Is advice given the Trust “unsolicited” ? No! - Alcyonenews

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Islands Trust

Posted April 19, 2019

Is advice given the Trust “unsolicited” ? No!

In a Democracy, the Populace (Demos) controls those whom society empowers to manage those of its affairs that need be managed collectively, such as Justice, Cannabis and Defence. In a “Representative” democracy, this is done via elected peoples’ representatives. We instruct whom we elect, but the mandate is speculative because “the only constant is change”. Changing the magistrates midterm is as impractical as changing horses midstream. A pragmatic approach is to re-mandate the representatives.

Edmund Burke remarked that politicians owe the electorate “industry and judgement”. These are utterly inadequate for democracy. Burke’s is a formula for paternalism and the undeserved notoriety it gained slowed the demise of the Dark Ages. In a dynamic society, failure to sync governance with the advancing civilization is always consequential, sometimes catastrophic. Hence, society cannot be content with the “creativity” of politicians, some of them limping along long after sclerosis of the creativity brain lobe they may have had. To remain vibrant, society must stimulate the genesis and the implementation of ideas society-wide and perennially: the tool for that is Democracy.

A website is a potent means of communication between governments and people. It can be abused, that is true, but honestly used it is a blessing. The Trust has abused this system, and when in 2013 it revamped its website it was for the worse and now they seek to do likewise.

Research starts where the known ends; re-inventing the wheel is unbecoming wise folk. In respect to an effective website, the Trust already possesses a body of ideas, currently locked in its closet, for fear of change. I have myself made several submissions and likely others have, too. Prominent being my papers on the Ideas Bank and an array of badly needed website elements.

True to my promise I am updating and presenting the list of website elements I filed with the Trust for their 2013 website revamp. Let’s start ...

1. Date all postings:

This is a very simple to implement website element but it is of high significance because it relates to Father Time, who as Virgil put it “rules life”. In the two Millenia since, nobody has challenged that – evidently the chap was smart.

The Trust must recognize the Time dimension and practice “Date Stamping” for all its postings. For the same reason Canada Post stamps the mail and the Patent Office the patent applications.

2. Search Engine:

The one now on the Trust’s Website is akin to a parrot with a poor vocabulary, chanting “Refine your search”, as if stonewalling is not its assigned task! Well, on second thought, the Engine may be potent but the Trust starves the webpage of the information people send the Engine to search for. Or they hide the information from the Engine as they do from us. Well, as Diogenes observed: “You cannot get something from one does not havre it!” He too, was a smart bloke.

In the course of updating the List, I sought to test that search engine. I asked it to find something by entering key words and even its official name – the Engine uniformly returning: “refine your search”. “Refinements” I did aplenty, all to no avail. The item I searched for was: “Bylaw No. 473", which is the Trust’s 2013 Censorship Bylaw, enacted to suppress discussion of the ditch-itazation of Booth Canal; thereafter they deployed it extensively to censor numerous submissions on a variety of important issues they wanted to hush up.

3. Map it sensibly – de-labyrinth-ize the site:

There was an instance (relating, if I remember well to the 2013 website reconstruction) of a call for public input posted in the “employment opportunities” Website slot. When the “person in charge of the website reconstruction” (which is how a Trustee protected the privacy of the Trust person in charge of governance transparency), deploys such tactics, any citizen who learns about it is duty bound to cry “foul!” and do whatever it may take to impress upon the Trust that crime does not pay.

4. Bylaws and Resolutions:

That “ignorance of the law is not a defence” has the pre-requisite of making the law known to the populace. The Trust habitually request compliance with bylaws it keeps in hiding. Indeed, does worse yet, as it concocts bylaws on the fly to punish retroactively those who irk them.

Post prominently on the Website all the bylaws in force, under clear titles like “LTC Bylaws” and “Trust Bylaws”. List the Bylaws chronologically c/w keywords recognizable by the Search Engine.

Ditto for the “Resolutions”, the “by general agreement” items and the “Directives” to the staff issued by the LTC.

5. The Society’s agenda is the Peoples’ to set:

Embed a portal to a showcase where people could place items for inclusion in that Agenda or future ones.

“Index & link” the Agenda Package contents; Embed into the agenda a form, a kind of Hyde Park soapbox, for citizens to pre-approve or pre-object to, or request clarification of “pregnant” agenda items.

Post draft agenda 7 days in advance of events ; the Draft Agenda should carry the public “ammendement” requests through and past the “Approval of Agenda” session into the “Minutes”.

TO BE CONTINUED...