Who is to Watch the Watchdogs? - Alcyonenews

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Islands Trust

Posted October 1, 2015

Tom’s Town Hall Placard

October 1, 2015

***

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

In other words,

Who is to watch the watchdogs?

“18. CLOSED MEETING 2:30 PM - 3:00 PM

18.1 Motion to Close the Meeting. The Salt Spring Island Local Trust

Committee closes this meeting to the public subject to Community Charter Section 90(1)(e) concerning the acquisition, disposition or expropriation of land or improvements, if the Committee considers that disclosure could reasonably be expected to harm the interests of the community.” (Emphasis added).

Thus reads the Agenda for the October 1, 2015 LTC meeting, posted on September 25th, i.e. the day after Parks And Re-Creation (PARC) heralded the acquisition of the 15 acre property immediately behind Brinkworthy.

PARC went to the LTC for consent to convert the property to soccer, baseball and other athletic fields and ancillary facilities. But the Trust, mindful that in the recent past the people have foiled previous PARC efforts to do the playfields, brought to the enterprise their immense expertise in doing things surreptitiously so as to protect society against its own follies – just like “benevolent” dictators do. They scheduled the item at the end of the meeting, after the public has gone and forewarned they will expel anyone who may be there after the “2:30 PM” curfew.

Evidently, in the secrecy-paranoid Trust mind, disclosure of what PARC had already revealed, would “harm the interests of the community”. To spare us the harm, they slam the doors in the face of the public, so as to keep us in ignorance, lest we are unappreciative of this expression of Trust benevolence. We are safe in the hands of the Trust, even if unknown to us!

In doing that, they expose the mindset of those who fancy themselves as “saviours” of the people. This occurrence reveals the mentality of those who imposed upon us the RAR by stealth and who, by devious means are fighting the peoples’ efforts to save Booth Canal. It is ugly paternalism, it is precisely what Democracy exists to protect the community from.

The purpose of this submission is to reiterate and reinforce my June 24, 2014 request for an independent audit of what the Trust does behind closed doors.

Tom Varzeliotis, merely a messenger.

www.alcy.ca

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FollowUp:

What transpired at the LTC meeting falls foursquare in the category of the Tragically Ridiculous.

The Trust places copies of the meeting Agenda on the “information table” for attendees to take one. This time they had not!

It was not the first time they did that – it was the second!

The first time I saw them doing it was November 21, 2012 when the LTC did the RAR public meeting in that dark and stormy night, mid-week, at happy hour time, at the Fritz hideaway ... In the seven years I have been attending the SSI LTC meetings that is the only time I saw the Trust doing that before October 1, 2015 ...

At its meetings the Trust projects the Agenda on the wall of the hall for additional convenience to the LTC and the attendees. This time they did that. Except that the projected Agenda was lame; that is to say it ended up with “item 17", to wit they had cleverly omitted “Item 18".

At the Town Hall session, I asked RPM Cermac to sroll the agenda to “item 18". He became perturbed but could not do so – evidently they had removed it from the Viewpoint! The Three of the LTC, appeared perplexed, too.

Chairman Luckham came to rescue asserting that there was no “Item 18"! Which was, of course, not the truth. I observed that and and I told the meeting what “Item 18" was about. Then I handed the LTC and placed some copies on the information Table copies of my the Placard conveying my submission: “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

And then, I left.

UpDated October 3, 2015.