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Brinkworthy

Posted May 7, 2015

NB: This is an upgraded version of an article I submitted through the “Placard” to Islands Trust (SSI LTC) on May 5, 2016

Tom’s Town Hall Placard

May 5, 2016

Dr. A. N. T. Varzeliotis, P. Eng (Ret’d)

The Emperor has no clothes

The first PARC attempt to build a Sports Multiplex in Saltspring was easily defeated by the people in 2010. In 2015 PARC tried again, secretly this time so as to evade the public ire. Trust expertise in secrecy looked attractive, was sought and the PARC & Trust coalition was informally formed to do the job.

I detected their secret agenda and on October 1, 2015 I exposed it. On October 22, I went on to expose more subversive activities: One was the secret mission of Trustee Grams to wrestle “delegation of authority from the Agricultural Land Commission (“ALC”) so that the Trust could remove from the ALR the Brinkworthy lands for the Multiplex; another activity was to “talk” the Agricultural Advisory Planning Commission (“AAPC”) into consenting to removing from the ALR the Brinkworthy Lands; another yet was plotting to rezone “in advance” the Brinkworthy lands so as to “soften the target”, so to speak.

The thinly veiled overall plan was to consolidate the project into a single unified process, convene a “closet” meeting and do the “job” in one shot, before the public would get whiff of the subversive activities. After the fact, “they” would surface to present the result of the conspiracy as a victory of “sportmanship” over the Brinkworthy community in particular and the society, in general!

After being unearthed, “they” tried to move overland, but it just would not work for them. On November 17, 2015, they officially referred the matter to the AAPC who replied on December 3, with a strong objection to removing the Brinkworthy lands from the ALR. The Trustees would not relent.

In February 2016, I wrote to the ALC, the Ministry of Community, Sports and Cultural Development and the Ministry of Agriculture apprising them of the PARC & Trust surreptitious moves to snatch Brinkworthy Lands from the ALR. The communication was a 6-page comprehensive document relating what was transpiring in SSI from the public perspective.

Later on, in March, four farming organizations of Saltspring, filed with the ALC their objection to removal of the Brinkworthy Lands from the ALR: They are:

The Salt Spring Island Agricultural Alliance;

The Salt Spring Island Farmers’ Institute;

The Island Natural Growers; and

The Salt Spring Island Farmland Trust Society.

But the PARC & Trust Coalition would not give up! Indeed, there is more to this aspect of the sham. On Feb 11, 2016 the LTC passed resolution SS-2016-37, in effect asking the AAPC to support the Trust’s effort to surrogate for the ALC.

It appears that the AAPC indicated they would not trust the Trust. The reaction of the coalition was to retract the referral stating: “the Salt Spring Island Local Trust Committee rescind Resolution SS-2016-37". Then, they moved to pursue the matter without AAPC consent and the Trust Director of Planning arrange a meeting with the ALC for Mid-April. I shall return to this shortly.

Yet, the Trustees would not do the right thing and kept at it with incoherent suggestions to give time to PARC to make their application comply with the ALR Act – this the PARC would do by the method of “cosmetic reform”, in this case by trading a stolen bicycle for a Harley Davidson and calling it “fair trade”. After the fake trade-lands trick was exposed, they cut it short.

Another setback for the PARC & Trust coalition is the exposure of the PARC cry about being starved of land on which to expand, because nobody loves them enough to sell them low Agri-productivity land for the Multiplex! They played this hard claiming the only chance they had was to build in the Brinkworthy lands. But they were not telling the Truth – this was shown to be a “driveshaft made of spaghetti”!

Undeterred by all that, the PARC & Trust coalition moved on to another trick. They would purchase credibility in the market – they would buy “Consultant’s Certificates” akin to the “Peer Reviews” the Trust had bought to certify “good” the RAR mapping job they had botched. This time they are set to get half a dozen Consultants to proclaim “Kosher” the various aspects of the Sports Multiplex – who of us hoi polloi could stand up to the mighty “consultants”?

This series of exposures made the LTC seriously upset. In a manifestation of rage and a show of churlishness the LTC triumvirate launched a fierce ad hominem attack to defame and discredit me, the messenger. In a concerted effort, they libeled me with abandon through the community paper of the January 20, 2016 issue. And what an effort they put to it!

No less, they declared me, Tom Varzeliotis, Public Enemy Numero Uno and bragged that they are angel-guardians, fighting back Big Bad Outlaw Tom, to protect the society, not unlike St. George did for the maiden. Yes they did that, it is all in writing and so is their asking the newspaper to do the dirty work for them without exposing the provenance of the garbage!

They elicited laughter, instead of what they were seeking to incite! They realized that they were getting nowhere in the light of the day. They packed up and got back in their Gray submarine and dived out of sight, again.

At the March 10, April 7 and May 5, 2016 meetings, the LTC evicted the public and closeted themselves “in accordance with the Community Charter, Part 4, Division 3, Section 90(1)(k) negotiations and related discussions respecting the proposed provision of a service that are at their preliminary stages.”

Decoding the “justification” reveals that “provision of a service” means doing the Brinkworthy Sports Multiplex! They almost had us fooled. They changed the ID of their decrepit submarine from the original “Section 90(1)(e)” to “Section 90(1)(k)” and submerged, again. This, I exposed in my May 5 submission to the LTC.

For their secret session, at the May 5 meeting, “they” had added another unmentionable item, which reads:

“Community Charter, Part 4, Division 3, Section 90(2)(b) information received and held in confidence relating to negotiations between Islands Trust and a provincial government”.

This was equally easy to recognize even in drag queen attire: “negotiations between Islands Trust and a provincial government”, means the Trust’s efforts to wrangle from the ALC “delegation of authority” to enable the Trust to remove land from the ALR, so that they would abuse it to remove the Brinkworthy lands from the ALR.

At the TownHall and Questions session of that, the May 5, 2015 LTC meeting, I inquired for the outcome of the secret “Mid-April scheduled meeting of Trust with the ALC. Chairman Luckham answered that the meeting did not happen – “it was postponed for the Fall”, the Chairman answered quickly, without explaining why! Likely it will not happen, at least not before the Trust puts the PARC Sport Multiplex to RIP.

In conclusion, I am calling upon you, the Trust, to emulate if you can, Gordon Campbell coping with the Hawaii police mugshots of a drunken Premier – stop flogging that dead horse for it is pointless! Come out, show remorse and do the right thing, you will feel better for it. And so would most of us, the people ...

Tom Varzeliotis