If all goes according to the county's plan, the Tawatinaw Valley ski hill will be open for business on Dec. 26.
This is undoubtedly good news for residents — whether they're skiers themselves or they simply don't want to see this excellent facility sit idle for another year.
At the same time, residents should be wary of making any concrete plans for Boxing Day — the county's plan doesn't appear to be a very good one.
Having the ski hill open by the day after Christmas will require some quick work if the county plans to adhere to its own Land-Use Bylaw (LUB); the permit won't come into effect until 15 days after it was advertised, which would be Dec. 24.
If anyone appeals it, not that anyone in their right mind would want to appeal it and be seen as the cause of further delays at the ski hill, that date could be pushed back another month.
Reeve Bud Massey has said they hope to have the work over Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, or else they will have to hold a special meeting passing a motion to circumvent the LUB.
It's awfully hard to believe council actually passed a motion Dec. 9 to have a Dec. 26 opening date with full knowledge of the 15-day waiting period set out in the bylaw and with the belief the temporary chalet could be set up over Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.
Statements from the reeve suggesting they had no intention to breach their own LUB and simply hope the work can be done on Christmas are at best misleading and at worst ludicrous and transparently false.
At this point, with just weeks left in 2014, they should be doing whatever it takes to get this thing up and running. If it takes some extra cash to get crews working over the holidays, pay up. If they have to schedule a special meeting to waive the 15-day waiting period on the development permit, do it.
Until that T-Bar and rope tow are taking skiers up the hill, the county should be pulling out all the stops. So book your meeting, circumvent the LUB, and get this thing done.
But afterwards, residents will undoubtedly demand some explanations of how this whole process was so badly mishandled.
