Samantha Sanderson

Recently I talked about incorporation with Nerys Poole, a Bowen Island municipal councillor and trustee from 2008 to 2011 and with Gayle Ferguson, the contract minute taker for the Bowen municipality from 2000 to 2013. At the top of Nerys's warnings for SS islanders is the loss of the Islands Trust preserve and protect mandate. On the top of Gayle's list is the huge cost of municipal staffing. Both speak of the “nightmare of roads”. Islands Trust I got the sense of an island that had almost completely abandoned the Islands Trust. An Island which could afford little other than to maintain it's roads. An island where most of the goals identified at the time of the referendum, have not materialized due to lack of money. I asked Nerys what she would say to Salt Springers about our upcoming referendum. Here's some of what she said. “If you believe in the Islands Trust Act preserve and protect mandate you do not want to become a municipality because you lose the overall pro…

A group of ex-Fire Board Trustees have written a letter to the current trustees chastising them for not coming out in favour of incorporation after an attempt was made to strong arm them to do so. Our current trustees sensibly waited to hear what the “no” folks had to say. That group didn't ask the Trustees to come out in favour of no. They requested that the Trustees remain neutral on the basis that there was nothing to support it being in their ratepayers’ interest for them to express a bias. The referendum itself would allow their ratepayers to indicate their preferences. In addition, the “no” group came with well-researched information about how the Fire Board could find additional funding without incorporating and advised that Fire Departments all over the province rarely receive major infrastructure grants from senior governments. The Trustees appeared grateful for the information and deferred the matter and subsequently decided to stay neutral. Effective enforcemen…