This is a tale of David (David Evans) versus Goliath (Gaglardi, Tom) versus Super Mayor and referee McKee. It takes place on legendary Mount McKenzie in the present.
As the human condition is wont to do, in this yarn of business interests versus civic responsibility, the facts are jumbled, the implementation confused and it has deteriorated into a he-said / he-said scenario, much like the hysterical bombast and awful trumpeting between Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton.
The synopsis: Man has ski hill, which he says must be protected from competition; another man wants a development right beside said ski hill leaving the third man with a dilemma. Which one to support? Maybe both? However, that evokes the eternal conundrum — try to please everybody and you please no one… in a way that’s a perfect political decision: Nobody is happy.
Now that the scene has been set here’s what we’ve got. Ski hill man says “UNFAIR COMPETITION” and it breaks a, sort of, agreement that he would be protected from this happening, implied or otherwise.
Who would make that kind of a dodgy deal? Oooh! Recipe for instant challenge from both sides. Can you say, “Messing with free enterprise?”
So, as it stands, six Council members support Evans in a vote to give him a public hearing on the matter. The Mayor doesn’t.
But, McKee also supports the ski hill, always has. Few people were more instrumental in getting it here. Good. Without it, and high-speed Internet, we would have no future.
So, now the Mayor has an optics problem. Will he be seen to favour protection from competition for the hill or support free enterprise and the Tree House development? Since his mandate is to serve all voters but his passion is the ski hill, what does he do? Seems we have an ethics vs. loyalty issue here.
But don’t ask me on this one. I’m as confused as a dog trying to figure out a yo-yo. All the details and facts, twisted or not, are legion.
Go to the public meeting on Tuesday night at the Community Centre. Listen and be heard.
Ah, remember the days when nobody wanted to build a dog house in Revelstoke? This is great problem to have, developments being proposed everywhere but the highway acreage beside the Subway shop. How ’bout a casino? Oops! Did I say that out loud?
One more thing: high density housing for Arrow Heights? NO! It’s the wrong place. Don’t mess with the last bastion of semi-privacy on your own lot. If you must, put Mackenzie Staton across the road on the Jay and Jake property.
Yours in social sarcasm,
Ms. Anne Throap
Pet Peeve of the Month: I got caught in the traffic jam Gong Show at the main Trans Canada Highway intersection at noon on Friday while trying to get to the Big Eddy. That *^#^}#*>#¥ roundabout can’t come too soon. Hey, City Hall! Goooood scheduling, closing the BE bridge in the middle of the summer, on a weekend for what looked like some maintenance and installing a traffic counter. What’s next! Paving in January?
