April 26, 2016

These are informal comments made to Garibaldi Park 2020 a week after the April 26th meeting. It is not a minutes because it only summarizes the recollections of two groups in favour of the option to park at the IPP site.

Attendance
Spearhead Huts: Manrico Scremin, Jayson Faulkner
FMCBC: Brian Wood, Michael Feller
ACC (Whistler): Rupert Mehrer, Bryce Leigh
WB: Doug Forseth
MRB: Tori Meeks and assistant
BC Parks: Katy Chambers, Chris Platz, Vikki Haberl
Sport Legacies: John Hammond
Innergex: Liz Scroggins

Meeting chair Tori Meeks presented the two proposals: Option 1 north side road, Option 2 south side road neither of which included private vehicle access.

ACC Whistler comments
The meeting was frustrating because the 'working party' kept their fingers on the transmit button and wouldn't switch to 'receive' mode.
Tori Meeks started grandstanding, trying to talk over the ACC rep and referring to the 'working group' as 'the government'

Spearhead Huts Committee (SHC) comments
The meeting was well attended.  Chris Platz, Vikki Haberl, and Katy Chambers represented Parks.  Vikki was the only one who said anything significant which was that they preferred “Option 2”, to improve the current trail, vs. “Option 1”, the IPP trailhead.  SHC got the sense that Parks will agree to anything that will improve their trail system.  SHC also got the impression that they were beaten into submission by the WB and FLNRO representatives who clearly do not want a trailhead at the IPP site.

Liz Scroggins was at the meeting.  She was mostly quiet except to say that there was some debate amongst her engineers as to whether a bridge would be better above or below the IPP intake.  She said that Innergex occasionally (every few years) puts in a temporary bridge for use by an excavator.  That was done last year.

SHC made the point that its vision includes a trailhead at the IPP site that would be a trailhead for three trails.  Those trails are integral to a future Spearhead Loop Trail.  That was news to Doug Forseth and FLNRO.  Parks people said nothing which was disappointing since we’ve been talking to them about that since 2012. That three trail trailhead had not factored into the analysis of options to this point.  That three trail trailhead only works if the trailhead is at the IPP site.

Alastair McCrone, a FLNR Recreation Officer, said that he doesn’t think there should be private vehicle access to the IPP site. Clearly they are taking WB’s side on this issue.

Alastair said that they have $50,000 to spend this summer on trail work.  It’s use it or lose it money.  We all agreed that the money should be spent on the current trail this year since it clearly needs fixing with the recent big slumps. SHC made the point that the IPP trailhead, with vehicular access, is our preferred option.

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