Whitehorse City Council

Last night I presented on behalf of the watershed council to the Whitehorse City Council. We are asking them to join our Council as an "Affiliated Organization", which is an agreement that essentially says that they agree in principle with the work that we do and our mission and vision. The other reason for the visit was to invite them to the Summit that is to be held in August.

I haven't been to a Council meeting since I sat on the other side of the desk (for those readers who don't know my political and work history, I served a term as a Town Councillor in Golden, BC), so there was a combination of nerves and nostalgia as I sat and waited my turn to speak. The fun part about being in a new town is that people don't know who you are...so I got to listen to one Councillor express his disdine about me getting on the agenda while I sat in the gallery and listened...wow. But rather than be disheartened by it and his questions, I took it as a chance to use the persuasiveness that I am apparenlty learning in law school. We'll see about that I guess.

As it was a Committee meeting at which City Council does not make decisions, my job was primarily to provide some information about the Summit, the YRITWC and the affiliated organization agreement. All of this in 5 minutes. Now...in Golden I believe that we had a time limit for presentations to Council, but I really don't know what it was because some were 5 minutes, some felt like 5 hours...it really depended on who they were and how many jokes Aman would make at the presenters expense (your spirit was with me in the Chambers Aman...I imagined a little brown man with a twinkle in his eye listening to the presentation). Here in Whitehorse they definitely don't run their meetings on Yukon time! They had a little box with lights and a timer to cut you off when you were supposed to finish. And the presenter before me did indeed get cut off.

The funny thing about running a government is that I think that no matter where you are or what you are doing, the issues are pretty similar. Right before me the local swim club was in begging council for more lanes for their swimmers...using the same arguments that we'd heard in Golden for figure skaters, hockey players, swimmers, soccer players, ball players, etc. I wanted to comment to the Whitehorse council about that but wasn't sure that my "sage wisdom and advice" would be welcomed!

In the end, the City Council asked a few good questions (which if you saw the video you could watch me stumble and mumble a bit) but in the end I think that we will get them on side...or at least I hope so! It was nice to get out and to use the experience and skills that I've been gathering up for the past few years.

I'll let you know if they sign on at their next Council meeting...stay tuned!