January 30, 2020
Mayor Jack Crompton with special guest former Mayor Ken Melamed
In Episode 7 three-term Whistler Council member and two-term Mayor, Ken Melamed is Mayor Crompton’s guest this week. With the 10-year anniversary of the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games only a few weeks away, the conversation touches on the making of the Games, and both former Mayor Melamed and Mayor Crompton share a few of their 2010 memories.
January 30, 2020
Mayor Jack Crompton with special guest former Mayor Ken Melamed
In Episode 7 three-term Whistler Council member and two-term Mayor, Ken Melamed is Mayor Crompton’s guest this week. With the 10-year anniversary of the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games only a few weeks away, the conversation touches on the making of the Games, and both former Mayor Melamed and Mayor Crompton share a few of their 2010 memories.
Narrator: 0:02
The Whistler podcast. Candid conversations about everything Whistler with host Mayor Jack Crompton.
Mayor Crompton: 0:09
Hello everyone. Welcome to the Whistler podcast. I'm Jack Crompton. I would like to first acknowledge...
Ken Melamed: 0:15
Mayor Jack Crompton
Mayor Crompton: 0:16
Yeah, well, that gets said already. Ken, you're jumping in way... I haven't even introduced you yet. Come on. So, okay, before we do anything, I want to acknowledge that we are having this conversation and hosting this podcast on the traditional territories of the Lil'wat Nation and the Squamish Nation. I want to thank them. I want to thank Mountain FM for hosting us here in their Whistler studio. As you've just heard, my guest is former Mayor Ken Melamed, amazing ski patroller, three time council member and mayor for two terms in 2005 and in 2011 and probably now best known for your work during the Olympics—really being the face of the Games. Ah, welcome. Thank you for joining me. Here we start every conversation with what's your history and Whistler. How do you find yourself here today?
Ken Melamed: 1:10
Yeah. Gotta stretch back into the into the cobwebs. I came here. It was just now my 44th winter
Mayor Crompton: 0:00
Wow
Ken Melamed: 1:18
Mid seventies, because I ski with, my life was about skiing. I was a ski bum, and I had heard about Whistler, one side I was born and raised in the east, Philadelphia, Montreal, and came to skiing later in life and then all through school, that the talk was okay, we're gonna head out west out west is where you go to ski. I went to Banff and Jasper, ended up in Jasper for two winters, and it was in Jasper that I heard about Whistler and came here and never looked back. And it's been, as they say Whistler's been very good to me.
: 1:58
Mayor Crompton: 1:59
So you were in Banff? Heard about it. Came skiing for a weekend kind of thing in Whistler. Just decided that Banff wasn't home.
Mayor Crompton: 2:06
It was Jasper, actually. I was working in Jasper. And Whistler, even back then, had the longest season of any resort in Canada. And so, after Marmot Basin shut down in Jasper, a bunch of us came out here for another month of skiing.
Mayor Crompton: 2:27
Yeah
Ken Melamed: 2:27
So that was my taste of it. It must have been the spring of 75 and then February of 76 I moved here.
Mayor Crompton: 2:37
Wow. And you say Philadelphia? What? Philadelphia, Montreal. That's the first time I've ever heard someone who connects those things together. What's the link between Philadelphia, Montreal for you?
Ken Melamed: 2:49
Well, where my parents, my parents were born and raised. My mother was born in New York, father in Philadelphia. I was born in Philadelphia.
Mayor Crompton: 2:58
Oh, and then moved
Ken Melamed: 2:58
And then we escaped. We were one of the fortunate Americans to escape. Ah, just before the end of the Vietnam War was at a political protest, actually that we we left the U. S. And my father was lucky enough to have studied. He got his degree in urban geography at the Sorbonne in France and spoke French. So he moved and got a job with the Ville de Montreal and moved the family up to Canada.
Mayor Crompton: 3:25
And were you speaking French when you were living in Philadelphia?
Ken Melamed: 3:29
No. My parents actually took us to Europe on the summer that we moved, we transitioned, and my brother and sister and I went to actually French camp. And so I did have a smattering of French when I was nine years old, 13 it was. But it was only an introduction and, you know, comes it comes quick. Lose it without practice. And so I actually had to relearn it later in life. That's another story.
Mayor Crompton: 3:59
But you and we'll talk about what we talked about the Games. It became a big part of your role. I understand during the Olympics was actually speaking to French media.
Ken Melamed: 4:08
Absolutely. It was one of the great delights. One of my real joys. I love French. I love the fact that I learned well enough. In fact, you know, there's a number of things about my engagement with the Games. It turns out that I was the only elected official of any of the Games partners that spoke French. The French media didn't have anybody to go to, uh, to cover that that side, radio waves fulfilled, hurts and radio is, um yeah, so I got I got a lot of attention and I still do. I still get calls from Radio Canada when they're looking, when Calgary was bidding for the Games. They called me for my opinions on it because they wanted somebody who could speak in French about, uh, about the issue.
Mayor Crompton: 4:58
All right, we'll get to the Games. That's why you're here. But I wanna start as we always do with some Whistler news, and the first piece of it is our annual Community Life Survey. It's a random phone survey that we reach out to the community and we try and get 300 people to answer their phones. If people get a phone call, please take the survey. I know that most of us just hang up now, but it's a big deal for us, and that's something that we were talking about before we turned on the mikes was just the importance of data to our community over time, and when you were the mayor and sitting on council, it was particularly important. I mean, it is important now, just as it was then, but tell us about the importance of the information that we gleaned from things like the annual Community Life Survey.
Ken Melamed: 5:50
That's it's really an important way for for elected officials and the administration to gauge. You know how people are feeling about your level of service is and amenities and you know, it's it's It's a fairly broad survey actually got called this year.
Mayor Crompton: 6:06
Did you?
Ken Melamed: 6:06
And I gave you a rave reviews. It's a good thing you didn't ask about the sustainability initiatives. I might not have been as favourable
Mayor Crompton: 6:13
That the community engagement is great. He invited me on to speak on the podcast. That's good. That's good.
Ken Melamed: 6:20
Ah, yeah, the kid I I think there are high marks I think Whistler does a really good job of inviting the community. And as you know, and I know, uh, you never know how many people are gonna show up. There could be none, or there could be 150 or more. Anyway, this this isn't a more effective way to get people's input. One of the things that has I think being fundamental and Whistler's success from the years. It's a tremendously well planned community. You can't plan without knowledge and without information about where the gaps are and where you wanna go. And, of course, Whistler 2020 was for the pinnacle of that, we had 17 task forces that we could, we invited people stakeholders from across the community and the whole methodology of back casting is about identifying your long term goal and assessing where you are today and then finding the gaps and taking the steps that you need to fill them. So this is really important. Uh, I'm so glad that the councillors continues to do the Community Life Survey. This Community Life Survey was was kind of basic. Um, you know, the nuts and bolts. Are you satisfied with snow clearing, parks, community input
Mayor Crompton: 7:56
Yeah, and those and those expectations of the community. Are really what dictates taxation and all of those things is we want to match the services is that we provide to the community with the amount of money that we need to take to deliver those services.
Ken Melamed: 8:12
That's right. That's what municipal governments about supper is delivering a service is to the level that meet the needs and expectations, but also future needs. In times when everybody's looking for the utmost efficiency and maximizing their, you know, scarce dollars, it's you're absolutely right. If there's a place where there's a shortfall, you need to ramp up your investment. And if people are satisfied, maybe you can. You can play without a little bit.
Mayor Crompton: 8:41
So if the phone rings, ah, answer it and please do the survey. Ah, the next piece of news is that after 30 years of service to the Resort Municipality of Whistler, general Manager of Resort Experience Jan Jansen is retiring. He's been an integral part of the RMOW, an integral part of putting on the Games. He's going to be sitting down with me and chatting later about the work that he did around venues and and prep for the games. He was actually seconded away from the municipality to work with the Games during that time, but just a terrific person to work with and the depth of knowledge inside that person's brain is astounding. One of the councillors at our last meeting was saying It's too bad we can't just download to a hard drive and keep his brain on file in case we ever need it, because people like that that have put in that amount of time, just walk away with a tremendous amount of knowledge.
Ken Melamed: 9:37
Well, it's so true. And you know, one of the things that the games is the IOC [International Olympic Committee] is very good at. They call it transfer of knowledge. And perhaps, you know, we we could be doing more of that. You know, as I think of reflect about it now. I think Jan is the last senior manager to carry forward since the Games pretty much there's been a complete refresh at Municipal Hall. Um, Mike Kirkegaard is, as I recall, he wasn't a senior manager at the time, but he's one of the few world, well Ted Battiston was there, there's still some people that have that depth of knowledge, but nobody likes Jan Jansen.
Mayor Crompton: 10:14
That's true. Um, he's, he's he's Ah, I always thinking of him as a real quiet power like he is, he's. If you want to know, you ask and he will tell you. He's not shy,
Ken Melamed: 10:27
A very, very capable individual. And there's a shout out to a couple of his mentors Jim Godfrey and Bill Barrett. Um who, you know, used Jan to his greatest capacity. I think they all learned from each other. But certainly Jan learned from Jim Godfrey. Fewer words is often better. Be very careful with your words and just carry on and do the best you can do.
Mayor Crompton: 10:50
And listen, they're both real listeners for sure. Okay. And, ah, the last piece is why we're sitting down and talking today. Which is that the 10 year anniversary celebrations for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games.
Ken Melamed: 11:04
Where has the time gone?
Mayor Crompton: 12:09
Where has the time gone? Gone just like a blink of an eye. I think that with my kids too. Yeah, they were on your shoulder and cuddly and and now they're I don't know where they are. Yeah, So I just wanted to, uh, let people know that through a two month period upcoming, there'll be programming at the Whistler Public Library, which was Canada House during the Games. So I think that they will be turning on for sort of celebrating what happened there. And then there will also be a lot of stuff happening at the [Whistler Olympic] Plaza. And so please come check out the information online and join us at those venues to celebrate. Sort of living the dream that this community has had for a very long time.
Narrator: 12:09
You were listening to The Whistler Podcast. Candid conversations on current events, local government, everything Whistler.
Mayor Crompton: 12:09
West Philadelphia, born and raised in a playground, Ken spend most of his days. So, uh, that's the fresh Whistler air. But that's you. Born and raised in Philadelphia. Now,
Ken Melamed: 12:09
How quirky is that, there's only one other person I know of from Whistler. That is from Philadelphia that I've met so far. But yet a pretty uncommon route, to go from the city of brotherly love, to North America's number one ski resort.
Mayor Crompton: 12:24
Oh, that's right. It's, um, any any Philadelphians win gold medals at the Olympics, You know, over silver bronze. Uh, you were focused on Canadians
Ken Melamed: 12:35
focused on Canadians. Yeah, I know. I don't root for the US anymore.
Mayor Crompton: 12:38
Okay, so we're here to talk about the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Um, what jumps into your head at the very beginning of that experience, Uh, tell us about those two months and ah, I'll just sit here and listen to you talk for the next half hour.
Ken Melamed: 13:02
That's it was, you know, it's so much more than the two months because I was the only person on council that went from the inception of the bid. You know, when Arthur Griffiths kind of thought this up in Vancouver in the late 1990s, all the way through to delivery of the Games. So there's a lot of there's so much happened in those years, but, you know, I will cut straight to the Games. It was one of the most surreal experiences of my life, and I think that experience, was shared with anybody who touched, came close to the Games and particularly those of us who lived in the resort for a long time and embraced the Games. Sadly, there were some people that didn't embrace the Games, their loss. But those of us who were here really saw, uh, Whistler fulfill a purpose like it was its destiny. It was so unbelievable. The resort managed it was 50,000 people in the resort a night for 17 or 20 days, and it just hummed it was I talked to Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love. This was the resort of brotherly love, of global love, and and celebration of sport. Uh, I remember when we were one of the things that was a really pleasant reward from this was when we were trying to troubleshoot prior to the Games. What can go wrong and go bad? Oh, you know, Whistler's gonna be descended on by pickpockets and people of ill repute looking to take advantage of the tourists from around the world that didn't happen. Yeah, like it was one of the safest places to come. People were wandering the streets day, day and night. Everybody had a smile on their face or they would spontaneously erupt into singing their national anthem. It was unbelievable experience, not, and that's that's, you know, continuously reference the Paralympics because it wasn't just the 17 days of the Olympic Games, which is, you know, the world's most important popular brand or valuable brand. The Paralympics is not an afterthought. It comes after the Games, but it's a source of magic. Uh, that was the biggest surprise for me out of the whole experience when we won when Whistler won the bid in 2003. Uh, we said about planning the Games and then all you know, at a certain point in time it came. Okay, well, now it's time to start thinking about the Paralympics. Yeah, And it was a whole new that I became one of the biggest fans of the Paralympic movement that hung out with Carla Qualtrough was the president of the Canadian Paralympic Committee. All kinds, I would never hesitate to make a trip down to one of their events and just totally embraced the Paralympics went to, I was lucky enough to be in 2006 in Torino for the for their Paralympic Games, uh, attended the sledge hockey game where the Canadians beat the Americans, and it was just off the charts. It was so, so good.
Mayor Crompton: 16:18
So you say, um, this is was a brainchild of Arthur Griffiths or he
Ken Melamed: 16:24
He was part of a group of business Vancouver businessman that I think they birthed the idea. Well, they didn't birth the idea. They revived the idea as we know. You know Whistler has a history of two failed bids before that? Yeah, but I know he was he was the name that comes to mind when, uh, I think of the first engagement with was this approach from a group of Vancouver businessman, and I believe Griffiths was a pitchman.
Mayor Crompton: 16:50
Do you remember when you first heard about it?
Ken Melamed: 16:52
Not like when John F. Kennedy was killed.
Mayor Crompton: 16:56
Um, So what I talk about all the time is ah, hearing the story from Garry Watson about dreaming of the 1968 Olympics and how that was a Whistler-only Games and having lived the 2010 Winter Olympics, it's you can imagine and understand so clearly how preposterous that idea was. And that's the word he uses, for it he always says, it's preposterous, this idea that we would be able to host, you know, an international hockey and speed skating, and we could do it all with five years to build facilities in a town. At that point that was having a hard time delivering electricity to, you know, 16 places, because it's such a huge event. So I want to start from the beginning, when you were a councillor and this came up, this was something that you voted against and and and found some problems with was your vote against the concept in its entirety over the things about the proposal that you didn't like. Tell us about your thinking about it. When it was first brought to council
Ken Melamed: 18:07
It was, um, it was challenging for me to to accept the Games. Well, let's let's be honest. I didn't understand the Games. I was in that camp of people that had really the most indirect. You know, I would watch the Alpine events on television every four years, and that was kind of my extent of my knowledge. I knew nothing about the Olympic movement, I knew that there, you know, we had just come off scandal for the bid for the Salt Lake Games. And there's there was was a lot of not a lot of negative about the Games. There was the Montreal Games, you know, I was not in Montreal during the Games, but, uh, it it lost so much money. It took 30 years to pay back. It was a huge boondoggle, and and I was one of the camp that thought, you know, white elephants was kind of synonymous with the IOC, so I went in very trepidatiously. I did try to keep an open mind and, you know, Hugh O'Reilly was a really, uh, he's a good salesman and Jim Godfrey is, you know, the master of opportunity, and they convinced me that it was worth looking at anyway. Let's let's not, you know, shut it out completely. But let's start asking some questions. So, as I said, I think I've already said Whistler is one of the best plan communities. We started to do some research. One of the bits of research was, which was a turning point for me was going to Salt Lake City. Nick Davies and I we were both councillors at the time. We managed to tag along as a bid city. We didn't have a lot of status there, but we got you know, we got a few little passes to get here and there, and one of my missions there was to go search for the negative, try and find people that were, you know, having a bad experience during the Games, you know, have they changed their minds? I talked a lot of the businesses on Main Street in Park City to get their sense pro or con. I was looking for ammunition to come back home and shoot them down, and I couldn't find it. Uh, if I did find it, it was very, you know, there was isolated, and generally people were really embracing the Games, and a lot of people had had been converted like I was in the process. They were against it at first, and they said, you know what? This isn't actually so bad for us. Um, I think Park City businesses were split on the outcomes of it. There was a lot of what they we learned so much from them from their disappointments was one of the most powerful lessons that we learned you are, which helped us maximize the experience. But that started to turn my mind. Uh, and the more we visited other Olympic venues, I started to see, but, you know, to cut to October of 2002 and that'll it. When the council voted on it, we had a packed to the gills ball room over the at the Fairmont Chateau [Whistler]. I remember, it wasn't gonna fit in the in the normal, and we had the council chambers at that time. And my trepidation was really around the day, and I think the metaphor I use for the Olympics is like a bulldozer. We need, we don't have, if we are gonna embrace this, we need to have protection. So that our community plan is respected. We don't lose money like Montreal did. You know, and on and on. There isn't the environmental disasters there were so much to protect. And don't forget, Jack, we were in the midst of developing and, refined, well, getting to approval of Whistler 2020 was its in its middle stages at the time. Right? So we started the process in 2000 it was adopted in 2004. So here we are 2002, the commitment, you know, we hadn't approved it, but there was this strong sense that we were gonna get to sustainability being the driving highest level plan.
Mayor Crompton: 22:25
And that was Whistler. It's our future. Followed by Whistler 2020.
Ken Melamed: 22:27
Yeah, and so I said look, I can't I can't support this at this point in time because I feel like we don't have the securities. We are the smallest player with the with arguably the most at risk, because of the small size of our budget. And, uh, but you know that I'm so grateful that I I took that time to, to reflect and steel myself to take that position because it absolutely changed the relationship with VANOC [Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games]. But what really cinched it is that November of that year, we had a municipal election and I was elected with the most votes on council. So that that gives my voice huge power. So VANOC's going and the province is going, this is this isn't just one, it was a 1-6 vote. Yeah, you know, and hugely disappointing to the rest of council because another tangent, the community was only 50% on board. You forget.
Mayor Crompton: 23:37
Did we have a referendum?
Ken Melamed: 23:38
We had a poll, a telephone survey, that was done. That was I think it might have been a couple of points above 50 but basically split down the middle, a lot of trepidation, a lot, a lot of nervousness. And so that survey the 1-6 vote that really sealed the changed relationship and we were able to negotiate much more strongly and much more effectively. And it did at literally changed the outcome of the Games.
Mayor Crompton: 24:10
It's a good story. So you then are elected. So when is the Games were announced for us in 2004?
Ken Melamed: 24:23
3
Mayor Crompton: 24:23
2003 July 2003. I was there with my one year old, and it's such a, uh,
Ken Melamed: 24:31
I still wasn't there. I was not cheering. I stayed away from the Plaza. I was not celebrating. I was still nervous as all get out. Because it's still early days, right? This is only six months after that council vote, and we still hadn't secured those pre-bid legacies
Mayor Crompton: 24:49
Those decisions hadn't been made yet.
Ken Melamed: 24:52
So housing, financial plans, the land bank, the expansion, the financial tools was the last one to get delivered, and it didn't even get delivered until long after we'd won the bid like 2005.
Mayor Crompton: 25:05
So tell us about those those gets the things that we have that have been sort of legacies, to and obviously there's legacies. We talk about legacy facilities
Ken Melamed: 25:18
I'm glad you asked me that. Because let's start with the biggest and best which you know, I've been thinking quite a lot about this. You know, as we lead up to this 10th anniversary, what's the biggest legacy from the Games? And you can say Cheakamus Crossing, you could say Olympic Plaza. Some people say the highway, but I'm, uh, of the opinion that the Resort Municipality Initiative, the financial tools, as we called them back then, is the number one legacy. Because without the RMI, the RMI is what enabled us to be called something else. Now,
Mayor Crompton: 25:57
uh, well, you know, it's RMI still
Ken Melamed: 25:59
Without the RMI, I we couldn't have built the Athletes Village without the RMI we couldn't have delivered the Games without using tax dollars, it was all hotel tax monies. Without the RMI, I we couldn't have activated Celebration Plaza. We had a plaza. Yeah but what's made that the success that it is is the funding that we get, $7 million a year, Yeah, I've lost track. You could do the math. We started collecting the RMI in 2005 was it? Yeah, $7 million average a year to the resort that it can spend not just on tourism marketing, but it can spend on housing and transit. Yeah, and so it has been N. Here's the kicker. It is the only legacy that we couldn't have got at any other time. You were just prior to the show you were talking about your frustration with dealing with the province on transit tax and paying for transportation. One of the things I learned one of the takeaways that I and I shared with other councillors the Olympics is is this huge opportunity, it's the only opportunity and get to be in the in the crosshairs of the province. You don't get the better time to negotiate through. And honestly, the RMI would never have happened had it not been for the fact that we were gonna host that be the host mountain resort of the Games. The good news is, and the outcome is there we we secured the RMI it allowed us to close an $8 million gap in the pro forma for building the athletes village, which is now Cheakamus Crossing. And as I said, it's providing ongoing funding to the benefit of the resort and the community for years.
Mayor Crompton: 27:42
We take, in some ways some of us, I think, take for granted that fact now that it's not just put the property tax payer that you know keeps the provincial tourism economy running through this town. But now the provincial government reinvests tax dollars through, do you think they saw that vision that they needed to invest in the tourism industry in this town to gain a benefit? Or do you think that this was primarily and only to gain the agreement of our community to deliver the Games?
Ken Melamed: 28:21
They they did understand eventually. It was a hard sell. And again, I can't say enough about the skills of Mr Godfrey and one of the things that we realized, you know, as we were trying to figure out how we're going to make this happen because it was hanging out there is, a as a desirable that we didn't know if we could achieve it or not, but it became clear that we weren't going to get it if it was Whistler asking. So we actually created, we started the Resort Community Collaborative and demonstrating to the Province that the benefit from this revenue sharing agreement was gonna have a broader impact across the province and and because tourism was gaining and quickly replacing some of the traditional sources of funding, like forestry and fishing.
Mayor Crompton: 29:17
And it's worked.
Ken Melamed: 29:19
So successfully.
Mayor Crompton: 29:20
And now there's conversation about how do you reinvest that to preserve communities who are engaged in tourism. Because if you don't invest those dollars in making sure that you have a happy and healthy communities, then no one wants to recreate in those places. And and the people who live there don't want people to come and recreate in them.
Mayor Crompton: 29:39
So let's move to housing. There was a big conversation about where and what the housing would be. Tell us about the were and the what of the Olympic Village.
Ken Melamed: 29:53
Yeah, there was a this was another pivotal decision that happened as we moved through this process. It was one of the things that hadn't been nailed down in our bid book, and I think it's worth worth reminding people that our Games were so well planned that it was uncommon in the Olympic world for the bid book to even resemble the final outcome. But in our case, it was actually quite similar. There were very few changes. But they couldn't decide whether it should be in the Callaghan or somewhere else they didn't actually know. So I was at the time I was on the board of Smart Growth B.C. and sprawl is, you know, is anathema to good city planning and environmental responsibility, social cohesion, everything everything. So Callaghan in my, in my view, was not on, but it had to go through the processes we'd identify the sites and came up with the choice, and we actually used the Whistler 2020 process to vet it, tested it with the community, and thank goodness it failed and Cheakamus Crossing was chosen within, and at the same time, we were able to solidify the urban containment boundary to Function Junction, the south end of town. And I'm thrilled actually to see that that has held. We have not sprawled, the invitation, I mean, it would be so easy to approve something in the Callaghan and I'm sure the Olympic Park would like. And I know the snowmobile companies have all been beating down the door. We have been able to hold development to that southern urban containment boundary. And had we not defeated the Callaghan option that that would have been history and it would have been a disaster on so many fronts
Mayor Crompton: 31:53
and the what it was considered. At one point, I had heard that it would be temporary housing, and one of the sort of big winds was permanence. Is that fair?
Ken Melamed: 32:03
Well, that's that This goes to the story of how we secured the RMI. I'm happy to tell that story because it it's kind of fun, in a sense that, you know, the premier was having a hard time convincing his cabinet to come on board with this. But the deciding factor was we made basically we made them an offer they couldn't refuse. If they would have had to build a temporary village, it would have cost somewhere, the back of napkin calculation was 40 million, but it could easily have ballooned to 70 or 80. Uh, and they didn't have that money. And so we said, well we'll build. We'd be happy to build a permanent village. It's just that we're short $8 million a year on the $150 million budget, not a year. There was a way we did the cost estimates of what the Athletes Village will look like based on all the information we have from VANOC and our estimates kept coming back in excess of 125 million or so. And we had you know, we had sources of funding from here there and also, but there was this $8 million piece that was missing and we went to the premier and the finance minister, Colin Hansen, at the time and said, you know, we're not gonna do it unless we asked for two things. Actually, we asked for an interest-free loan because or a preferred lending rate from the Province because we couldn't afford to go to the banks. We're gonna do this. We knew we were doing this as a nonprofit venture, so we needed cheap money and we needed $8 million. They couldn't write us a cheque, but they could if they approved the RMI and allowed us to use the RMI for resident housing. Then we could close that gap on our own, but yeah, we really made them an offer they couldn't refuse. And it was what convinced Mr Hansen and the Premier to sign there to sign the RMI.
Mayor Crompton: 34:08
So I mean, the question: What's the biggest legacy is really those two things together, then, is the RMI and the housing or you still you'll make an argument that the RMI is a bigger deal than the
Ken Melamed: 34:18
the housing we could have. We could have done the housing eventually. Not at that pace. It's kind of like the highway I was gonna get was going to get fixed. But it just happened at an accelerated pace. We probably could have found a way to do the housing. It wouldn't have been as big, and it wouldn't have been as much. But without that RMI I don't think Cheakamus Crossing wouldn't have happened to the degree. Well, wouldn't have happened period without the RMI.
Mayor Crompton: 34:46
Okay, so the Games are here. Tell me about the Games. Tell me about your experience of the Games
Ken Melamed: 34:54
I don't like talking about my experience of the Games because I was so fortunate. I was so, it know yeah, it was the VIP, I was the face of the Games. I did 72 interviews. It wasn't just the Games. I got to travel around the world and talk about it and talk about how Whistler had done this great planning and then after the Games how fantastic it went, because it really stands out. If you look in the history of the Games, there's only one games. I think one winter games, it looks even close and that's Lillehammer. But that was in a completely different era. It went off so well, it was fiscally responsible was one of the most modest financial financial frameworks that was ever devised. It celebrated sport. It was it was nation building. It almost that seventies expression: exceeded expectations. But it really did. And I think one of the stories I wasn't in on those meetings where the stakeholders had a meeting at six o'clock in the morning every day at Municipal Hall to check in and see how the Games were going. The meetings were over in like half an hour it was just good news. Is that the one obviously, you know we should we should always remember the tragic death of Nodar Kumaritashvili, and that was so tragic. It happened on the day before the Games in training. But after that, it was like the dust unrolled because we were Canadians, and just we just nailed it. Absolutely showed the world how to put on the Games. And the IOC, one of my I also favorite stories that not a lot of people know about Sharon Fugman and I got invited. Sharon was a key member of the core team of the Games office. She's a trained lawyer and provided not just in-house counsel, but also a really good sounding board for Jim Godfrey. And they worked really well together. Sharon and I got invited to a annual meeting of might be biannual the World Union of Olympic Cities, which who knew, even knew that existed. Their office is in Lausanne and we were able to tell our story, and we also got to sit there and listen with smirks on our face grinning from ear to ear. Gilbert Felli, who was the executive director of the IOC, rolled out a best practices guide for maximizing legacies and community benefits. Basically stolen from our games: delivering the dream. Yeah, it was I get goose bumps thinking about it. So I couldn't come out and say Whistler showed everybody how to do it, but they're happy that transfer of knowledge is deeply ingrained in what they do. And they really do take seriously their commitment to improve and leave positive legacies in communities where they have been. So they took ours and we were able to share sadly, they they're they're having tough times and they're having to award bids to places like Russia and China and Brazil, and they're just not following. They're not taking the heart from the lessons that we learned and doing it the old way
Mayor Crompton: 38:22
And do you think they'll come back to, I was expecting more repeat Olympics for that very reason. Do you expect that over the next 50 years?
Ken Melamed: 38:33
One of the things I learned in you know one of multiple times IOC events is that there's very little interest in recurring venues. They may get there, but they really are attached to this idea of changing communities and being a catalyst for change. And that's real. Sure, there there were positives from all the games that I mentioned. It's just that they were. You know, what was the Social Games 92 million dollars give or take. The Beijing Games we'll never know and and you know it's going to leave some positive legacies. But it also leaves white elephants. But we don't have any. We don't have any white elephants from the Games. It's incredible. We might be the only the only Olympics that has ever pulled that off.
Mayor Crompton: 39:38
Yeah, and some of the facilities are like bull's eyes, like the Richmond speed skating for Richmond and for us cross-country skiing up at the Callaghan is some of the best cross-country skiing in the world.
Ken Melamed: 39:52
Well, even even the Sliding Centre, you know they're really difficult to get going. It's worth mentioning, you know, as I tell some of the some of the wins out of this was the game's legacy trust. This is another thing that we learned. We learned this one at Lillehammer. Lillehammer is the home of of ski jumping and Nordic sport, and they couldn't fund their ski jump facility because they hadn't secured funding a post games funding arrangement. So not only did we secure that Games legacy trust, but it was the Whistler Sport Legacy Society and a whole strategy around how to make sure that those things kept giving back and contributing to sport development for Canadian athletes and athletes around the world.
Mayor Crompton: 40:42
So we need to close up here. But is there anything that you wanna close with, something that we haven't chatted about today? That sticks in your mind?
Ken Melamed: 40:53
Oh, boy, that's a wide open question. I just encourage people to remember, you know, I think probably my one of my great disappointments is that we haven't maintained the partnerships. There was a real sense of community that has it has not carried forward as we had hoped, you know, the Chamber of Commerce, Whistler Arts Council were full partners. We came together like like never before and whether it is my own particular view, that Whistler 2020 had a significant amount to do with that, probably less than the Games themselves. But I really I really wish Whistler would come back to that sense that we are in this together and there is this bigger cause. And that's the commitment to a sustainable future for our children, not just for the resort. We all come out winners if we get back to that deeper commitment. I think we've lost sight of that as the world continues on its path off the cliff.
Mayor Crompton: 42:06
Well, I want to say thank you for your leadership for our town during the Games, your leadership through things like Whistler 2020 and pushing us to be better than we are. And I really appreciate your candor. I mean, it's what we as politicians now and as communities need to hear, we if we're just having people pat us on the back all the time. I don't think we're better than we were yesterday. So the Olympics for me was a time of really opportunity, real joy, I'm grateful that I'm able to look back and see those legacies that have really, fundamentally shifted our town and I think put the stability in place, especially around housing, especially around funding. You all did very good work, and we're grateful for it, so thank you.
Ken Melamed: 43:09
Well, thank you, Jack. It's back to you. Keep up the good work. I think you're on the right track, and I know what I think you're more ready to embrace the sustainability initiatives now that the pendulum has started to swing back. And thanks for remembering the Games. I think it's important to celebrate our success is but also help inspire our kids and, uh, the future leaders of the resort.
Mayor Crompton: 43:37
Yeah, I agree. We're going to be doing another five of these interviews about the Games talking to other people who played a role. And so this is just the beginning. Thank you to Mountain FM and join us again very shortly for more of the Whistler podcast. I'm Jack Crompton.
Narrator: 43:58
You've been listening to The Whistler Podcast. Candid conversations about everything Whistler. To find out more about the Whistler podcast visit whistler.ca/whistlerpodcast