I was always a fan of Gary Holman’s methodical work ethic as CRD director and for his two terms I thank him for his service to the community.

However, I did not vote for Gary for the simple reason that in a democracy it is extremely rude to characterize an entire group of concerned citizens for governance as Islanders for “Self(ish)” Government. The issue is too important and we need more people to take an interest, not less.

Clearly the CRD position, unlike the Trust, is the only elected representation we have that does not require an ideological bent to be elected. Congratulations to Garth Hendren, his immediacy and initial decisions sound promising for positive change on Salt Spring Island. I was especially excited to hear Garth acknowledge that public meetings may only represent a small slice of what our community is all about.

His idea to increase use of the Internet during his term would certainly open the political process to a wider sampling of opinion. A lot of islanders simply find public meetings inconvenient and time-consuming.

As far as the Islands Trust goes, I hope George and Christine will initiate their promised governance study with a full review of Trust Council’s budget to determine if taxpayers are really getting the best bang for our buck. 

This protectionist Trust insurance policy is now costing over $2,000 an hour (calculated by dividing their bloated budget by the number of hours they are open for business in a year) and just may have a few bureaucratic redundancies that could be trimmed.

It was encouraging to see that people overwhelmingly voted down the two additional trustees referendum. That would have only resulted in more of the same, when in fact island governance urgently needs to be less ideological and far more practical and diverse.

Paul Marcano,

Elizabeth Drive