WEST Vancouver's new mayor by acclamation, Michael Smith, saved his residents a few dollars by spurning an invitation to attend a two-day Metro board meeting in Chilliwack.
In one sense, the no-nonsense Smith gave a practical response to an odd invitation that included the question "If you could be anywhere else but here, where would you be?"
But will Smith's blunt response cost his constituents - and the North Shore as a whole - more money down the road?
Smith is right when he complains about the lack of direct financial oversight of Metro and TransLink affairs. But until enough Lower Mainland residents demand change to the Metro paradigm of taxation without representation, our local council representatives are all we have to fight our corner in the rough and tumble of regional debate.
With an impending expenditure that could come close to $1 billion for a new sewage treatment facility, the Metro communities must speak with one voice when it comes to persuading the federal government to share in the costs.
Shunning the boardroom table to play in splendid isolation may create short-term favourable optics in West Vancouver, but not so much anywhere else. Regional politics - especially - is all about the art of compromise.
The North Shore is already perceived to have unduly benefited from the Capilano-Seymour water filtration initiative. We need friends at the Metro table, not politicians who feel they have been unfairly shown up.
