Six weeks ago our dear reporter Jenny Wagler wrote her final column on the topic of all the planning that goes into writing your fabled exit column. Now it's my turn.
Yes, starting Monday, Jan. 31, you will have to pick up a copy of Burnaby Now if you want to keep reading my stuff. I have spent two long years on the frontlines for Coast Reporter, and now I'm moving on.
I was amazed when I first picked up Coast Reporter when I came for a job interview over two years ago. The letters page was overflowing. At every other paper I've worked at, when a letter to the editor would come in, we'd simply stare at it and scratch our heads, wondering what happens next. The overflowing letters page was an indicator of the kind of community I was about to start working in - uncommonly aware and engaged.
Coast Reporter is the perfect training ground for a green reporter because you never have the chance to do it half-heartedly. There will always be someone reading who cares enough to call you out in public for doing a poor job. In the last two years, I have met tremendous people and, at times, I am still amazed they would so readily put their trust in me to tell their story. I hope I never betrayed that trust because I loved telling those stories. It was never work to me.
I'm going to keep reading Coast Reporter on-line no matter where I go because there are too many things I worked on that I'm dying to see the conclusion of - you know, Gospel Rock, recycling and the 2011 local government elections.
But now it's time for me to move on, to take on new challenges at a bigger paper in a bigger community. Time to be with my poor girlfriend in Vancouver who has only seen me two days a week for the last two years. Time to live in a place with affordable sushi, things to do after 5 p.m. and have some friends under the age of 50.
And therein lies some of my advice before I board the Queen of Surrey one last time. No one asked for my advice, but hey, I'm the one with a column, so here it is: to those who make decisions that matter around here, I beseech you -make the Sunshine Coast a place for the young. That means serious economic development. That means affordable housing. That means amenities that appeal to the young.
Well, here it is. I'm sitting at my computer, bear hugging a full jerrycan and fiddling with a shiny new Zippo lighter. It's my final column. My last chance to slash and burn. Am I going to go through with it? Am going to give those elected officials what-for?
Doesn't look like it. I have, for the most part, kept my mouth shut on the issues I've reported on for the last two years, and if I didn't have the courage (or maybe the dumb sense) to get nasty before, it wouldn't be courageous for me to start now.
That said, I ask every locally elected official to guard against ego, work together to find solutions without being petulant and keep your hands where we can see them. Your constituents count on you for it.
To the Coast's NIMBYs, please do open your minds a little and realize the Coast was not put here just for you. Everyone here lives in a house that their neighbours probably did not support the building of. Don't believe me? Just ask the elders of the Squamish and Sechelt Indian Bands.
And a little bit of love before I sign off forever: Cathy and Larry, you guys have been wonderful and I think the world of you. Thank you so much for everything.
And thank you, Sunshine Coast, it's been a riot.
