There are a lot of ideas floating around out there about strategies for changing the composition of the Islands Trust with fresh and thoughtful new candidates this fall. I liked the TAG team's book idea that might be used to explain the Islands Trust in layman's terms to the general voting public. If you are part of the non-voting majority who are not 'into' politics, believe me, you would hardly know the role of the CRD, who your MLA is, your MP or what Trustee goes with which bureaucracy, so maybe at least an in-the-mailbox pamphlet of some kind might not be a bad idea.
The hierarchy of governance and the idea that Salt Spring is different and creative enough to come up with something unique is now seen as an almost impossible task without legislative changes at the Provincial level. Despite what former Bowen Island mayor Lisa Barret floated to us during our last incorporation study, the Province's ministers are pretty adament that if we want local change we have to work within the existing Trust/CRD structure.
So what is the best approach? Personally I think ALL ideas should remain on the table since we are now a multi-tasking society. We can accomplish in shorter order any number of things through the existing technological network and in that we are indeed unified.
As the panorama of blogs increase exponetially it is clear that self-expression and networking presents us with the challenging concept that 'disunity can be a force that unifies us', Expressing and sharing what we are thinking and feeling individually benefits an increasing community awareness that reflects on itself. This will result in change for the better simply due to a broader sampling and exposure to diverse opinions.
Afterall, Look at recent events on the island of Iceland!
Oddly enough our 'unified disunity' has inadvertently caused a rethink of important changes to the RAR bylaw 449. It has also observably changed the way our Trustees treat 'we' the rest of the community and exposed deficiencies in a Trust mandate that cannot represent all our needs and services requirements. Neverthless we should still make every attempt to elect candidates who will be onboard with a better balance of environmental, economic and social priorities.
In our particularly rural perspective, from the extreme notion that "you can just get offa ma property' to the more expensive thrust of recent court challenges, we have made it clear that we are not amused by what is happening to our property rights!
Across the spectrum of our intellectual understanding of what we think is needed in governance, sadly bureaucracies epitomize the eternal fight with 'city hall'. I still don't really buy that incorporation would change this dynamic or the cost but a broader mandate of representation is critical at this point.
So be careful all you moths who might choose to fly close to the flame of power, assimulation seems the better part of valour once you are in the driver's seat as an elected representative. The fickle public who thought you were so great to vote in, inevitably will turn and toss you out with barely a thank you. See Obama Optimism 101.
That said I wish to thank our local Trustees for their public service and wish them well in their retirement this fall. I am sure they did the best they could under the circumstances of our broken governance structure, a structure that as yet has no mandate to speak for the economic and social problems we face in the future. No matter who we vote in, we cannot give our Trust representatives powers they don't have, they already presume erroneously to expand their mandate. It's a mandate that needs legislative updating or we need to become a municipality.
Keeping an eye on politics as usual.
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Robots Should Pay Income Tax too!
Off topic... Perhaps it is time that robots paid Income Tax too... I mean, mechanization hardly adds anything to the community otherwise... would it not be fairer to ask robots to pay their fair share too? We are taxed when we work, why shouldn't mechanized robotics contribute too? This is an area where the economy absorbs a bunch of invisible dollars that are no longer circulating in the community, yet the work is still being done... products are still being created... profits are up.
It used to be that more people had day jobs, they left work, stopped off at the grocery store or picked up a new item of clothing or whatever... machines don't do that, they just keep busy producing the stuff we consume and yet why don't they pay an Income Tax on what they are 'earning'? Seems extremely unfair, especially since they would hardly care or notice.
The tax collected could be used to pay people for a lot of evolving new 21st Century jobs that have yet to be acknowledged or compensated for. Like uploading globally accessible data to the Internet, photos, videos, writings etc. ad infinitum. This is obviously the 'new work' so many people are doing and they are adding immensely to our cultural and societal enrichment. Now that the information and content is digital and forever, it has its own intrinsic long term value to all of us who love doing a Google search and benefit from the results.
I think it is time we recognized the time and energy people put into adding to this global database and I think we can fund it by creating an Income Tax for all the robots, all those mechanized entities that earn but don't contribute back to the community.
Afterall it was the promise of the future that we would only have to spend a few hours a day working and the rest of the time doing what we love to do. I say NOW is the time to look at innovative strategies for redefining what "work is" and compensating anyone who is adding something to our cultural enhancement. I certainly appreciate the vast wealth of data I have access to and I hope it grows. An income tax for Robots would provide the funds to eliminate this illusion we have that there is an unemployement problem when in fact people are still working... they are just not getting paid!
We need a new employer, perhaps a "Ministry of Content and Information Dissemination" (actually why not just rename Ministries of Social Services and Unemployement Benefits?). And we do not need further value judgements on the value content and of work whether it is home-making a family or uploading a video for all to enjoy. Work done that benefits others is work that should earn a wage, a minimum wage at least! Extraordinary effort should be rewarded more of course.
It used to be that more people had day jobs, they left work, stopped off at the grocery store or picked up a new item of clothing or whatever... machines don't do that, they just keep busy producing the stuff we consume and yet why don't they pay an Income Tax on what they are 'earning'? Seems extremely unfair, especially since they would hardly care or notice.
The tax collected could be used to pay people for a lot of evolving new 21st Century jobs that have yet to be acknowledged or compensated for. Like uploading globally accessible data to the Internet, photos, videos, writings etc. ad infinitum. This is obviously the 'new work' so many people are doing and they are adding immensely to our cultural and societal enrichment. Now that the information and content is digital and forever, it has its own intrinsic long term value to all of us who love doing a Google search and benefit from the results.
I think it is time we recognized the time and energy people put into adding to this global database and I think we can fund it by creating an Income Tax for all the robots, all those mechanized entities that earn but don't contribute back to the community.
Afterall it was the promise of the future that we would only have to spend a few hours a day working and the rest of the time doing what we love to do. I say NOW is the time to look at innovative strategies for redefining what "work is" and compensating anyone who is adding something to our cultural enhancement. I certainly appreciate the vast wealth of data I have access to and I hope it grows. An income tax for Robots would provide the funds to eliminate this illusion we have that there is an unemployement problem when in fact people are still working... they are just not getting paid!
We need a new employer, perhaps a "Ministry of Content and Information Dissemination" (actually why not just rename Ministries of Social Services and Unemployement Benefits?). And we do not need further value judgements on the value content and of work whether it is home-making a family or uploading a video for all to enjoy. Work done that benefits others is work that should earn a wage, a minimum wage at least! Extraordinary effort should be rewarded more of course.
Sunday, August 7, 2011
Great, yea, super, but...
So the Trustees did manage to pass Bylaw 448 without too much caffuffle, holding a public hearing timed as it was on a beautiful summer evening in August (luckily my car battery had died when I went to try and attend). I think the community can thank the few others who showed up to oppose aspects of this bylaw for coming out and ACTUALLY INFLUENCING our Trustees to change their tune a bit! Thanks Norbert and Drew especially for pleading our case, economic needs and desire to see the Trust work with us as opposed to agin us.
Notwithstanding their compromise, I still believe the Trustees are over-reaching their original land-use planning mandate once a permit to build is acquired. I do no accept nor regard any attempts they make to pass redundant noise bylaws, already covered by the CRD taxes we've paid, or more importantly, who and how many people may be employed in a home-based business. Just how many complaints have warranted the expense to us for this bylaw adventure into social engineering?
Since all my employees are 'virtual' I doubt it will ever affect me personally but I still hope the general public is not just accepting these over-reaching bylaws as anything more than additional, unchallenged, presumptive, Islands Trust policy notions. I think most of us can see that they have stretched themselves pretty thin here trying to make work for themselves and their planners as the Budget clock approaches 3 million tax dollars spent since March 11th...
Attacking businesses like Mr. Blaire Howard's is an unconscionable waste of our tax dollars. It is not Mr. Howard's role to be policing who signs up for his services. If the Trustees feel a property is being rented to vacationers illegally then they should have the responsibility to challenge the land-owner individually, not a business that is merely a liaisoning service and one that indirectly infuses our economy with much needed tourist dollars.
And speaking of extremism, why on earth is this case inconveniently being heard in North Vancouver? Is this the Islands Trust's strategy for keeping individual challenges to a minimum and expenses high for unfortunate individuals caught in their web of mistrust? If so I would say "Bring the Trust Home" so we can all witness their inappropriate spending of our tax dollars while attacking productive members of the community.
When are the Trustees going to stop trying to criminalize, contain and restrain the energy needed for healthy community growth? Would it be asking too much for them to stop imagining worse case scenarios and rather show the community a little Trust? This last bylaw compromise may have seemed like an olive branch but it really only re-inforces the notion that their mandate extends now to internal business operations, employees needed etc. One wonders during the harvest if 10 grape pickers would now be considered 'illegal'?
Notwithstanding their compromise, I still believe the Trustees are over-reaching their original land-use planning mandate once a permit to build is acquired. I do no accept nor regard any attempts they make to pass redundant noise bylaws, already covered by the CRD taxes we've paid, or more importantly, who and how many people may be employed in a home-based business. Just how many complaints have warranted the expense to us for this bylaw adventure into social engineering?
Since all my employees are 'virtual' I doubt it will ever affect me personally but I still hope the general public is not just accepting these over-reaching bylaws as anything more than additional, unchallenged, presumptive, Islands Trust policy notions. I think most of us can see that they have stretched themselves pretty thin here trying to make work for themselves and their planners as the Budget clock approaches 3 million tax dollars spent since March 11th...
Attacking businesses like Mr. Blaire Howard's is an unconscionable waste of our tax dollars. It is not Mr. Howard's role to be policing who signs up for his services. If the Trustees feel a property is being rented to vacationers illegally then they should have the responsibility to challenge the land-owner individually, not a business that is merely a liaisoning service and one that indirectly infuses our economy with much needed tourist dollars.
And speaking of extremism, why on earth is this case inconveniently being heard in North Vancouver? Is this the Islands Trust's strategy for keeping individual challenges to a minimum and expenses high for unfortunate individuals caught in their web of mistrust? If so I would say "Bring the Trust Home" so we can all witness their inappropriate spending of our tax dollars while attacking productive members of the community.
When are the Trustees going to stop trying to criminalize, contain and restrain the energy needed for healthy community growth? Would it be asking too much for them to stop imagining worse case scenarios and rather show the community a little Trust? This last bylaw compromise may have seemed like an olive branch but it really only re-inforces the notion that their mandate extends now to internal business operations, employees needed etc. One wonders during the harvest if 10 grape pickers would now be considered 'illegal'?
Thursday, July 21, 2011
NEW CHAPTER: Hang em and Drown em? Geessh!
This week's Driftwood featured a disturbing accusation, albeit unsubstantiated, by our local Trustee Christine Torgrimson wherein she claims threats of hanging, drowning and being kicked off the island! This is certainly a matter I would hope she has advised the Police of, as they are serious charges against community members and we need to know who precisely is behind such threats... to anyone on this island.
However, Trustee Torgrimson's astute political instincts still seem sufficiently sharp enough to use these vague and unsubstantiated threats to further attempt to divide our community's voices of reason. She seems content with leveling yet more accusations of being ani-Trust and anti-American rather than actually hearing the serious concerns of the local citizenry.
It has been said that we did not reject the Trustee's bylaw 449 because we did not understand it, rather we rejected it because it was convoluted in its definitions and lacked a credible foundation of mapping. It was a blanket approach which did not clarify precisely which lands and fish needed protecting from development.
The Trustee's article goes on at great length to attempt to tie-in bylaw 449 in with a popouri of 'world problems', from the tragedy of 9/11 to attributing 'climate change' to the rainy days we tend to have here on the wetcoast. Unfortunately we are left with an evolving portrait of someone attempting a global perspective (or is that a Google perspective?) yet demonstrating a serious lack of local perception as to what is relevent to our actual community right here.
Too much information in a global information age needs a clear and objective mind and back when Ms. Torgrimson revealed she was worried about "industrial and commercial sprawl" when reviewing Mickey's Coffee Company's application, she was clearly hallucinating a distorted American perspective onto a small island business proposal which was the cleanest, greenest proposal to cross any Trustee's desk in years!
And speaking of this American perspective and her claims of outbursts from people about not being "born in Canada"; as an expatriot American myself, I appreciate and firmly believe that Canadians have a right to ensure that American or any other country's politics do not unduly run or influence local governance. We certainly saw what happened when the Trustees used American municipal pay-rate models to justify their own 100%+ pay-raises in their last budget!
And isn't it interesting how the very discord Trustee Torgrimson complains about is of her own making even within the body of her article? We've all seen how the Trustees, post-Artspring debacle, have continued a mission in the press to fuel disunity. They continue with negative accusations and generalizations about the majority of us who opposed bylaw 449. It has been called "divide and conquer" and we see now first hand how it works, subtle? NOT!
In my opinion the Trustee's July 20th, Driftwood article "Can the community find some common ground?" shows a classic portrait of an overly sensitive, guilt-ridden-sharing, almost evangelical environmentalist who has lost her perspective on local issues and feels threatened by a community that disagrees with her.
Extreme Trustee's hysteria over the problems of the whole planet are simply not what homeowners are paying taxes to support. This little multi-million dollar Trust land-planning committee that Christine and George have been elected to is merely about our local island land use. Any attempt to expand that mandate out to the infinitely eternal nature of the world's problems is a legally questionable waste of our tax dollars!
As much as Trustee Torgrimson's article was supposed to be a plea for finding common ground, it seemed off-the-wall, accusational, continued to demonize opposing opinions and then managed to lay a lather of worldly guilt and uncertainty onto a paradisical part of the world that is pretty removed from such conditions.
Ultimately 10,000 people on Salt Spring Island can do very little to change global climate (assuming we should be tinkering with the weather at all), and even IF we all went back to horse and buggies, how is that going to influence millions of people in New Delhi, New York City, LA or Hong Kong? or their local weather patterns for that matter?
The Trustees seriously compromise their fiduciary responsibility to islanders when they expound on questionable science and then try to design bylaws based on 'world cafes' of environmental opinion. These bylaws are locally binding and affect real people and property values and we certainly did not misunderstand that much about bylaw 449!
PS. No matter how much redirect we see, it is important to keep our eye on the local ball game, the Trust Budget has now spent something to the tune of approx. $2,501,081.82 since March 11th! We need to continue to question the appropriate spending of our tax dollars and any attempt to expand the Trust mandate beyond the original legislation.
However, Trustee Torgrimson's astute political instincts still seem sufficiently sharp enough to use these vague and unsubstantiated threats to further attempt to divide our community's voices of reason. She seems content with leveling yet more accusations of being ani-Trust and anti-American rather than actually hearing the serious concerns of the local citizenry.
It has been said that we did not reject the Trustee's bylaw 449 because we did not understand it, rather we rejected it because it was convoluted in its definitions and lacked a credible foundation of mapping. It was a blanket approach which did not clarify precisely which lands and fish needed protecting from development.
The Trustee's article goes on at great length to attempt to tie-in bylaw 449 in with a popouri of 'world problems', from the tragedy of 9/11 to attributing 'climate change' to the rainy days we tend to have here on the wetcoast. Unfortunately we are left with an evolving portrait of someone attempting a global perspective (or is that a Google perspective?) yet demonstrating a serious lack of local perception as to what is relevent to our actual community right here.
Too much information in a global information age needs a clear and objective mind and back when Ms. Torgrimson revealed she was worried about "industrial and commercial sprawl" when reviewing Mickey's Coffee Company's application, she was clearly hallucinating a distorted American perspective onto a small island business proposal which was the cleanest, greenest proposal to cross any Trustee's desk in years!
And speaking of this American perspective and her claims of outbursts from people about not being "born in Canada"; as an expatriot American myself, I appreciate and firmly believe that Canadians have a right to ensure that American or any other country's politics do not unduly run or influence local governance. We certainly saw what happened when the Trustees used American municipal pay-rate models to justify their own 100%+ pay-raises in their last budget!
And isn't it interesting how the very discord Trustee Torgrimson complains about is of her own making even within the body of her article? We've all seen how the Trustees, post-Artspring debacle, have continued a mission in the press to fuel disunity. They continue with negative accusations and generalizations about the majority of us who opposed bylaw 449. It has been called "divide and conquer" and we see now first hand how it works, subtle? NOT!
In my opinion the Trustee's July 20th, Driftwood article "Can the community find some common ground?" shows a classic portrait of an overly sensitive, guilt-ridden-sharing, almost evangelical environmentalist who has lost her perspective on local issues and feels threatened by a community that disagrees with her.
Extreme Trustee's hysteria over the problems of the whole planet are simply not what homeowners are paying taxes to support. This little multi-million dollar Trust land-planning committee that Christine and George have been elected to is merely about our local island land use. Any attempt to expand that mandate out to the infinitely eternal nature of the world's problems is a legally questionable waste of our tax dollars!
As much as Trustee Torgrimson's article was supposed to be a plea for finding common ground, it seemed off-the-wall, accusational, continued to demonize opposing opinions and then managed to lay a lather of worldly guilt and uncertainty onto a paradisical part of the world that is pretty removed from such conditions.
Ultimately 10,000 people on Salt Spring Island can do very little to change global climate (assuming we should be tinkering with the weather at all), and even IF we all went back to horse and buggies, how is that going to influence millions of people in New Delhi, New York City, LA or Hong Kong? or their local weather patterns for that matter?
The Trustees seriously compromise their fiduciary responsibility to islanders when they expound on questionable science and then try to design bylaws based on 'world cafes' of environmental opinion. These bylaws are locally binding and affect real people and property values and we certainly did not misunderstand that much about bylaw 449!
PS. No matter how much redirect we see, it is important to keep our eye on the local ball game, the Trust Budget has now spent something to the tune of approx. $2,501,081.82 since March 11th! We need to continue to question the appropriate spending of our tax dollars and any attempt to expand the Trust mandate beyond the original legislation.
Friday, July 15, 2011
Forward to the Past?
After listening to the local radio interview with George Ehring and Garth Hendren on the future of Salt Spring I was only mildly amused that for most of the show we heard little about the future besides some foreboding logic that it was going to be really different (duh) but it did not sound like in a good way.
Oddly enough George alluded to the notion that the future of Salt Spring might very well look more like the 'sixties' than anything else... which we were amused to note was before the Trust came into existence!!! Nice one, maybe those really were the good ole days.
The reality is that for all the efforts of the Islands Trust to slow growth in these islands both of our elected representatives admitted that growth patterns here in the islands were pretty much the same as anywhere else and that there was nothing unusual going on. Except when we realize that they would both like to be paid double for guarding our precious drawbridge from potential development in the coming, post-baby boom environment.
Seemed like a lot of double-speak and incoherent logic was spoken by both representatives and for all their intellectual understanding of the machinations of local governance, they still seem, and I would say particularly, George seemed incredulous that anything they are doing or not doing might cause a general public disapproval of their performance.
The fact that George can, with a straight face still stand by his 11th hour flipflop on the Coffee Company decision blows the proverbial mind. Such a trigger issue as that one can not be just swept under the rug and forgotten in a 'nameless' reference. Saying "we approve 95 percent of business applications" without qualifying how many have been submitted is pretty suspicious math too I might add.
How many complaints about Vacation Rentals are worth all the legal fees we as tax payers are going to have to pay (over $100,000?, $200,000?) for yet another example of Trustees attacking a local business and venturing into social engineering. These Trustees are way over the top in disturbing the otherwise peaceful tranquility of this wonderful paradise.
Now, unsatisfied with a summer respite from their horrendous bylaw 449, their attempts to test legalizing a few rental suites will surely be encouraging the chosen few that are made legal to 'anonymously' snitch on those which remain competitively illegal. Can anyone else see that this will only result in more divisiveness and acrimony?
THEN... when people complain, they will be demonized as anti-Trust when it is the Trustees who demonstrate time and again that they simply don't trust us!
Oddly enough George alluded to the notion that the future of Salt Spring might very well look more like the 'sixties' than anything else... which we were amused to note was before the Trust came into existence!!! Nice one, maybe those really were the good ole days.
The reality is that for all the efforts of the Islands Trust to slow growth in these islands both of our elected representatives admitted that growth patterns here in the islands were pretty much the same as anywhere else and that there was nothing unusual going on. Except when we realize that they would both like to be paid double for guarding our precious drawbridge from potential development in the coming, post-baby boom environment.
Seemed like a lot of double-speak and incoherent logic was spoken by both representatives and for all their intellectual understanding of the machinations of local governance, they still seem, and I would say particularly, George seemed incredulous that anything they are doing or not doing might cause a general public disapproval of their performance.
The fact that George can, with a straight face still stand by his 11th hour flipflop on the Coffee Company decision blows the proverbial mind. Such a trigger issue as that one can not be just swept under the rug and forgotten in a 'nameless' reference. Saying "we approve 95 percent of business applications" without qualifying how many have been submitted is pretty suspicious math too I might add.
How many complaints about Vacation Rentals are worth all the legal fees we as tax payers are going to have to pay (over $100,000?, $200,000?) for yet another example of Trustees attacking a local business and venturing into social engineering. These Trustees are way over the top in disturbing the otherwise peaceful tranquility of this wonderful paradise.
Now, unsatisfied with a summer respite from their horrendous bylaw 449, their attempts to test legalizing a few rental suites will surely be encouraging the chosen few that are made legal to 'anonymously' snitch on those which remain competitively illegal. Can anyone else see that this will only result in more divisiveness and acrimony?
THEN... when people complain, they will be demonized as anti-Trust when it is the Trustees who demonstrate time and again that they simply don't trust us!
Monday, July 11, 2011
Sequester the Islands Trust?.
The Provincial Liberal Government should realize that the Islands Trust, (once defined as merely an associated NDP agency of the Provincial Ministry of Municipal Affairs), has gained an extreme, autonomous independence from Provincial control. And they appear to have done so directly proportionate to reductions in Provincial funding over the years. What was once an over 95% Provincially funded entity has, over the years, completely reversed proportion of responsibility onto Gulf Islands taxpayers with the Province hardly contributing anything anymore!
Should we not as taxpayers be asking the Province to step back into funding the Trust's budget? Certainly the Province should at least acknowledge accountability and control of the Islands Trust budget and they should do so for fiduciary reasons on behalf of all those British Columbians the Trust was created to protect these fair lands. The Province has a responsibility to regain the reins of Governance from an independent NDP entity that is not actually mandated to govern, particularly in an unincorporated district where the decentralized costs of services and redundant bylaws can otherwise run wild.
Under the original agreement, the Islands Trust Act legislation was created to simply advise on matters of environmental concerns and only later on was it given its limited mandate to serve as a land-planning function through its Local Trust Committees. That certainly does not provide a balance of local government services worthy of the name governance.
Clearly as the Province has stepped back from its responsibility, the 26 Island-wide Trustee's have had free range to squander tax dollars for years on all manner of issues quite outside their land planning function. While it may have served the Trustees well in increasing their self-proclaimed 'governance' power base and bureaucracy, I'd wager they have done so at our expense and to the detriment of our fragile local island economies.
The pattern of performance we see now is less service, fewer and fewer development permit approvals, undefined guidelines within application requirements, 100% non-refundable fees and a recent bylaw 449 suggestion that homeowners might be responsible to fund their own mapping of waterways on their properties! All this less service with more regulation along with increased budgets year after year is quite unacceptible, no?
Add up the millions of dollars spent on annual Trust budgets since 1974 ask yourselves what have we got to show for it? Has the Trust purchased one tree?, one acre of land?, saved one molecule of clean air?, one degree of so-called global warming? Nada. The Salt Spring Conservancy has a better organizational track record for that and they do it all through donations! Imagine if we gave them our millions.
ONE POSSIBLE SOLUTION IF WE DON'T GET A PROVINCIAL REVIEW
As a unified group of island Canadians and British Columbians we should consider, after the debacle of the Salt Spring Coffee Company decision and this last RAR bylaw fiasco, that the Islands Trust may need to be sequestered through a court action brought against it by island taxpayers. The charge might be two-fold; a charge of fiduciary mis-management of our money, inadvertently affecting our local island economies, and a constitutional challenge to the presumption that they are a local government where none can legally exist in an unincorporated district.
Afterall, since when is a single-function, associated agency of the Provincial Ministry of Municipal Affairs, a bonified local government? 'Elected' Trustees do not define a Trust as a Government no matter how many times you let it roll off your tongue, and ultimately the Province should not be allowed to stretch the definition either!
The reality is that since the inception of the NDP legislation that created the Islands Trust Act in 1974, the Islands Trust is no longer perceived by many island residents as acting in the interests of residents but rather in the interests of expanding its own power base and bureaucracy.
Of course to add insult to injury, our tax dollars are used against us in funding organizations and advisory commitees that result in an increasingly regulatory rural lifestyle. In many respects we fund their legal fights with those of us who resist their often innane policies and bylaws. Policies and bylaws I might add, that easily target the little guy and simply do not apply to the real and larger environmental culprits! What up with that?
Once again I have to apologise for the length of this entry, it is a complex issue.
Should we not as taxpayers be asking the Province to step back into funding the Trust's budget? Certainly the Province should at least acknowledge accountability and control of the Islands Trust budget and they should do so for fiduciary reasons on behalf of all those British Columbians the Trust was created to protect these fair lands. The Province has a responsibility to regain the reins of Governance from an independent NDP entity that is not actually mandated to govern, particularly in an unincorporated district where the decentralized costs of services and redundant bylaws can otherwise run wild.
Under the original agreement, the Islands Trust Act legislation was created to simply advise on matters of environmental concerns and only later on was it given its limited mandate to serve as a land-planning function through its Local Trust Committees. That certainly does not provide a balance of local government services worthy of the name governance.
Clearly as the Province has stepped back from its responsibility, the 26 Island-wide Trustee's have had free range to squander tax dollars for years on all manner of issues quite outside their land planning function. While it may have served the Trustees well in increasing their self-proclaimed 'governance' power base and bureaucracy, I'd wager they have done so at our expense and to the detriment of our fragile local island economies.
The pattern of performance we see now is less service, fewer and fewer development permit approvals, undefined guidelines within application requirements, 100% non-refundable fees and a recent bylaw 449 suggestion that homeowners might be responsible to fund their own mapping of waterways on their properties! All this less service with more regulation along with increased budgets year after year is quite unacceptible, no?
Add up the millions of dollars spent on annual Trust budgets since 1974 ask yourselves what have we got to show for it? Has the Trust purchased one tree?, one acre of land?, saved one molecule of clean air?, one degree of so-called global warming? Nada. The Salt Spring Conservancy has a better organizational track record for that and they do it all through donations! Imagine if we gave them our millions.
ONE POSSIBLE SOLUTION IF WE DON'T GET A PROVINCIAL REVIEW
As a unified group of island Canadians and British Columbians we should consider, after the debacle of the Salt Spring Coffee Company decision and this last RAR bylaw fiasco, that the Islands Trust may need to be sequestered through a court action brought against it by island taxpayers. The charge might be two-fold; a charge of fiduciary mis-management of our money, inadvertently affecting our local island economies, and a constitutional challenge to the presumption that they are a local government where none can legally exist in an unincorporated district.
Afterall, since when is a single-function, associated agency of the Provincial Ministry of Municipal Affairs, a bonified local government? 'Elected' Trustees do not define a Trust as a Government no matter how many times you let it roll off your tongue, and ultimately the Province should not be allowed to stretch the definition either!
The reality is that since the inception of the NDP legislation that created the Islands Trust Act in 1974, the Islands Trust is no longer perceived by many island residents as acting in the interests of residents but rather in the interests of expanding its own power base and bureaucracy.
Of course to add insult to injury, our tax dollars are used against us in funding organizations and advisory commitees that result in an increasingly regulatory rural lifestyle. In many respects we fund their legal fights with those of us who resist their often innane policies and bylaws. Policies and bylaws I might add, that easily target the little guy and simply do not apply to the real and larger environmental culprits! What up with that?
Once again I have to apologise for the length of this entry, it is a complex issue.
Friday, July 8, 2011
Watch For Clones
It bears repeating a mantra that the 1996 Marcano and Clarke Expedition to find the Object of the Trust came up with... at election time we should once again "Watch for Clones".
It is also important as I learned on this evening's radio broadcast of Trust Matters (AKA "The Troublemakers") that we all need to avoid referencing the faceless entity organization we know of as the Islands Trust and rather begin referring more directly to the politicians themselves.
If we want change it is the Trustees that wield the power of the brush and it is they we should be addressing and attributing responsibility. For instance in Volume 1 of our Community Plan... section A.9.1 reads: “This plan can be amended by the Trust Committee at its own initiative...” I never thought that was such a great clause but maybe it has some merit if the right Trustee takes the initiative to create a little balance in their bylaws.
Also, when I send feedback via the Islands Trust website to a Trustee, the submission form asks if I would like an email response, having clicked yes... the silence has been long and deafening even though I am generally my usual cordial self, albeit critical of Trust policies, yet so far never a response to a genuine submission. hmmmmm, perhaps I will try a form letter ;-) Knock Knock who's there?
It is also important as I learned on this evening's radio broadcast of Trust Matters (AKA "The Troublemakers") that we all need to avoid referencing the faceless entity organization we know of as the Islands Trust and rather begin referring more directly to the politicians themselves.
If we want change it is the Trustees that wield the power of the brush and it is they we should be addressing and attributing responsibility. For instance in Volume 1 of our Community Plan... section A.9.1 reads: “This plan can be amended by the Trust Committee at its own initiative...” I never thought that was such a great clause but maybe it has some merit if the right Trustee takes the initiative to create a little balance in their bylaws.
Also, when I send feedback via the Islands Trust website to a Trustee, the submission form asks if I would like an email response, having clicked yes... the silence has been long and deafening even though I am generally my usual cordial self, albeit critical of Trust policies, yet so far never a response to a genuine submission. hmmmmm, perhaps I will try a form letter ;-) Knock Knock who's there?
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Trust gets the feedback they deserve: Mostly form letters?... pfft.
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.
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.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
In a Nutshell
The Salt Spring Chamber of Commerce has put the Trust's proposed bylaw into a clear and concise context: "The legislation as now written will cut a wide swath across service industry workers and substantially impact jobs on the island. This will further differentiate and stratify economic and social classes, negatively impacting the social welfare and fabric of the island".
We the residents applaud these insights and are gratified that more and more organizations are speaking up on issues of local governance and well they should in our unincorporated district. It is our Chamber of Commerce, the Conservancy and Social housing groups who are all part of a balanced perspective that can harmonize the community around sound Economic, Social and Environmental principles. The Islands Trust is but a small part of the total picture of local governance and should stop demonstrating otherwise.
We the residents applaud these insights and are gratified that more and more organizations are speaking up on issues of local governance and well they should in our unincorporated district. It is our Chamber of Commerce, the Conservancy and Social housing groups who are all part of a balanced perspective that can harmonize the community around sound Economic, Social and Environmental principles. The Islands Trust is but a small part of the total picture of local governance and should stop demonstrating otherwise.
FEAR: A Predictable Trust Redirect away from their failed bylaw.
Lest anyone presume otherwise I don't dislike the police, among other valuable services, they protect our property rights and civil liberties, unlike the Islands Trust who show a continued propensity to trample on those rights.
Further to the issue of a unique police presence at the last meeting (and I am not suggesting the Trust called the police themselves), the Islands Trust chair certainly made no diffusive efforts to ask the police to wait outside with their guns. She thus could have assured the attending public that this was NOT a 'dangerous to be at' public meeting. In fact the Trustees and their followers have predictably gone on in interviews with the press (watch and see tomorrow's Driftwood focus) to promote the fear factor that "some people felt unsafe" when in fact the only unsafe feeling people have had regarding this bylaw's distortion of the RARs is the threat it has to jobs, property rights and costs to homeowners!
Remember, that with the removal of the defining words "fish bearing" in the Trust's version of the original Provincial legislation, the Trust has effectively defined all trickles, rivulets and waterways, ditches etc. ad naseum as 'protected wetlands of some kind'. The absurdity of this and the impression the Trust promotes that those opposing this bylaw are somehow dangerous or a threat to the community safety. That is what I really dislike.
We can now all see from Trustee Malcomson's statements in the Times Colonist that the Trust wasted no time in getting out to promote the fear factor predictably wanting to redirect attention from their failing bylaw, only to try and marginalize people opposed to it as being Trust bashers to be feared.
But you know what? we who oppose this bylaw are still part of the greater community at peace, living in paradise. Perhaps we are only the silent majority waking up to find that we've allowed a small group (who can attend 1:00 PM Trust meetings when everyone is at work), to speak anonymously, off-camera on our behalf for far too long.
We are no threat, in fact many of us are normally of the laisse-faire crowd when it comes to regulations and yes, we get offended that we would be characterized as unruly for speaking out about our concerns, whether it is this bylaw or another, that is what we dislike.
Further to the issue of a unique police presence at the last meeting (and I am not suggesting the Trust called the police themselves), the Islands Trust chair certainly made no diffusive efforts to ask the police to wait outside with their guns. She thus could have assured the attending public that this was NOT a 'dangerous to be at' public meeting. In fact the Trustees and their followers have predictably gone on in interviews with the press (watch and see tomorrow's Driftwood focus) to promote the fear factor that "some people felt unsafe" when in fact the only unsafe feeling people have had regarding this bylaw's distortion of the RARs is the threat it has to jobs, property rights and costs to homeowners!
Remember, that with the removal of the defining words "fish bearing" in the Trust's version of the original Provincial legislation, the Trust has effectively defined all trickles, rivulets and waterways, ditches etc. ad naseum as 'protected wetlands of some kind'. The absurdity of this and the impression the Trust promotes that those opposing this bylaw are somehow dangerous or a threat to the community safety. That is what I really dislike.
We can now all see from Trustee Malcomson's statements in the Times Colonist that the Trust wasted no time in getting out to promote the fear factor predictably wanting to redirect attention from their failing bylaw, only to try and marginalize people opposed to it as being Trust bashers to be feared.
But you know what? we who oppose this bylaw are still part of the greater community at peace, living in paradise. Perhaps we are only the silent majority waking up to find that we've allowed a small group (who can attend 1:00 PM Trust meetings when everyone is at work), to speak anonymously, off-camera on our behalf for far too long.
We are no threat, in fact many of us are normally of the laisse-faire crowd when it comes to regulations and yes, we get offended that we would be characterized as unruly for speaking out about our concerns, whether it is this bylaw or another, that is what we dislike.
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