Islands Trust chair Sheila Malcolmson at times reveals a certain disdain for the public process through a generally condenscending demeanor at meetings and in particular, her extremely transparent, read-between-the-lines public statements.
Recently the Islands Tides, wrote in another read-between-the-lines fashion, that "The Local Trust Committee has received 30 individual letters in favour of the bylaw and 60 letters (mostly form letters) against it". "Form letters" commented Malcomson "are less helpful for understanding the issues".
Of course we have all seen plenty of form letters promoted by both supporters and non-supporters of this bylaw 449.While I am not personally partial to form letters, for many people they simply help encapsulate issues for them and offer a legitimate articulation for how they feel regardless of their own writing skills. Given that the Islands Trust and Trust Council has more than amply demonstrated that they look at public feedback not on the basis of its content but rather whether it is simply a yea or ney, well, let's face it, a form letter may be about as much effort as anyone should bother with when communicating with this legislative aberration.
Who knows what it is?, what exactly can it be in an unincorporated district? Is a Trust a Trust or a body of governance by committee?, is a ditch a stream and visa versa? We still await a Provincial Review of the Trust Act to help us out here. Me thinks it is just another overblown committee.
The number seems skewed since I personally dropped off over 100 signed form letters against the RAR
ReplyDeleteJohn Quesnel
Hehe I will assume you did not sign all of them yourself John ;-) --- Sheila's comment that "form letters are less helpful for understanding the issues" is basically saying that they have a natural bias to those who can write articulate commentary on complex issues.
ReplyDeleteShe pretty much dismisses form letters not realizing as we recently saw with the turnout at Artspring that for every letter they get it translates into roughly 20 people willing to turn up, let alone those of us who simply abhor their meetings and find other ways to discover out what they are up to!
At the LTC meeting today Sheila stated that she was misquoted and that the 60 was a percentage against with 20% being for the bylaw and 10% expressing questions. I'm still missing 10% but what really concerns me is how dismissive she was regarding the form letters. To me if people are working and don't have the time or the skills to articulate their feelings in a educated manner this is a good option for them to express feelings one way or the other. Its about the message not the medium. In order to write a strong argument one would need to invest a considerable amount of time and energy reading the trust bylaws and further to that you would also need to read the local government act, the community charter, and in this instance the Riparian Area Regulation just to start. The more you read the more you realize that there are so many over lapping regulations that it makes it very difficult to keep it all in order. I've now read over 60 acts and regulations both Provincial and Federal and it is daunting and extremly time consuming. Having spoken to many people for and against it suprises me how few people have opinions about this bylaw but have never read the supporting documents you'd have needed to read to be able to fully understand the ramifications of this monster.
ReplyDeleteJohn Quesnel
Salt Spring Metal Recycling
You must have a cast iron stomach for LTC meetings but I totally agree with you John. It is frustrating to go to all the bother of getting to know the issues, then writing thoughful critiques and suggestions only to find that the Trustees are secretly just logging your submission as either for or against. Rarely do you hear quotes from submissions or get any acknowledgement that they even read submissions in any kind of cognitive fashion. They certainly do not appear to respond to much more than what they like to characterize as the community's brute presence when we all just can't take their crap any more. I hope this bylaw 449 dies on the vine until new Trustees are voted in this fall.
ReplyDelete"I hope this bylaw 449 dies on the vine"
ReplyDeleteYour wish has been granted! thanks to the efforts of many activated citizens and the blog writers who have provided a forum for we "others".