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Those who forget the past. (10.26.07)
“Visualize success. But don’t believe your eyes” – The New Pornographers
If one were looking for a symbol that accurately reflected our community one should simply look in our heart. Right smack dab in the middle of downtown Squamish there is a clock tower. Now you’d think with four faces, at least one of them would tell the right time. You’d be wrong. The only way to accurately tell time with that thing is to use the big Rotary Club logo as a sundial.
Multiple faces in opposite directions nicely sums up the current political climate in our little burg. Oh how I wish it was going to get better.
But no, judging from the countdown clock posted in countless offices we are a mere 386 days from the next municipal election. That means the race is on. Traditionally the last year of office is when work should be getting done, but more often than not it’s a time of grandstanding and strategic decisions made with an election on the brain.
This isn’t so much with those seeking councilor positions, but definitely with those whose eyes are on the captain’s seat.
Unfortunately, with the system we have now the only people who realistically have a shot for mayor are the currently elected batch.
Those paying any sort of attention have heard that Greg Gardner is going to follow in his fathers footsteps and make the leap for the big seat. As he bloody well should be. In fact I would be upset if others weren’t seriously considering running for mayor as well.
It’s no secret that one of the main reasons our community is floundering in a leadership vacuum is because there was no mayoral race last election. Of course Terrill Paterson ran. But while he is an indispensible watchdog, and an asset to the community, he’s not a serious mayoral candidate. No, Ian was basically given the keys to another three years and this asterix win led to no one respecting the position.
Ordinarily I’m against such early electioneering but we can not let that happen again.
So who’s it going to be? Mayor Heinzman? Mayor Gardner? Lonsdale, Jensen or McKenzie? Ooooh, what about Mayor Kahlon? And of course there’s the possibility of another three years of Mayor Sutherland.
It would be very unfortunate if Ian didn’t run for mayor again. After all, for better or worse he’s largely responsible for how Squamish has handled itself in “the boom”. He should definitely let the people of Squamish decide if he should be here through the Olympics.
But the best thing that could happen to this town is if we had three or four serious contenders. Like Gardner or Kahlon, or even Lonsdale. Now that would be an attention getter. A race like that would definitely lead to greater public interest and (hopefully) a larger informed voter turnout.
One thing’s for sure next year is not going to be a dull one.
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