Madly running in all directions to avoid eye contact with the populace - Alcyonenews

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Islands Trust

Posted December 30, 2020

Madly running in all directions to avoid eye contact

with the populace

“They” waited until December 19, a Saturday, 6 days before Christmas to release the “highlights” from the December 1-3, 2020 Trust Council quarterly pow-pow. This manifests to Trust being aware that the “highlights” are unfit for public consumption. So they got them PRofessionally PRocessed and the release was strategically timed for minimum impact. Civility and Mrketplace space considerations dictate I limit my review to a mere sampling the “highlights”. Virtually all the highlights are “of interest” and I may come back to the, but for now the following two may do:

“Governance and Management Review – Trust Council approved an external review of the Islands Trust’s governance, management and operations”, and

“A motion to define the words ‘unique amenities’ was postponed for consideration to the March Trust Council meeting.”

These are as pregnant as the quintessential Ulysses’ Trojan Horse.

The first is a recurrence of past peoples’ attempts to reassess the Trust, all successfully suppressed by the Trust. The current attempt was triggered by the Trust’s stubborn subversion of the 2017 “Consensus to Change the Governance of the Islands”. The Consensus was made subsequent to SSI 2017, whuch the Trust is determined to frustrate . As a further reminder, the Trust was imposed on the islands half a century ago to prevent the spread of “Magic Lake Estates”. It was a draconian measure and, in retrospect, answering that “threat” by slamming the Trust on us, arguably was and remains a blunder.

Suppressing the Consensus is in line with the Trust’s machinations to avert a recent public attempt to ameliorate the colonial structure of the Trust. That was to answer a public demand to move the Trust seat of government from Victoria to within the Trust Area and specifically to SSI, where 40% of the Trust population dwell. This would result in members of the public attending the ExCom meetings, their presence moderating, hopefully, the manner of the ExCom. As a bonus, would bring to the economy of the Islands some 30 high payng jobs, founded by taxing the Islanders. But this would mar the thoroughness of the Trust’s renowned “secrecy system” and therefore the Trust cleverly subverted it, mostly surreptituously.

In that instance and now, the SSILTC Trio (the two “locals” and the parachuted colonial chair ), sided with the Trust Secret-aries, against the people, against their constituents. This left it to Trustees of other islands to raise the issue of Trust colonialism and governance review. Incidentally, because of the “gag” order the Trust imposed at the request of SSI‘s George Ehring, Trustees have to tip-toe on issues that may “displease” the Trustees of SSI.

Since 2017 the SSILTC Trio have been fighting to frustrate the Consensus for Change. The epicenter was SSI, yet it was Trustees from the smaller islands, who seeing the subservience of the SSILTC Trio, took it upon themselves to protect and implement the Consensus. The ExCom Quintet and the SSILTC Trio (Luckham chairs both; Patric is Vice Chair of the ExCom; Grove Chairs the Trust Finance Committee) became seriously agitated, discarded their “lambskins” and went on to defend the status quo. So bad has it become that fairness-fighters made a majority in the Council and prevailed as related in the Highlight.

Sensing the public ire from the Trust suppressing the Consensus, they Trust reacted with “Cosmetic Reform”. They pretended to be brave and adept to the extent of taking the Trust under the “Auditor General of Local Governments”, the fierce watchdog that ostensibly was. But the Auditor’s Office was abolished, leaving the Trustistas high and dry.

The Trust hard-core team are now telling us that we cannot change the Trust in the midst of the pandemic. This is preposterous given that the pandemic did not deter Horgan and other premiers who held general elections recently. Nor do they explain themselves for despatching Luckham on expeditions to grab yet more power to control the cutting of trees, “like Vancouver and Victoria do”; and to enact Trust “protection” of “Coastal Douglas Fir Ecosystems”. The latter is the latest target of the Trut’s hunters of human acticities to control by the method o “DP”, i.e., “Development Permits”.

The second “highlight” pair is equally disgusting but more amusing. It is the Trust faking collective puzzlement about the core of their raison d’ êtrê. They allow they did not know what they were doing during the past half-Century. But their ignorance is fake because on each occasion they claimed they had to let Booth Canal die because they had no jurisdiction to save it, I explained to them their mandate.

It may be that they seek to change their plea of “ignorance” to claim “astuteness” or “due diligence”. To grease the plea transition, they used legal advice bought, of course, on our dime. This would create the appearance of the subject being difficult to learn and, therefore, the hitherto “ignorance, being normal”. Interestingly, the Lawyers, as I understand the lingo, advised the inquisitive Trustistas, literally, to look up “amenity”, this being the object of their puzzlement, in the OED! It is highly disconcerting that we are governed by a “Trust” whose best option to “explain” its past conduct is to claim being ignorant of their mandate.