Just under a year and a half away from the next local election, Squamish Mayor Armand Hurford has announced he will not run for the position again.
At the annual Squamish Chamber of Commerce Mayor’s Luncheon event on Monday, June 9, atop the Sea to Sky Gondola, Hurford said that he is ready to reach the “finish line” of his term as mayor.
“We're well into our term here … we're about 14 months from an election, and I will say that this is my last term as an elected official,” Hurford said.
“And I say that not in a way of resignation or throwing a towel in or going quietly. I'm a racer. Anyone knows me as I'll tell you that I'm a racer. I'm a competitive person. This is about driving to the finish line without the distraction that it takes to attempt to do this again.
“So that's where I'm approaching the next 12 to 14 months. That's the perspective for me. And I look forward to pushing as hard as we can to get as much done as possible in that time.”
Hurford addressed a crowd of about 90 members of the local business community at the event.
He kicked off his speech, noting the “facilities deficit” in Squamish and how the District is doing what it can to tackle the issue.
“Almost every facility that we have, save for [the two new fire halls], is over capacity and at the end of life,” he said.
“So as we're tackling the facilities deficit and we're working on things, the top priority for us is life safety. So that's where the fire halls come in. Our new facilities are post-disaster facilities, and they set us up well for full-time, 24-hour-a-day professional firefighting coverage, and at this point in time ... for the first time ever, we have some overnight coverage from our professional firefighters, and they're supported with our paid on-call.
“As we continue to grow as a community, we're well-positioned to grow our fire protection services and keep us all safe, which is incredibly important.”
Hurford also noted the Public Works Facility, which, despite being an “incredibly challenging site,” will be approximately 27,200 square feet in size.
“So this will be coming online, I'm just going to say soon, but construction is advancing on that,” he said.
“Really, what local government is tasked with is keeping us safe, providing safe, clean drinking water, and wastewater treatment is huge there, as well as maintaining the roads, and this is a core piece of our facilities infrastructure that will allow us to do that.”
Also of note was the wastewater treatment plant, which is tipped to be operational any day now.
“This coming online really signals the end of a planning cycle of our wastewater treatment master plan, and now we're going back to the start, to start again, because that's what happens in these and they're cyclical, so we are set up well for the future needs,” Hurford said.
“Now we can work our way down that facilities deficit and start working on things that are more of the nice-to-haves and the things that we all collectively agree we would like to have as a community, namely, Brennan Park.”
Work underway on the Brennan Park Recreation facility currently includes a Green and Accessibility Retrofit Project, which will see system upgrades to the arena and pool’s heating/cooling systems, replacement of the arena’s roof insulation, and staged landscaping to include a no-water garden, bee-friendly plants, and solar lighting
“Trying to run a recreation centre is incredibly complicated, and trying to renovate a running recreation centre has its challenges as well. So, I'm really proud of the work that's happening there to continue to deliver programming to the community while we work to improve the facility,” Hurford said.
“We hear from the community often about [adding] an additional sheet of ice or a swimming pool. We have those things showing in our five-year financial plan. We're working towards these. These upgrades that are underway right now make it a building worth putting these shiny pieces onto.”
In his speech, Hurford also spoke about the Cheekye Fan Debris Flow Barrier and the need for regional transit.
“This project is underway, that's going to provide protection to a large piece of the community, and the development that facilitated its construction will introduce 1,250 new homes. So this is a great project, and protects the northern part of our community,” he said of the Cheekye Fan Debris Flow Barrier.
As for regional transit, well, the District is still actively advocating for it along the Sea to Sky Corridor.
“We have a long way to go on transit, and we're working hard at that. So, we do have some significant expansion coming ... but we are still advocating for that regional piece,” he said.
Questions from the public
There were several questions asked by the business community on topics such as housing and encampment issues, as well as the high number of Highway 99 closures due to crashes.
“We need to make sure that [Squamish] is a place where folks can live, and that means the whole spectrum,” Hurford said about the housing crisis.
“I hear from even our RCMP members and our nurses that they're having a hard time finding the housing that lines up with what they need.”
Below-market housing and rentals were two ticket items, Hurford said the District needs to push in order to get people into “stable places.”
Encampments
As for what the District was doing about the encampments of unhoused people across town, Hurford said the answer is not simple.
“I think that there's not one thing to be done. It's going to be many things to address the issue. And I think the solutions, if they were easy, would have been done, and we would not be in the situation that we are now,” he said.
“We've announced that there's a new supportive housing facility coming for Squamish … and I think that's a good start. I [also] think that under one roof does an amazing job, and we were right as a community to stop and celebrate that, but it's about what's next as well.”
He took a moment to remind the crowd that many individuals are only a paycheque away from ending up homeless themselves.
“A point I want to make is that everyone in this room, I think we're all successful people that are privileged to be sitting here today, but we are far closer to the folks that are in those encampments than we are to the Bezos’ and the Zuckerberg's of the world,” he said.
“When we have people working and living paycheque to paycheque, what happens when something happens to you and you miss that paycheque, is that you end up in a tent in the woods. We need to make sure that we have a better support system to catch those, to ensure that we don't get those outcomes, because we are in a tough spot here.”
Road safety
As for what the District is doing towards road safety and the increasing number of Highway 99 closures, Hurford said advocacy was their number one priority.
“I think that we, from a community resiliency perspective, want to make sure that we have access to hospital services and so on in North Van and points beyond,” he said.
“We know that there are people who have their kids in daycare who are on the other side of [any highway closures]. I personally walked my dog in Britannia Beach, and it cost me 12 hours because I had to eventually go for dinner in the city to wait out a closure.
“We are constantly advocating for change and for improvements where we see them. These mountains aren't done eroding, and we're not done with our infrastructure that we put through either. So it takes continual investment from the province to keep us all safe.”
