A fabulous event happening at The Burrow on Saturday, November 15th.
"Pretty In Pumps" is an evening charity event hosted by Devlin Salon and The Burrow to raise funds for the Squamish Shelter for Women. The night begins at 5pm at the Devlin Salon in the Alpenloft building, Tantalus Road. The gorgeous staff at Devlin will provide you with a 'hair tussle', accompanied by a glass of wine. Then you'll bring your fabulous lookin' selves over to The Burrow at 6:30 for a complimentary martini. Although high heels are not required, they are highly recommended for the evening's attire.
The Mayoral candidates meeting at the Chamber of Commerce All Candidates Meeting on Monday November 3rd is now available to listen to on Squamish Online (unfortuately, I wasn't able to attend and record the Mayoral Candidates Meeting at the Sea to Sky Hotel on Monday November 10th). Issues covered in the November 3rd meeting include: The Oceanfront, developing the economy, the Brackendale Farmer's Institute Park, independents/slates, controlling budgets and tax increases, and homelessness and drug addiction downtown.
The School Trustee Candidates Meeting also took place that night, and is now available to listen to as well. Issues covered in the meeting included: using school board buses for public transit, the shut down of schools during the 2010 Olympic games, and the sharing of school facilities with community groups.
The audio of the meetings can be found under the Election Talk menu on the left, under 'Listen to Audio of Meetings', then "Chamber of Commerce".
Cedar ValleyWaldorfSchool 6th Annual Silent Auction will be held on Saturday, November 29 at 7 p.m. at the C-DAR Lodge in ParadiseValley
Our Silent Auction promises fabulous items and a social event not to be missed. Featuring delicious food, complimentary drinks and music by Juno award winners Cam Salay and Shannon Saunders. Come support the school and get your Christmas shopping done.
This year’s items include 3 days for 2 people of Cat Skiing with Back Country Snowcats, luxurious spa treatments, handcrafted art by local artisans, outdoor winter gear, and so much more!
Tickets are available at CedarValleyWaldorfSchool and also Onatah Cafe.
Relay For Life and save – Only $10 until January 1st
Teams and individuals planning for next spring's Canadian Cancer Society Relay For Life fundraising and awareness event in Squamish on Friday, June 5th, 2009 can get a head start by registering early online at a discounted price.
Relay For Life is the biggest cancer event in Canada held nationwide each year in nearly 400 communities. Each participant that signs up online before December 31 will receive a $15 discount off of the usual $25 registration fee.
Apologies to Marcel Proust but it’s hard to outdo his title. For him a little nostalgia produced a novel in four volumes, I however will be much, much briefer.
Nostalgia as someone once said – is the memory of how we wished things were.
Well this Remembrance Day, I don’t have to rely on nostalgia nor the tales of others, I have heard and read of the sacrifice in my own family to make those long ago, and more recent wars, seem real enough.
The poppy, from the poem Flanders Field, is our symbol of remembrance, but in France in 1917 my grandfather likely saw nothing of beauty in the muddy fields and water soaked trenches that stretched as far as the eye could see.
His name was Adrian Tidmarsh Forsythe, certainly a mouthful, although most knew him, some affectionately others not so, as Force. As in a force to be reckoned with, a force for good and judging by his legendary stubbornness, an immoveable force, the last being the quality that won him the Military Cross at Vimy Ridge.
He had left Canada in 1916 a private and by the end of the war he would be a major. By 1917 he was already a captain and was one of the officers responsible for directing the rolling artillery barrage that Canadians innovated as a way to break the enemy lines at Vimy.
Squamish Trails Society releases Candidate's survey results
Written by Dana-Marie Battaglia
Monday, 10 November 2008 02:23
The Squamish Trails Society conducted a survey to learn about each of the candidates’ interests and priorities on key trail and bike lane issues in the
community. 12 of the 18 candidates completed the survey. The results can be downloaded here. In addition, Squamish Online has linked the individual survey responses to the candidate's profiles under Election Talk.
HSSD Gets More Clean-Technology School Buses
Written by Submitted
Monday, 10 November 2008 01:18
Howe Sound School District Gets More Clean-Technology School Buses
SQUAMISH - The Province is providing $275,600 for the purchase of two new diesel school buses in a commitment to further promote
environmentally friendly transportation.
"I am proud that our new buses support the Province's clean air and climate change objectives," said West Vancouver-Garibaldi MLA Joan McIntyre. "Our government is continually looking for new initiatives to reduce our carbon footprint, and with these buses we get the added bonus of significantly lowering operating costs."
This funding is in addition to the $665,000 and five new diesel buses announced previously, bringing the total investment in Howe Sound School District clean-technology school buses to almost a million dollars.
As the residents of downtown including myself have their views opposing tall buildings ignored and are about to be walled-in, it is appropriate to ask the candidates for Squamish council what their views are on the subject of tall buildings and high density housing. The Squamish Chief casts a longer shadow in the winter on downtown, and light appears at 10:00 and crosses the valley in 5.5 hours to disappear at 3:30. Not great for people, as we need sunshine! Tall buildings will decrease this greatly!
These tall buildings for high density projects are spreading all over the valley. Eliminating wildlife habitat.
The property owners applying to Squamish Council for re-zoning assume the OCP will be amended to suit their needs. The residents are informed at information meetings which are sometimes years before Council is aware of the project and First Reading. The OCP Amendment Public Hearing years after the information meeting is seldom attended and Council believes the planning dept. has addressed the concerns raised by the public opposing tall buildings and high density housing at the info meetings.
I’m not sure if 18 candidates running for council is a record, although a few people assure me it is. Whatever the case it’s an unwieldy amount and comments I hear from members of the public who have attended the three all candidates meetings to date, is there are just too many of us up there.
So what’s to be done, how can we have an inclusive democracy without alienating the voting public with the sheer number of people running?
I think the answer as it so often does, lies in network television. The hit reality TV show that each week ends with one person being voted of the island (I won’t name it for fear of civil litigation) could also be a hit with local voters as well.
With District council’s mandate almost up they are struggling to make a decision on the Mixed Income Affordable Housing Plan.
The original plan, similar to Whistler’s Employee Housing Plan, called for developers to provide units of below market housing to local residents that qualified. Specifically the goal of the District was to provide strata apartments at 20 per cent below market value and town homes at 40 per cent.
Of course this brought up the point amongst some councillors that why would the District subsidize a $400,000 home.
“I haven’t made up my mind on the issue. I think however that I was the only councillor who opposed it when it first came up,” said Councillor Greg Gardner. He added, “My concern is why are we putting so much community money towards helping people purchase a home, wouldn’t it be better to put incentives towards social/rental housing?”
I’ve been seen there at the meetings, with my little table and laptop, my earphones on, my pencil scratching away at my clipboard, and I’m sure many people were wondering what I was doing. Well considering the headline above, I bet the answer seems obvious now.
I’m pleased to present audio from the All Candidates Meetings. To listen, please click the link under the Election Talk menu on the left.
At the moment, the available audio files are all of the candidate's opening and closing statements from last Monday’s Chamber of Commerce All Candidates Forum at Brennan Park. More is coming very soon, including audio from the Squamish Arts Council and SORCA meetings. The Chamber's highly entertaining Mayoral meeting will also be available soon (and I really do mean entertaining, the comedic timing between Terrill Patterson's antics and John Erickson's lamenting for his unfinished thesis was absolutely priceless).
If you like the coverage that Squamish Online is providing for the election, please pass on our URL to a friend who might feel the same!
