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Hello. Hello again. (05.09.08)
Memory is a funny thing. Certainly not ha ha funny, more like, if a fire burns down your house and all that remains is what was in the garbage bin. That sort of funny. Sadly it only gets ‘funnier’ in times of drastic change when days, months, and decades all seem to blur. This has become very prevalent in our community these days. As we get flushed deeper and deeper down the Olympic boom it becomes tough to remember Squamish B.B. (Before Bid).
But sure enough there is always something to trigger memories of days past. It could be a smell, a song, or even an old souvenir that triggers a déjà vu feeling and it all comes rushing back.
It was only last week when in one foul swoop I read headlines that thugs in Squamish stuffed a 44 year old woman in a clothes bin for 6 hours. But it gets better (read: worse) when our mayor and council strip funding from the trail budget. Then Corrine Lonsdale said (with a straight face) that no one uses the Discovery Trail.
Ahhh, senseless violence and district recreation bashing… that brings me back. It was actually during Corrine’s reign of Mayor that Squamish’s potential was at its best and the headlines were at their worst. We were the town where several kids killed a lawyer and the ‘code of silence’ kept the group from being punished. We’re the town that saw forestry workers to beat the living snot out of filthy hippie protesters. And who can forget the proposed anti-environmental bylaw (thankfully squashed) that saw business turn away anyone who looked like an environmentalist.
At the time I was furious and appalled. Now there is part of me that is at least a bit thankful. If our town’s violent backwoods reputation wasn’t so legendary, housing prices would have gone up way before I had the chance to buy here. Plus, no one would consider recreating here for fear of violence and us locals pretty much had the place to ourselves.
But every silver lining has a dark cloud and while forestry was being stripped from our cold dead hand we were left completely unprepared for the change everyone else saw coming a mile away. How downright embarrassing is it that during the biggest boom in our towns history, our municipality is sitting here penniless and insane? Even BC Timber Sales is back showing us nothing but contempt as they once again put Squamish lives in danger by not bothering to inform anyone of logging on our multi-million dollar trail system.
For decades the mantra has been “Squamish will succeed in spite of itself”. I hope so, but here we are and all that’s changed is our Mayor now wants everyone to ride trails yet the district refuses to maintain them. Besides that it’s business as usual; Squamish thugs continue to make the headlines, our council continues to abuse volunteers, and the Provincial government (as well as BCTS) continues to prove our spineless reputation is deserved.
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