of the Garibaldi At Squamish project?

Very supportive (1)

Do you support development of the Cheema Lands (Lot 509/510)?

Neutral (3)