Continuing Poolside Visioning - Alcyonenews

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Islands Trust

December 20, 2019

December 13 – Continuing Poolside Visioning

In the December 6 Marketplace I wrote about the Trust enterprise aiming to mask, at our expense, the Trust’s unflattering image. Driven by the self preservation instinct, the Trust seeks to hide the things that fuel the public quest for change by the proverbial method of attiring the wolf with a lambskin.

The 2017 SSI Urbanization referendum resulted in a recognition that the Trust is in ardent need of reconstruction and a consensus was formed to revamp the Trust. The BC government Ministry responsible for the Trust; the citizens groups who spoke for the two sides in the plebiscite; and, yes, the Trust itself joined in a coalition to affect the task. Even the then-newly retired Trust CAO Linda Adams forgot her past and jumped onto the Trust reform bandwagon.

Nothing happened in the ensuing two years. However the calm was on the surface and the storm was expected and sure to come. Under the surface the Trust was submarine quietly looking for ways to evade the wave of change. Despite the secrecy precautions, we now know that the Trust seeks to usurp the restructuring process and turn it topsy turvy, so as to grab more power with which to do in the future worse than they have done in the past.

Evidently, the Trust elected to supplant a thick cover-up for the change. The silver lining of that dark cloud manifests the Trust has got beyond repair and is in need of a review with the Zero Basis method.

In mid 2019 virtually secretly, the Trust budgeted $115,000.00 from the public purse to buy itself a facelifting job, to give the Trust trust-appeal. This resulted in a grandiose looking scheme but one which is hollow like the Ulysses Trojan Horse. Billed the “Islands 2050!”, the show is now running a routine showing the Trust rejuvenated-looking, playing “democracy”. But they are not good at it, they are clumsy really, and it shows.

It is patent they are out to suppress discussion of whether the Trust is fit for the task of governing us, and goad us into bickering about what we want this Trust to do for us. It is like a government metamorphosing elections into a means of producing a “platform” for the existing government to implement instead of electing whom the electorate want to govern the society. The need is for a new government, one that is capable of doing right what the Trust has been doing wrong. And that is that.

The thrust of the Trust is to create fake optics of public participation, thereby making the Trust look “democratic” because the “democracy” brand sells well in our society. For this the Trust had their PRopaganda experts plan a series of mobile “Vision Booths”. They sport a couple of easels holding Propaganda infographics and are crewed by a couple of people well prepared to proselytize surprised passers-by. Two such Vision Booths were done in the foyer of the SSI public swimming pool, the first on November 29 and the second on December 13, 2019. I attended both booths, carrying lists of questions. As it happened, in both instances, I met SSI Trustee Laura Patrick. She had not the answer to any of my questions and, she promised to email me the answers. With my queries sidetracked, Ms. Patrick and I had a discussions of general issues about the Trust and the future.

I have not as yet heard from Trustee Patrick. But I hold her assurance that I will get the answers to my questions and I have no reason to doubt her credibility. Indeed in the discussions I had with her, Trustee Patrick impressed me as being a reasonable person. I look forward to reporting the answers, hopefully in the next issue.

Next I will relate the list of question I brought to Ms. Patrick and then sign off.

“December 13 Poolside En-Vision-Ing

On March 15, 2019, the Trust held an afternoon event at the HHH titled “Special Meeting”. Ostensibly, it was an exercise to have people input into the overall SSI LTC agenda for the four year term of the newly elected LTC.

Chairman Luckham in summarizing the outcome of the event stated:

“... the next steps in the strategic planning process include disseminating the information gathered during the meeting, compiling a staff report and conducting further public engagement in the form of a survey to receive input from members of the community that could not attend the meeting.”

Questions:

1. How was “disseminating the information gathered during the meeting” done?

2. What was the outcome from it (the “dissemination”)?

3. Dates and particulars of the “further public engagement in the form of a survey to receive input from members of the community that could not attend the meeting.

4. How does the aforesaid March 15 event connect with the “Islands 2050! enterprise?”

Tom V