Ucluelet’s CIMM FM 99.5 The Edge radio has a new slogan, as a result of pressure from a top advertiser.
The old slogan — Playing what we’ve got — was a tongue-in-cheek reference to the station’s initially limited selection of music. The new slogan is fairly self-explanatory: Playing what they tell us.
The rewrite comes on the heels of a protest by advertiser Marine Drive Properties, an influential development company that has been remaking Ucluelet in its own image for several years. MDP was not impressed with the station’s infamous spoof ad campaign for WYNDANPEE, a fictional (we hope) real estate development sited on Hyphocus Island overlooking Ukee’s sewage lagoon.
Popular shlock jock Lance Blackwell had fun with the concept over several days, and then mysteriously pulled the spoof ads and issued an on-air apology. Rumour has it that a certain “name brand hotel” construction crew visited him late one night and suggested he might want to “terminate” the spoof ad campaign. Blackwell, no fool, complied at once.
The issue marks the death of yet another outlet of humour in a town growing grimmer by the day, as winter sets in and rampant development drives an increasing number of year-round residents out. It also provides further evidence that MDP is now able to call the shots for pretty much every outfit in town — up to and including town council, according to some pundits.
Still, locals remain puzzled as to why the regular Wyndansea ad now airs on the radio at least six times per hour, day and night. “Do they think anybody left in town can afford those million-dollar lots?” said one listener (who wished to remain anonymous) from her heavily mortgaged home. “Tourists don’t listen to the radio, so what are they trying to do? Brainwash the locals?”
“At least the WYNDANPEE thing was funny,” added another, suggesting that maybe the station’s new slogan should be All Wyndansea, all the time.
In the wake of the embarrassing cave, Edge radio has been extended an invitation to join the People In Mindless Prodevelopment Stance, or PIMPS, a group of mostly insiders who stand to benefit greatly from mass Ucluelet development. PIMPS is known for its knee-jerk approval of anything brought forward by developers, regardless of the social consequences. It was formed early this year in reaction to the CAVE people (Citizens Against Virtually Everything).
Blackwell has not yet announced whether he plans to join the PIMPS.
Categories: Culture · Media
Marine Drive Properties, the Ucluelet developer responsible for the town’s skatepark and basketball court, has continued its tradition of creating recreation facilities for the community’s use.
The most recent addition to the rec roster is a large, rectangular paintball target recently erected in the Encon yard at the Junction.
The target range was built for Ukee’s growing number of paintball aficionados, to give them a leg up on their drive-by shooting skills. Ukee Shooters Association president Erik “Trigger” Heston said that “paintball competitions are starting to include a drive-by component, and until now we’ve had nowhere to practice.”
The target has two ranges: When travelling away from the Junction on Highway 4, the target is about 12 metres from the shooter’s truck window. When travelling toward the Junction, the range is about 16 metres. Players can also vary the difficulty by increasing the speed of the drive-by.
MDP said in a press release that it is delighted to be providing district youth with excellent recreation facilities as a byproduct of its comprehensive development plans for the district, adding that all Ukee shooters are welcome to blast away at the target, so long as it’s in a safe and discreet manner.
Categories: Culture · Recreation
Comments on Ukee, Sept. 25.
I spent the weekend in Ucluelet, hence the new photo on the masthead. It was great to get away.
I was surprised by the development there. On the one hand it seems as if the classic paving of paradise is well underway. On the other hand, if I compare it to Cabo San Lucas or Maui it doesn’t seem as if development is progressing as fast as I would have expected. There are still deer on the main streets. I couldn’t find a place to get bacon and eggs Monday morning, and ended up driving to Tofino.
Maybe I’m passing judgement too early; I’m sure that the influx of people next year will make a huge difference in infrastructure and services. There are several closed businesses, including both traditional industrial suppliers as well as a few restaurants. By next year there will be a new, huge, functioning hotel with cottages, and many more houses. Over the next several years a Jack Nicklaus designed golf course will come on stream as well. If its all a success they’ll have to widen the surf highway.
Full post is here.
The post has almost 150 comments, so it must be widely read. Some interesting ones:
From VHB
Why would you expect Ucluelet to develop like [Cabo San Lucas or Maui]? It may be pretty there, but, um, have you noticed the climate differences?
From Jay
Ucluelet is a bit out there and it’s too bad people are developing it. Anything for the mighty $. It was nice to go through there and get away from people and yuppies etc. Now the people we try to get away from will be up there en mass. Great.
From foo
My opinion is and has always been that house prices are unsustainable. It’s very much like the bad old days of clearcutting and over-fishing. A few people were warning that you can’t just keep cutting down the forests and killing all the fish. Their concerns were pooh-poohed. Then one day there weren’t any fish. And all the good trees were gone. And everyone woke up to the fact that the days of raping the earth were over.
Similarly, right now, all the people with vested interests in selling high-priced properties, and seeing massive price appreciation keep saying that everything’s cool, there are lots of rich people to ensure prices will rise forever. One day the music is going to stop. It’s already stopped in the USA. In Spain. It’s stopping in Britain. It’s just a matter of time before it happens here.
Categories: Real Estate
In a surprise move, council has decided to initiate a review of Ucluelet’s Official Community Plan this fall, even though the mandatory five-year period for review won’t be up for another two years.
An anonymous commentator at the district office called the exercise “a standard UH-OH review — the usual procedure resorted to when council suddenly realizes it has gone too far, too fast.”
“An Uh-Oh review bolsters the sham that the community is in control of its own development,” the commentator said, “and also lets council off the hook to some extent by allowing them to claim they’re just doing what the community wants, as expressed in the OCP.”
Others, however, note that Ukee is now playing host to “a real estate and development speculation orgy more suited to an Internet gambling site than a community for people to live in.” They claim this revisiting of the OCP will be more of an OH-SHIT review, with council scrambling for damage control as the situation deteriorates.
A few are even claiming this will be a full-scale JESUS-H-CHRIST review, indicating a desperate, last-ditch effort to salvage some scraps of the community before it’s too late.
Cynical observers add that the OCP is effectively useless anyway, ever since council took it upon themselves to sweepingly rezone for the town’s build-out for the next 30 years, leaving little in the way of wiggle room for future councils. At any rate, they add, the OCP has proven to be a markedly flexible document, conveniently invoked for support when it agrees with what council wants to do, and downplayed as “just a guideline” when it doesn’t.
Stay tuned for commentary from the Tattler as the foolishness begins.
Categories: Council · Planning
Peninsula Speedway has been resurfaced with new, high-speed asphalt, just in time for the hordes of mini-vans carrying overweight kids to school to save them the ten-minute walk.
The district has talked about paving this stretch of road since about the year 12 BW (Before Wyndansea), but has only now found the funding and the will to push it through.
Some say the paving was prompted by developer complaints that the potholes were damaging the suspensions of the 30 or 40 fully-loaded dump trucks per day that roar past the schools. Others claim that a high-end road was necessary now that the whole end of the peninsula is stuffed with high-end development.
Whatever the reason, the new surface (and its new lack of speed bumps) is being well utilized by all the pick-up trucks around town, which on average now arrive at their destinations 2.4 seconds quicker.
Ukee’s hard-core skateboarders are also praising the upgrade. The smooth pavement should reduce vibration injuries to the feet and legs caused by the extremely rough pavement around town, for which several skaters have been eagerly undergoing treatment at Bubbles’ Massage Hutte.
Categories: Around town
An elite team of NASA scientists is approaching an understanding of Tofino’s pay parking plan, according to a spokesperson for the scientific agency.
“We’ve got two super-computers working round the clock on this one,” said Dr. Elvira Lovestrange, a rocket scientist with the famed space exploration agency. “We anticipate arriving at a preliminary understanding of the parking plan early next month.”
The plan, a perfect example of advanced committee-think, involves multiple zones, times and fees for different vehicles in different locations. When first announced, it was widely heralded as being the most complex scheme ever produced by humanity in all of recorded history.”The human genome project was nothing compared to this,” said Lovestrange. NASA is interested in the plan simply as a practical problem in complexity theory, which may have useful applications in future space station operations.
Meanwhile, residents of Ucluelet are organizing a betting pool based on public reaction to the Tofino parking plan. “Nobody, but nobody, likes pay parking,” said Ukee resident and pick-up truck aficionado Billy “Red-Leg” Frogg, who organized the pool. “It’s only a matter of time before those ticket dispensers get ripped out by the roots. We’ve got pools going on when that’ll happen, how high the unpaid ticket total will get, how many days before mass revolution in the streets begins, and which of the brainiacs on Tofino council, who approved the plan, will get tarred and feathered first.”
Tattler readers who wish to register their guesses on the matter can leave their comments below.
Categories: Tofino
The Tattler sometimes receives fedback from our readers. Here’s one that made us feel warm all over!
Subject: Hit the nail on the head!
Wow! It’s refreshing to see others noticing the “real” aspects on what is happening to our little community. Getting eaten up by the almighty $$.
I have lived here all my life and am quite sick to see some of the changes happening. “Pave Paradise” is such a true statement these days. Our Wild Pacific Trail is a wonderful asset to our community and what seems like a joke to the millionaires rolling in.
I run a B&B and my guests are appalled to see the massive buildings mowing over everything. They come here to experience the serenity and beauty of our “quaint little fishing village.” They come to hike the trails, to enjoy the natural beauty of our Coast, but are seeing roads, KEEP OUT signs, fences, a multitude of dump trucks and huge buildings. Isn’t that inviting! I hate to complain but really, we are getting snowed over.
Council is always saying “We want to do things better than Tofino or at least learn from their mistakes.” I think we are making bigger ones and are going to pay for it in the long run. Regular working families won’t be able to afford to live here as the “richies” move in and drive prices even higher….
I could go on for days, like I’m sure so many of our “community” folks could. I just want to say, Here’s to You! — good job on bringing a true but humorous side to what’s happening to Ukee.
Cheers!
Ukee Lifer
Thanks, Ukee Lifer! Nice to know we aren’t typing into a vacuum here. If you want to let loose, you can send us an email or leave a comment on any post by using the “Comment” link below the post (well, duh!).
–Hack Vertue
Categories: Reader feedback
A terrible affliction is sweeping the democratic world, as detailed in the following Intelligence Daily article. It focuses on the dire situation in the U.S., but I daresay we are not entirely immune to PADD here in humble Ukee town.
Political Attention Deficit Disorder – New Psychiatric Condition
By Joel S. Hirschhorn (Contributing Writer)
According to a report not yet released, the Council on Science and Public Health of the American Medical Association has recommended that a chronic and widespread affliction of Americans be officially declared a psychiatric disorder. It has been named the Political Attention Deficit Disorder (PADD)….
“The symptoms of PADD are all around us and treating it professionally can do more for our country than any election,” said Dr. Mable Wank….
Here are the Council’s main findings on PADD:
Nearly 80 percent of adult American citizens are unable to pay sustained attention to issues and problems associated with their government. They are unable to accept their responsibility as citizens, including their obligation to vote, read in-depth articles and books on political issues, become active members of politically oriented groups, and initiate discussions on current events with friends and family….
Link to full article is RIGHT HERE.
Thanks to an anonymous contributor for sending along this article!
Categories: Politics · World
With consultants’ help, district staff have hit upon an almost zero-cost solution to Ucluelet’s perennial recycling problem.
“It’s great that we don’t have to wait for those speedballs at the Regional District to come up with a plan,” said one source at the district office. “We’d be buried under our own recyclables before that ever came through.”
Instead, the district last last year hired Victoria eco-consultant firm Dumpitt & Runne on a $60,000 retainer to seek out a more immediate solution. 
After nearly eight months’ work, the firm came up with a cost-effective plan. “In fact, it only cost about $200 — the price of the 3-by-5 sign we recently installed at the Tofino Recycle Yard,” said Ed Dumpitt, of Dumpitt & Runne.
In a nutshell, the plan for handling Ucluelet’s recyclables involves the simple expedient of having residents drive them to Tofino and dump them at the recycling depot there. “That’s where much of it was going anyway,” Runne said, “so with the addition of a sign on the Tofino depot we can make it official, and remove any heat from Ucluelet council or the Regional District to act.”
“It might seem unfair for Ucluelet to dump its recycling problem on Tofino taxpayers,” said Carmen Runne, also a principal of the consulting firm. “But our research shows otherwise. They may spend $50,000 a year on their recycling, but they’re no angels. Tofino is still pumping raw sewage into Clayoquot Sound, and our surveys show that many environmentally-minded Tofinians are making the trek to Ucluelet to use the toilets here, because of Ukee’s sewage treatment. So we believe it’s a fair exchange.”
Others agree. “I personally know at least a dozen Tofino people who hold it for almost a week until they can get to a bathroom in Ukee,” said one village source. “So it’s all even-steven, in my books.”
No comments have been received from Tofino council or taxpayers, but the Regional District office expressed unanimous approval of the plan, as has Ucluelet council.
Categories: Enviro-mental · Tofino
Well, Ucluelet, here’s how you appear from the outside looking in. From a real estate blog site, an aerial view of the property and the pre-sales pitch:
Sneak Preview of Jack Nicklaus’ new golf course at Wyndansea in Ucluelet, BC
Filed under: Wyndansea in Ucluelet — Stephen Jagger @ 7:41 pm June 12, 2007
I was invited to preview the new Jack Nicklaus golf course at Wyndansea in Ucluelet, BC a few days ago. Today was the day that we went and it was a perfect day for the trip.
It was all first class! We started by meeting at the West Coast Air float plane terminal in downtown Vancouver to catch our chartered flight to Ucluelet. It was a quick 50 minute flight buzzing just above the British Columbia coastline….
In a pic from the blog entry, here are the players who will be picking your future neighbours — or, more likely, your landlords and bosses:
Here’s the link to the BLOG ENTRY.
Categories: Development · Real Estate
