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Brinkworthy

Posted June 30, 2016

Open Governance, Trust style

The SSI LTC meets about once a month, on Thursdays, at the Lions Hall. They had a meeting scheduled and advertised for Thursday June 23, 2016, at the Lions Hall. Then, they cancelled and rescheduled it for Wednesday, June 29, at the SSI Highschool. The changeover was posted on the Trust website, but was not advertised in the local paper.

Aware that this meeting was critical to the outcome of the Brinkworthy case, and suspecting that it was mainly a scripted show of propriety, I prepared a list of highlights of the way the Trust had mis-processed the subject case and brought it via “Tom’s TownHall Placard” to the meeting of June 29 in the hope of influencing the LTC at the last moment.

The Trust was equally aware that I could do something like that and prepared, the only way they could, by revving up their remarkable Censorship apparatus.

When I entered the meeting place, it did not take long to learn that the Trust had plans to prevent “Tom’s TownHall Placard” from reaching the people. Claire Olivier was hovering about the information table; we exchanged small talk, I placed on the information table some copies of the Placard for attendees to take and started toward the seating area. But somehow I turned my head back and was stunned by the sight of Claire Olivier scooping up all the Placards and moving away from the table. I asked her why she was doing that. Oliver “explained responded that she would distribute the Placards to the LTC. I told her that I had reserved copies for that. Then she told me that it was “their table” and they can do as they like. I tried to tell her that the government is not theirs, that it belongs to all the people, but she would have nothing of that and spirited the Placards away.

I brought this to the attention of each of the Trustees and Chairman Luckham right away. They made it obvious that the confiscation of the Placard, was premeditated and Olivier was just following orders.

When I regained consciousness, I thought I would speak at the ensuing TownHall Session to thank the Trust for recognizing the power of my submission and gauging its potency by deeming it preferable to be seen “killing the messenger” than face the message. Due to the long lineup before the microphone, the highly charged atmosphere and the facial expressions of the Trustees, I did not bother.

Incidentally, they had done exactly the same thing on November 21, 2012 when they suppressed my Review of the RAR pilot mapping Report, the “Peer Review of it and the Staff Report on these. In the RAR instance they kept my report in hiding for over three years, to acknowledge it in early 2015, after, they had made the RAR a fait accompli.

Here is what they Censored at the School meeting:

Tom’s Town Hall Placard

June 29, 2016

A Flawed instead of a Fair Process – Reasons at Random

* The Trust sought to process the PARC Application secretly on October 1 and 22, 2015 so as to create a fait accompli before the people would react to it. Evidently the Trust was aware that the Sports Multiplex on Brinkworthy is unsalable.

* The Trust and the PARC were in collusion to hide the PARC Application document from the public. The Trust refused me access to it; PARC likewise and more really – they demanded a FOI! This for an application they all were aware it ought to be processed publically! Preposterous?

* The Trust processed the PARC application thus far sight unseen, (at least publicly). The Staff Reports prior to June 29, omit the PARC Application (except for sporadic out-of-context quotes). This violates the Trust obligation to process it publically. The LTC didn’t bat an eye when I brought this to their attention.

* The PARC’s tearful pleas to pass the Application because nobody would sell land to the “PARC”, (other than the deal at issue) was bogus as I demonstrated with my submission “A Driveshaft made of Spaghetti”. The Trust censored the document!

* The Trust struggled to get a delegation of authority from the ALC so they could themselves remove the Brinkworthy lands from the ALR, if the ALR would not. The LTC rescinded their referral of this plan to the ALC!

Agricultural organizations uniformly and strenuously have objected to this plan.

* The PARC & Trust hid precious precedent. PARC attempted this Sports Multiplex on Furness Road, in 2010. They had tried to sell it as a fulfilment of the PARC duty to provide the Fulford area of the Island with PARC facilities. It was objected to by seven (7) property owners who wrote a total of 13 letters of objection to destroying the ambiance of their neighborhood. PARC & Trust are now steering clear from the history of the PARC Sports Multiplex.

No, the omission is not an inadvertent oversight by Staff who have heard nothing about research, history, precedent and other essential elements of report-writing. I pointed out repeatedly this serious matter myself – each time giving me the impression that I was talking to two-by-fours. The Trustees repeating in body language after Sgt. Schultz “heard nothing, saw nothing” ...

* The Trust did not let the people see submissions, for and against Brinkworthy, as and when they were arriving, thereby suppressing democratic debate. And when they “released” the input as “appendices” to Staff Reports, it was in heaps of paper, difficult to wade through, thereby evading the public awareness debate would generate.

* The Trust hid a dozen written submissions and as many “items of correspondence” on Brinkworthy I have presented – none of these is in any of the piles of submissions tacked on the tail end of the three Staff Reports. The Trust also hid the fact that they suppressed my substantial input – if they lie once, they lie, period. We do not know if they have censored other submissions.

* The Trust refuses to tabulate and showcase public submissions in a concise form for easy recognition by the people in fulfilment of their obligation to charge the citizenry with information. The Trust has ignored (at least publicly, which is how it must consider them) submissions made through the Media.

* Supporters of the Sports Multiplex try to “get something”: Bureaucrats are after “empire building”; Sport coaches would get more facility to do what they love doing; the coached would play more ...

* All the people will be affected by the project, at least to the extend of being taxed to pay for this Sports Multiplex; many people will be affected more severely. In making presentations, the people defend themselves and their way of life, the amenities they enjoy, their investment. They do not seek to get something, they just want to protect what they have.

The Trust cannot counterweight with a likely “coached” letter of a ball player, “one-to-one”, submissions by people seeking to avoid the consequences of hyperactive players.

* Consultants will support anything you pay them to support, as Al Gore VP-USA (ret’d) has observed. There are consultants supporting cigarette smoking, celibacy, political correctness and, yes, ferry fare increases, even the Senate.

Consultants are social painkillers dispensed when the comunity body hurts and democracy fights the cause of the pain. Determined, those who cause the pain, summon Consultants to anesthetize the society until the perpetrators get their thing past Democracy.

* When the LTC told PARC to bring in the Consultants, in effect they were saying: buy us “anti-accountability certificates” (“Absolution papers” they were called in medieval times) and we will do for you what the people do not want done to their society, and which the people would not let us do if left to their own devices. (Who is Joe Q. Public to dare debate the “consultants”?).

* The last is for laughs. Park offers a tradeoff for the removal of the Brinkworthy lands from the ALR: A patch of Duck Creek Park to be taken in the ALR but remain PARCland; and discontinue illegally using ALR land, in Fulford, for a sport field. It is like attempting trading a stolen bicycle for a Harley Davidson.

Tom Varzeliotis

www.alcy.ca