The cosy atmosphere during the orienteering festival this year is on top. Not even the fog and rain could take away that feeling as I walked among the competitors and organizers. My meeting with Ingemar Kylberg from Malung strengthened my impression of the atmosphere.
Ingemar is in the management of the O-Ringen arrangement as has been during many years. As an official in Malungs municipality, with the latest task to work with the development in the mountain region, O-Ringen has followed him since the last time it was held in Sälen, 2008.
During our conversation his phone keeps ringing. One of the times it’s an organizer who wants to know how to get a higher pressure in the showers, another time it’s a truck driver who wants to know where to leave the things he is delivering. The ones who are calling gets clear directions.
I don’t have to bring up the question about how he think the airport and planned mall will do in Sälen. The venture has been one of Kylberg’s most important duties, both as a former business manager and now as a developer of the region.
Ingemar is frustrated that it has been taking so long time to get the decision-making to come to an end. His irritation is aimed at single officials at government agencies who, according to Kylberg, are slowing down the implementation even though both the mall and the airport are funded. Maybe part of the frustration is because Ingemar won’t get to experience the first ground-breaking as an official in Malung-Sälens municipality.
In a few weeks he will be retired and leave the municipality to move to Tenhult in Småland, where he grew up.
- I’ve been working here for 41 years and it has been an amazing journey, not at least in the mountain region. Then there’s the benefit of having responsible duties during two O-Ringen. Now it’s probably going to take a while before Sälen will be the host of this arrangement, even if the region has exceptional conditions for this kind of event.
I agree with him, Sälen has amazing qualities and I hesitate to discuss the pros and cons with building a mall and an airport in such a sensitive environment. I don’t want to irritate a successful local government official walking around enjoying the development of Sälen and his upcoming life as a pensioner
CHRISTER GRUHS , O-Ringen Week columnist