Next Monday, AUG 16TH, 8PM at the Squamish Adventure Centre – Black Wave, Part II
Written by Squamish CAN
Tuesday, 10 August 2010 12:43
Oil and water... never mix?
Squamish CAN coordinator Ana Santos just came back from Prince William Sound where she joined the US Fish & Wildlife Service on a study of the lingering effects of the Exxon Valdez oil spill 21 years later. How are things looking?
You have them. Heck, even I have them. Trigger words. These are words or phrases
we have created in our minds that let us quickly categorize and, rightly or
wrongly, stereotype things.
Ok, a few weeks ago I sent out an email saying how frustrated I was that I
Couldn’t publicly talk about some things I wanted to talk about. This puts me into a tough spot because I was elected by many to be a shit disturber. But I was also elected to make this town better so I’ve been working really hard to
figure out how to ‘let er rip’ in a productive way. I’m happy to say I’ve been making great strides in that department and those strides will continue. Still though, the most difficult thing about being a councillor is
people telling you the following:
Councillor conduct is such that when a decision has been made you should not go out into the public domain and start being publicly critical of that decision. Once a decision has been made you support the majority decision. The
rational is that a good council will stick by their decisions whereas a dysfunctional council will spend all their time sniping at one another.
Sorry for the lateness of this Newsletter to those that noticed, it's
been over a month since I've said hi in this format.
I assure you the lag is not for lack of interesting things happening. Far from
it, there are monumental things afoot everywhere and it surely is exciting
times. However, this month I keep trying to write this newsletter and keep
having to stop because, well for many reasons.
One thing's for sure - I very much miss my column in the Chief. Those were
the days when everything I knew was public knowledge and when I saw something
wrong I could simply rant, "just what the hell is going on?!" And create
debate.
Now however things are certainly different. I still have more than my share of
"what the hell," questions, but now I'm kind of left to my own to figure
out how to best reach the desired solution. Even with simple things, who and
what you ask can drastically change the playing field come time for the public
debate. And sometimes things aren't even debated. Often things just happen by
following the process that either existed or one we created.
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