A Promise is a Promise

Hello hello’

So once again I get to give you a bonus while multitasking. By this I mean some of the next bit will also appear in Friday’s Chief as a Council Corner. But you get a sneak peak as well as an extra tidbit at the end (no peaking).

Now, I don’t remember the exact time, but sometime this year I discovered I have spidy-sense. Not that I can see the future or shoot web from my wrists (no matter how hard I try), rather it’s just the feeling I get when I’m really excited about something big.

This could be anything from planning a bottomless powder ski trip to thinking about what my kids are going to be when they grow up. I’m also very happy to report that my spidy-sense has been going crazy since being elected councilor. This happens when thinking about our oceanfront possibilities as well as the first time I watched the new Tourism Squamish ‘Spirit of Squamish’ videos.

Recently there have been two big ones I’d like to share. First is the new conference center at the Railway Park. This building is holy-cow exciting because having a venue that can handle 1500 people opens up our town to a whole new universe of events. To fully appreciate the space one needs to check it out from the balcony to see that with the proper sound engineering this place is going to go-off!

The latest excitement comes from something I can at least take partial credit for as a member of council. It’s kind of funny. Lately when discussing some important issues I’ve had a few people comment “you knew what you were getting yourself into”. This cracks me up because it’s absolutely true. But whereas they use that argument to say I wasn’t elected to actually change anything, I see it as further encouragement to do what I promised to do. So it is with great excitement I announce that one of the things I knew had to change is being changed.

(Insert trumpet fanfare here)

Introducing the Service Squamish Initiative!
Say what?

In a nutshell it’s the plan to fix the district. In our community there are very few things absolutely everyone agrees on. Perhaps the most widely held belief is that the District of Squamish ‘was’ a broken dinosaur of an organization.

I say ‘was’ because now we have what I hope will be the beginning of our productive future. This initiative addresses (among other things) effective communication, streamlining process, transparent long term-strategies, aligns resources, and best of all it rewards leadership in the organization. This is amazing. Plus there are benchmarks, which will tell us exactly where things are and where they are going. It is exciting times my friends and it’s important to note it could not have been done without our CAO Kevin Ramsay who in six months has certainly met some very high expectations.

Now for a BIG EVENT Announcement – This Saturday we celebrate our Olympians. I absolutely love that Olympian is plural - how cool is that. Yes we have more than one Olympian who calls Squamish home and we’re throwing them a parade and a celebration in the downtown park. Parade starts at on Cleveland Avenue at 11 with lots of music, kids stuff, meet the athletes and other good family fun in the park - hope to see you there.

I’ll leave it here with a reminder to pass this newsletter on to anyone you think would be interested as well as invite you to drop me a line if there’s anything on your mind since this job is all about communication.

I may not be an Olympian but I’ll help you any way I can,
Bryan Raiser

Councillor, District of Squamish
604.848.9343
braiser@squamish.ca