Mountain FM's Squamish-based news reporter has switched off his microphone and gone to work for the Green Party in the upcoming provincial election.
Jess LaFramboise, who started as the radio station's snow reporter before taking on reporting under the name Jeff McKay, quit this week to become the party's local election campaign co-ordinator.
Between now and election day LaFramboise will be working with Green Party candidate and deputy leader Dennis Perry as Perry tries to do what no other Green candidate has done anywhere else in Canada - win elected office at the provincial level.
"I discovered a number of months ago that I loved living in Squamish more than I loved working in radio," LaFramboise said. "When an opportunity came up to be a part of this team, I couldn't pass it up."
The team includes Perry's campaign manager, Scott Hean. LaFramboise and Hean are working closely together.
Perry found himself under an intense media spotlight through his work to save the Eagleridge Bluffs from the provincial government's plan to build an overland highway as part of the Sea to Sky Highway Improvement project.
"The save the Eagleridge Bluffs coalition for Dennis and us is a metaphor for how the government manages its business," Hean said. "It is top down, they [the Liberals] don't listen to community values and the certainly don't listen to individual values and concerns."
One of the things prompting LaFramboise to help Perry with his campaign is Squamish's current place in its own history.
"The big thing right now is the transformation of the downtown," said LaFramboise. "Right now we are in the process of the charrette program in Squamish and that is huge. It is going to shape the future of the community."
The Greens believe Squamish is the key to the riding because it is the second biggest community in the riding after West Van-couver.
"If we win Squamish we think we will garner the whole riding," Hean said. "Squamish is a very interesting place and it is going to be very difficult for the Greens and the Liberals because Squamish has been very NDP-influenced in the past."
The Green theory for winning Squamish rests with drawing out voters who don't traditionally bother to vote. Hean hopes the young people in Squamish living here mainly to windsurf, climb and enjoy other recreational pursuits will hear the Green message and decide to vote.
Perry plans to be in Squamish a number of times throughout the campaign, including at the Brohm Lake clean-up on Sunday (April 24) from 10 to 11:15 a.m.
