I would not have imagined when I started the POSSE blog that we as a community would actually need a POSSE! One that would go after issues that were more than ideological extremism.
This latest fiasco regarding our elected officals appearing to fund their own organizations without declaring their conflict of interest in being members of those same organizations is most egregious. It takes the debate out of the ideological and philosophical disagreements we may have into a terribly legal and ethical divergence. We have never really had to challenge or debate our elected officials on an ethical issue quite as blatantly as what appears to have transpired.
It is a painful community process for a lot of us who at least respected our differences without tending to question the trust we put in our elected representatives' legal and ethical positions or their moral character. We did afterall have a basic trust that our officials were working within legal paramters on our behalf, even if they were a little camera-shy.
Our fundamental trust may unfortunately have been broken with recent revelations. We can either confront the ramifications of not demanding the highest standards for our political representatives or we can take their position, and sweep it under the rug as just an innocent, good samaritan effort made to fund societies with legitimate and beneficial agendas.
I don't think we have the liberty of that kind of choice here. It is a very slippery slope to set any kind of precedent that would endorse such a blatant, conflict of interest modus operendi to prevail. It is just too fraught with all manner of possible consequences for abuse and gaming the system which is why the laws for politicians and organizations are there in the first place.
The problem with just looking at the good works of the Trustees' societies and disregarding the conflict of interest in their decision to self-fund them with tax dollars is that pet projects are often just that, pet projects. And in the case of something still controversial like a "Climate Action Council" one has to acknowledge that some of us simply reject the politically correct notion that the "debate is over" regarding who or what changes the climate on the planet Earth. Notwithstanding, the Federal and Provincial governments already fund 'climate change' research from our taxes which means the Trustees are yet again demonstrating their redundancy in budgeting funds for areas quite outside their land planning mandate.
The bottom line is 'good works' and claiming to have no idea the community had any objections to 'undeclared conflict of interest' voting procedures is more than naive, hardly appears innocent, and when it comes to spending our money, irresponsible to deny the accusation and force expensive legal action.
Any Trustee worthy of the name would have immediately apologised and acknowledged at least the perception of a conflict of interest. They should have rescinded the grants, possibly resigned from the Trust and/or the societies in question and then maybe had the societies re-apply for funding after they were out of office.
The events as depicted, taint both the Island Trust and the societies they helped to found.
Keeping an eye on politics as usual.
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Well what else could they possibly have said?
If ignorance of basic, common sense, conflict of interest law is in fact the excuse the Trustees and Mr. Hendren are falling back on (predictable actually) then it only tells the community just how deep the problem may be engrained in our broken governance model. Surely re-imbursement and a complete Trust-Wide review/audit should be the least the courts decide to do.
It is outrageously simplistic to say 'I did not know', when all three of our elected officials are clearly professionals and indeed should know the basics of conflict of interest rules regarding tax payers' money and their fiduciary responsiblities. It is difficult to imagine they are choosing to act so intellectually ignorant, like children caught with their hands in the cookie jar and it sounds like close to $50,000 worth of cookies too! Unbelievable!
It will surely be interesting to see who among the current crop of candidates come out in support of this kind of did-not-know-it-was-a conflict of interest. eeaaahhhtttt sorry, wrong answer Trustees and Hendren. Good luck with that one. Their little redirect that the community should have said something, well, how about declaring your conflict of interest up front and put the requests for funds on the agenda in advance so we could comment hmmmm? - the gall!
AND THEN to go further and say this is going to cost us to go to court to defend their ignorance? We can only hope that it will save us money in the long run by upholding the precident that this is NOT acceptable behaviour from our elected officials!
Thank you petitioners for bringing to the light of day this kind of blantant disregard for fundamental political principles of right and wrong. Clearly this demonstrates why the community has a right to have tax payer funded meetings videotaped. Once again thank you Jill Treewater for your perseverence in recording for posterity meetings few have time to attend.
Dismayed and concerned for Salt Spring's future. :(
It is outrageously simplistic to say 'I did not know', when all three of our elected officials are clearly professionals and indeed should know the basics of conflict of interest rules regarding tax payers' money and their fiduciary responsiblities. It is difficult to imagine they are choosing to act so intellectually ignorant, like children caught with their hands in the cookie jar and it sounds like close to $50,000 worth of cookies too! Unbelievable!
It will surely be interesting to see who among the current crop of candidates come out in support of this kind of did-not-know-it-was-a conflict of interest. eeaaahhhtttt sorry, wrong answer Trustees and Hendren. Good luck with that one. Their little redirect that the community should have said something, well, how about declaring your conflict of interest up front and put the requests for funds on the agenda in advance so we could comment hmmmm? - the gall!
AND THEN to go further and say this is going to cost us to go to court to defend their ignorance? We can only hope that it will save us money in the long run by upholding the precident that this is NOT acceptable behaviour from our elected officials!
Thank you petitioners for bringing to the light of day this kind of blantant disregard for fundamental political principles of right and wrong. Clearly this demonstrates why the community has a right to have tax payer funded meetings videotaped. Once again thank you Jill Treewater for your perseverence in recording for posterity meetings few have time to attend.
Dismayed and concerned for Salt Spring's future. :(
Saturday, October 15, 2011
This is not a Witch Hunt!
It may behove those crying 'witch hunt' to maybe re-read the 'facts' at www.islandstrust.org where former Trustee Eric Booth has done an exemplary and objective profile on this issue. But look, I have to agree with George Erhing's 1988 quote "The rules are the rules. You will follow them and we will honour you. Break them and you are dust we kick from our cleats. You get what you deserve".
Certainly true in cases where your actions affect other people (and their taxes) , problem is with those victimless crimes like drinking alcohol or smoking pot after a solid day's work, relax and float downstream and all that...
But recent events at LTC meetings where video evidence appears to show a propensity to allocate tax payers' funds to pet projects that the Trustees themselves are directors and beneficiaries of is quite another matter! And it is not about highways paved with golden intentions here, it is about the fundamental precident it sets for disregarding conflict of interest protocals and that is all that is being addressed in the court action being brought against our local politicians.
If they are convicted, I think George's 1988 view holds and both Trustees probably would have to accept the consequences of their actions and hopefully apologise, possibly resign immediately, all in good faith... and return the money of course. He and Christine can re-apply once they are out of office, the Trust is still going to be generous to its friends with our money. Conflict of Interest law is pretty straight forward and I am rather surprised our politicians chose to look the other way when it was staring them right in the face. Just saying.
It will be interesting to see who comes out to support this kind of disregard for conflict of interest and I agree with Mr. Buckwald it will happen under a municipal model as well... human nature is what it is.
I am just suggesting that a more centralized governance at least gives tax payers one roof under which to monitor fiduciary impropriety. Imagine the job of monitoring what we have now? It is all over the map and it is getting very expensive to manage as islanders. No witch hunt here... no need to hunt in fact, it is all happening in broad daylight.
The citizens launching this court action are to be commended for paying attention to our political process, the players, and how our tax dollars are spent. Most of us are way too busy in our daily jobs to have the energy to scutinize what goes on in meetings held at 1:00pm in the afternoon. We can certainly thank Jill Treewater for keeping at least a video record of these meetings, otherwise how would we have ever known or had the evidence of what is happening at these meetings?
Let's not forget how the Trustees so fervently tried to ban video taping at publicly funded meetings.
Certainly true in cases where your actions affect other people (and their taxes) , problem is with those victimless crimes like drinking alcohol or smoking pot after a solid day's work, relax and float downstream and all that...
But recent events at LTC meetings where video evidence appears to show a propensity to allocate tax payers' funds to pet projects that the Trustees themselves are directors and beneficiaries of is quite another matter! And it is not about highways paved with golden intentions here, it is about the fundamental precident it sets for disregarding conflict of interest protocals and that is all that is being addressed in the court action being brought against our local politicians.
If they are convicted, I think George's 1988 view holds and both Trustees probably would have to accept the consequences of their actions and hopefully apologise, possibly resign immediately, all in good faith... and return the money of course. He and Christine can re-apply once they are out of office, the Trust is still going to be generous to its friends with our money. Conflict of Interest law is pretty straight forward and I am rather surprised our politicians chose to look the other way when it was staring them right in the face. Just saying.
It will be interesting to see who comes out to support this kind of disregard for conflict of interest and I agree with Mr. Buckwald it will happen under a municipal model as well... human nature is what it is.
I am just suggesting that a more centralized governance at least gives tax payers one roof under which to monitor fiduciary impropriety. Imagine the job of monitoring what we have now? It is all over the map and it is getting very expensive to manage as islanders. No witch hunt here... no need to hunt in fact, it is all happening in broad daylight.
The citizens launching this court action are to be commended for paying attention to our political process, the players, and how our tax dollars are spent. Most of us are way too busy in our daily jobs to have the energy to scutinize what goes on in meetings held at 1:00pm in the afternoon. We can certainly thank Jill Treewater for keeping at least a video record of these meetings, otherwise how would we have ever known or had the evidence of what is happening at these meetings?
Let's not forget how the Trustees so fervently tried to ban video taping at publicly funded meetings.
Friday, October 14, 2011
Flame burns Moths...
It would seem the flames of easily accessible taxpayer cash funneled by our politicians to various pet projects, set up by these self-same local politicians may have been too easy to resist.
It is actually not a bad little financial scheme, not quite a ponzy scheme but it certainly seems to work multiple times.
First, you start a pet project on a topical fad like Al Gore's 'climate change', you make informal application and motions at a Local Trust Committee yourself because you are not only the representive chair of the pet project but conveniently, the elected Trust representative too, then you say things like 'no problem we have done this before' and speak about the project in glowing third person terms... "they this and they that', don't post it as an agenda item to advise the public, wait for an LTC meeting that is almost devoid of an audience, (after making them the most boring events ever) then slam bam thank you taxpayer, you vote yourselves the cash with barely a discussion or sign of even an application with details as to deliverables.
It is all very nice, TRUSTEE <> CASH <> PET PROJECT <> ADVISORY REPORT <> TRUSTEE and then it all appears to loop back for another dip into the bottomless cash pot at our expense! Yes very nice indeed...NOT!!!
I am sure we can look forward to the double-speak explanations. Cries that this is some kind of witch hunt and various other redirects down the highway of 'good intentions'.
One wonders how the basics of their civic understanding of 'conflict of interest' emblazened in their own pet project rules (article 13) could have been stretched to rationalize such lack of fiduciary behaviour?
Not to mention that we have all wondered why the Islands Trust budget has been ballooning year after year after year to almost $7,000,000 million???? The Trust is a simple land-planning function for crying out loud, that's it, and it is commanding a municipal sized budget? (Check Trust Budget Clock top right)
Well if any of these allegations are true, heads should roll before the election this fall and they should roll rather quickly if the video evidence for all to see is as matter-of-fact as it looks, not to mention cheques cashed, recent 2011 dates of the formation of these pet projects and who knows how far this house of cards will fall!
Folks, Salt Spring has come of age, we really need to move towards a Municipal model of governance and centralize our services and tax expenditures. All of these little groups are going to be impossible to monitor and hold accountible for the tax money they absorb and now if true, some of them seem to in effect be simply giving cash to themselves!!
Unbelievable if true and certainly unconscionable!
They always say "follow the money trail", ideological differences aside, this latest news is just sad and embarrassing for our community political persona.
It is actually not a bad little financial scheme, not quite a ponzy scheme but it certainly seems to work multiple times.
First, you start a pet project on a topical fad like Al Gore's 'climate change', you make informal application and motions at a Local Trust Committee yourself because you are not only the representive chair of the pet project but conveniently, the elected Trust representative too, then you say things like 'no problem we have done this before' and speak about the project in glowing third person terms... "they this and they that', don't post it as an agenda item to advise the public, wait for an LTC meeting that is almost devoid of an audience, (after making them the most boring events ever) then slam bam thank you taxpayer, you vote yourselves the cash with barely a discussion or sign of even an application with details as to deliverables.
It is all very nice, TRUSTEE <> CASH <> PET PROJECT <> ADVISORY REPORT <> TRUSTEE and then it all appears to loop back for another dip into the bottomless cash pot at our expense! Yes very nice indeed...NOT!!!
I am sure we can look forward to the double-speak explanations. Cries that this is some kind of witch hunt and various other redirects down the highway of 'good intentions'.
One wonders how the basics of their civic understanding of 'conflict of interest' emblazened in their own pet project rules (article 13) could have been stretched to rationalize such lack of fiduciary behaviour?
Not to mention that we have all wondered why the Islands Trust budget has been ballooning year after year after year to almost $7,000,000 million???? The Trust is a simple land-planning function for crying out loud, that's it, and it is commanding a municipal sized budget? (Check Trust Budget Clock top right)
Well if any of these allegations are true, heads should roll before the election this fall and they should roll rather quickly if the video evidence for all to see is as matter-of-fact as it looks, not to mention cheques cashed, recent 2011 dates of the formation of these pet projects and who knows how far this house of cards will fall!
Folks, Salt Spring has come of age, we really need to move towards a Municipal model of governance and centralize our services and tax expenditures. All of these little groups are going to be impossible to monitor and hold accountible for the tax money they absorb and now if true, some of them seem to in effect be simply giving cash to themselves!!
Unbelievable if true and certainly unconscionable!
They always say "follow the money trail", ideological differences aside, this latest news is just sad and embarrassing for our community political persona.
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Like Moths to the Flame
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.
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.
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.
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