Saturday, November 19, 2011

Court Approved Non Declaration of Conflict to Interest?

With the first part of the court judgment clearing Garth Hendren of conflict of interest, I say fine but as I posted to the Driftwood article:

Yea, no, I don't buy it. These so called "bullies" were merely attempting to get legal clarity on whether elected officials can set up their own societies and then vote to fund them without declaring their special interest in them. Apparently that's legal now, who knew?

I guess it is open-season on taxpayers who have now been relegated to being a mere ATM of discretionary funds in the hands of our politcians who are now court approved to go forth and multiply their societies ad infinitum.

Thank you petitioners for your valiant efforts on taxpayers' behalf.
The keyword for today is *exasperated* but at least we know one politician who put his balls on the line for taxpayers!

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Yes Minister and cozying up to Entropy

Politicians come and go, convenient fodder for the eyewash we like to call the democratic process but behind the scenes we have the ever-tenacious bureaucrat, planners and consultants with commissions and advisory committees who stay on from election to election. Often unionized there is a set rate of pay with benefits and expense accounts that are simply hardwired to the ever-increasing annual tax requisition with little that any politician can claim to control. Particularly if they are not leadership material.

In our coming election we would be wise to reconsider the commentary of those candidates who express a coziness to become part of this matrix in contrast to leading it. Compromise and concensus are all too often spouted as some kind of ultimate goal when in fact they are just as often the ultimate collusion with mediocre and ineffective solutions, maintaining the status quo and furthering redundancy of yet other levels of governance. We have seen countless examples of our Island Trustees funding redundacy of studies and issues quite outside their land-planning mandate. It is not in our interests as tax payers and it certainly is not in the interest of a community that yearns to grow and evolve towards a more prosperous future.

I would suggest that lack of leadership qualities are most easily assessed when you observe candidates who propose a too compromising concensus of community opinion on decisions that require far more professionalism and leadership. Someone with the audacity to challenge this corrupted notion that somehow the most agreeable decision is the best one when it may simply be more cozy eyewash for masking the entropy of the status quo. Community consultation is only one of many prerequisites to making an effectively sound decision on any given issue and if you are intimidated or cojoled by the process you are not a leader and may as well resign. The worst and most costly decisions are when you let staff overlook things like conflict of interest and opening up the bureaucratic flood-gates before a leader has done their homework.

We say 'we won't be fooled again' yet so many people vote the most 'establishment' candidates everytime! All I can say is look for candidates who really know the 'yes minister' cultural role they will be submerged in and assess whether you think they will understand the full depth of what it means to lead and ultimately rise above this cozy and expensive consensus that results in a community in entropy.

Sometimes you can't vote with your head or your heart but rather rely on your individual gut instincts. Therefore, for what it is worth, I will vote a well-known quantity in former CRD director Dietrich Luth for CRD, and for Islands Trust, most likely Grams while leaning towards Wyatt.