report from Trust Council meeting

The main job of the Islands Trust is to do land use planning and, working with the community, preserve and protect. This is done through local trust committees on each of the major islands, with oversight by the Executive Committee.

The Islands Trust Council is the 26 trustees from the 13 major Trust Islands, who meet together four times a year to approve a budget for the Islands Trust, to set policies and to do other needed work that is helpful to all our islands and communities. The Executive Committee (made up of a chair and three vice-chairs elected from the 26 trustees) look after day-to-day business on behalf of Trust Council.

Much of the work of the Trust is advocacy - working to influence other levels of government (and citizens) on issues that affect the Trust area. Some examples of this are work on derelict vessels, climate change, food security, community housing, transportation and ferries.

On Salt Spring Island last week, Trust Council met with the Agricultural Land Commission (ALC). The Commission has been spending most of its time and resources dealing with applications, largely to remove land from the Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR). They plan to limit this work, and charge applicants more of the costs, and do more work to ensure land in the ALR is preserved, and to encourage its use for agriculture. They listened with sympathy to our concerns and ideas, but were unwilling to relax the restrictions for the Islands Trust area, even if we thought it would help increase the amount of farming and food production on the islands.

We got a preliminary look at the draft budget for the next fiscal year (April 2013 through March 2014). The proposal at this point is for about a 1.8% increase in property tax in the Trust area, and one new staff member to help with the Information Technology work. The budget - almost certain to change a bit from the proposal - needs to be adopted at our next meeting, March 5-7 on Thetis Island.  I'll find out and let you know what a 1.8% increase in our tax will mean, in dollars and cents, well before then.

Council will be meeting on Lasqueti September 10 through 12 next year. Susan and I will be asking for help arranging all the details for accommodating, feeding, transporting, and meeting the approximately 30 people who will attend. We thank everyone who has offered accommodation already, and everyone who has been supportive. We hope this will be a boost to our economy, and interesting and fun for everyone.

We ended Council meeting with a "round table", where trustees speak briefly about what's happening on their islands and in their communities. Here are some of my thoughts, and a couple of things I found interesting:

Many of the other islands are in some state of crisis; their populations are down, their property values too, and their schools are in danger of closing. Community institutions (fire departments, for example) don't function well, because there aren't enough young people; the population is largely retired and part-time people. Many island people  think that high ferry fares are among the causes. Susan pointed out that the Lasqueti ferry is among the most expensive and least convenient, yet we seem to have a thriving community - lots of people of all ages, growing school and thriving institutions. It seems like inexpensive, convenient (drive-on, drive-off) ferries are not essential.

I'd like to encourage agriculture and farming on Lasqueti. It is a truly productive thing to do - to produce good food - and it can be done well. Unfortunately, it's hard to make a good living because the price of food is so low. The thriving community Saturday Market has encouraged and allowed a lot of people to grow and sell food, and other things we produce. There are farm (and cookie) stands along the roads.  I'd like to encourage anyone who is thinking about it to grow food. If you have extra from your garden, offer it for sale. You can make your growing space more fertile and productive, and produce more food on it. You can also expand your area, and/or use other methods for increasing productivity, growing year-round for instance. There's demand for local food, and it will continue to grow.  It would be good to put more of our suitable land into food production, and it's a way more of us could make a (modest) living. Please talk to me if you have ideas or suggestions or questions. If you have extra food, but don't need or want to sell it, please talk to the Wednesday Winter Social people (Tim & Lisa) and/or to the food bank people (Jaylene, Emily, Karla, Scott, Nalia), or gift or exchange with a neighbour.

Gabriola has an agriculture advisory committee and a transportation advisory committee. The terms of reference for each of them is available on their web page  at http://www.islandstrust.bc.ca/ltc/gb/default.cfm  They are both specialized Advisory Planning Commissions.

Denman has a new Farm Plan. There's lots of information on their web page at   http://www.islandstrust.bc.ca/ltc/de/default.cfm  They also have a Community Heritage Register.

On Pender Island (not sure if it's just North Pender, or if it includes South Pender) all of their community organizations meet together twice a year, to let each other know what they are doing, and what they would like to do. They say that this is very helpful, and allows the organizations and groups to work together better.