I am NOT anonymous

I apologise in advance to non-Salt Spring readers –this article is about Salt Spring politics you may want to skip ahead to the next post…

I attended the Salt Spring All Candidates meeting last night (thanks to the Driftwood and all the candidates for making this happen).  There was a comment towards the end about how difficult it is to respond to anonymous comments posted on various websites, and that prompted me to respond.

The only reason I was anonymous last night was that I could not get into the auditorium for the first part of the meeting and was so far down the line up for the second part I did not get to speak.  So instead I am going to speak up here.

My name is Duncan Elsey and this is a personal blog belonging to myself and my wife.  It documents some of our Salt Spring Adventures.  We do not normally ‘do politics’ here and the opinions expressed are purely my own.

My time on Salt Spring roughly corresponds to the current term of the Trust.  I was supportive of the outgoing trustees at the last election, I am not a member of ISG or any other pro-incorporation or anti-trust group and I believe in the protect and preserve mandate.  And yet my overriding feeling on the last few years of local government is one of disappointment.

In this time I saw Salt Spring Coffee leave the Island.  Much has been written and said about this and I do not want to rehash it here.  But for me even worse than the complete lack of open and transparent process is the fact that my local government cannot advocate for appropriate sustainable local business and commerce – it’s simply not in their mandate.  I have never lived anywhere else where local government does not get involved building a healthy local economy.  I am not suggesting that we should be inviting Wal-Mart to the island, but without appropriate local business and commerce we will have no future on the island.

Not long after this the Trust launched a heavy handed, impersonal and mis-managed assault on a large number of local bed a breakfast owners.  Again I do not want to re-tread old ground – I spoke out in person against this at the LTC meeting and you can see the content on my address here or read  a summary here.  As well as the failure of the Trust to deal with property owners in a personal and compassionate way, there was also a complete misinterpretation and misrepresentation of the content of our land use bylaws.  It was also apparent in the LTC meeting that there was little knowledge on the part of the trustees as to what was going on.  This points to a lack of transparent and documented processes for land use issues, not to mention a lack of accountability and oversight within the Trust.

Even now the Trust is spending tax payer’s money on pursuing West Coast Vacation Rentals.  I do not have the legal knowledge to comment on the chances of success, but if there are bylaws being broken ,  again I would like to see the trust deal with individual property owners in a personal and compassionate way, rather than taking another sledge hammer approach to the problem.

The legalization of suites and cottages for long term rental  has been referred to as a success story, but I was at the open house where everyone in the room, from the Trust appointed consultant  to the affordable housing advocates, agreed that we needed to just get on with it.  And yet in the latest updates cottages seem to have dropped off the agenda, and the only recommendation for suites is for more discsusion, studies and consultation.   Again I am left wondering what process we are following here.

I could go on, but I don’t want to labour the point. 

The popular option would be to blame the outgoing Trustees or Trust officers, but I respect the work they do and I would not change places with them.  To me the problems are systemic and stem from having a local government that only has the narrow mandate of land use.

• I want local government that can advocate for appropriate local business and commerce.
• I want local government that can OWN local problems holistically and drive out solutions.
• I want local government that can admit a mistake and re-invent itself to avoid these mistakes by implementing strong transparent internal and external procedures for everyone to follow.

So what would I have asked if I had got to the mike at the All Candiates? 

Something like this (speaking very quickly to beat the buzzer of course):

"In his opening address David Borrowman said (and I am quoting from memory so I stand to be corrected) that there were other candidates who were running on the basis of complaints that were outside the mandate of the trust.

To me that is the crux of the problem.  ALL the really big issues are to some extent outside of the mandate of the Trust, because the mandate of the Trust is limited to land use, but the issues are much wider. 

So I would have liked to hear the candidates explain what they could do about affordable housing, water issues, loss of tourism and business etc. when the only tool in their toolbox is land use. 

And how would they propose progressing the governance process to improve on this limited mandate."

As they say, "to the man who only has a hammer, everything looks like a nail…"

… or in this case "to the Trustee how only has land use in their toolbox everything looks like a land use issue"

However having stayed to the end in some hope of addressing the candidates, I think my question was largly answered.

Larry Woods stated very clearly that he thinks local governance is just fine and nothing needs re-inventing, that if another Salt Spring Coffee came along he would follow the same process again (which assumes that there is a process to follow) and if that meant losing another company like the RoCo then so be it.  I do not find this acceptable for the future of local governance on Salt Spring and whilst I respect Larry having the guts to stand up for what he believes in, he will not be receiving my vote.

David Borrowman also will not be receiving my vote – he seems more open to change within the Trust model but also gave the impression that he is fine with the Trust’s limited mandate and that complaints that fall outside of that mandate are not the Trusts problem.  For me that IS the problem.

George Grams spoke to my concerns from a position of experience, calling out the lack of process and management within the Trust, and at the moment he has my vote.

Beyond that I am still thinking – Mark Wyatt also addressed valid concerns for me and is obviously running with George, but Peter Grove also spoke with passion and conviction – I have some thinking to do.

Anyone who knows me will not be surprised that my CRD Director vote is with Wayne (everyone wants a Mac) McIntyre – a friend and true statesman who has the experience and platform to get the job done (and yes this is a blatant plug for Wayne, buy hey this is my blog)

Well that’s one of my longest blog posts ever – my fingers are numb from hitting the keys and it makes me a little nervous to put myself out there, but here’s hoping it inspires others to stop being anonymous and speak out about the issues and what their vision is for local government.