Community offended by Police presence at Trust meetings!

It is an absolute outrage that the Islands Trust would allow police to intimidate community free speech in a publically funded forum!!! One can't help but reflect back on the Ehring Bunker Video on YouTube and wonder if it was not in fact a preview of things to come. Anyone on either side of the Islands Trust debate who is not outraged by this blatant display of police authority to intimidate community debate is seriously somnombulent and oblivious of basic civil liberties in a free and open democracy. Of course it remains to be found out as to who actually called the police to be at this meeting? Do they usually go to Trust meetings?



AND BY THE WAY: None of the so-called video rules the Trust attempts to convey apply to publically funded meetings. If someone is out in the public domain they should be expected to be captured by any number of recording devices. If I am capturing video for personal use to share with friends and family who cannot attend meetings, it would be ludicrous not to record the person speaking. We are perfectly at liberty to video tape anyone at a public meeting and the courts will support that in a democracy. I urge videographers archiving these meetings to capture the speakers too, otherwise we have no way of knowing without body language just what the total communication picture is. Besides, the Trustees are not what these meetings are about, it is about the community and its right to speak freely.

Yesterday's overflow of people concerned about bylaw 449 should have been treated with more respect and the Trust and its followers should realise there is afterall a community outside their little private club. But what I found most interesting is that islanders en masse somehow have managed by sheer numbers to delay passage of this unpopular "Salt Spring customization" of the Provincial RAR. Unfortunately now that the meeting has been moved to 10:00 AM Saturday at the school gymnasium, the likelihood of overflowing that venue with over 700 people does not seem likely... but who knows? In principle I would not have thought 'showing up" for a meeting would be so strategically affective... hmmmm --- but again it is important to realize that the Islands Trust has always promoted a peculiar silence at their meetings which according to Robert's Rules ensures that they get the consent they are look for.

Silence is always taken as consent so speak up, write in, demonstrate how you feel or forever hold your peace and of course silently pay ever higher fees and taxes!

Police at Trust Meetings now? what next? jail for videographers? Geesh.