Feeding the Komodo Dragon: The Case on Saturna

Saturna Island pays a share of the Islands Trust budget more than double its population share into an institution whose costs have outrun inflation for decades, whose local committee is chaired by a trustee another island elected, and whose enforcement regime drew formal recommendations from BC's Ombudsperson. Drawn entirely from the Trust's own pages, local press, and Saturna residents' documented record, this is the case against the institution — not against the elected islanders inside it.

Since 1974, when the Government of British Columbia enacted the Islands Trust Act "in recognition of the special nature of the islands in the southern Strait of Georgia and Howe Sound," land-use planning on Saturna Island has rested with the Islands Trust — a regime created by provincial statute, which islanders never voted to create.^[1] Fifty years on, the record on Saturna can be read in three ledgers: what the island pays, who decides, and what the deciders themselves now concede.

What the island pays. In 2013, Saturna property owners paid $180,000 to the Islands Trust — 2.8 per cent of its total budget — while representing only 1.3 per cent of the trust area's population, according to a 2014 analysis by the Saturna Island Ratepayers & Residents Association (SIRRA).^[2] The same analysis found the Trust's budget grew 67 per cent between 2004 and 2013, from $3.8 million to $6.4 million, against 11 per cent inflation — driven mainly by a $1.9 million (64 per cent) rise in staff and administration costs.^[2] SIRRA's conclusion was blunt: "Any organization, whose costs climb at a rate six times inflation with no expansion of service and no discernable improvement in the quality of services, is clearly not cost effective, nor is it well managed."^[2]

The trajectory has not bent. In the 2026 budget cycle, a Saturna taxpayer wrote to the Gulf Islands Driftwood comparing the Trust of 1998 — "30 staff and a budget of $2.8 million" — with a proposed budget carrying "70 staff and a whopping $10.8 million budget," warning trustees that "your proposal is what I call 'budget chomp,' which is akin to feeding a Komodo dragon, ripping and tearing the financial flesh off the taxpayers year after year to feed its enormous appetite."^[3] The draft before the Trust's Financial Planning Committee carried, at one point, a 13.9 per cent general tax increase for Local Trust Areas.^[4] Trust Council ultimately cut it back, adopting a final $11.7 million budget with an 8.1 per cent per-household increase on a 16–8 vote.^[5] Two things cut the other way: Trust staff said the bulk of the proposed increases replaced vanished external revenue — "like lost grants, lost investment income and lost draws from surplus and reserves" — rather than new program spending, and Council did trim the draft substantially before passing it.^[4][5]

Who decides. Saturna's zoning and Official Community Plan matters sit with a three-member Local Trust Committee, and only two of its three members — trustees Lee Middleton and Mairead Boland — were elected by Saturna voters.^[6] The committee's chair, David Maude, is a Mayne Island trustee, elected by and accountable to another island's electorate.^[7] That shared-chair design is standard across the Trust's smaller committees and was not built to override Saturna — but it still means a third of the body governing Saturna's land answers to voters elsewhere.^[7] The island's own two seats, meanwhile, were filled by acclamation in the 2022 general local election, with no contested vote; Middleton is, by the Trust's own account, in his third term.^[8][7] Acclamation may reflect volunteer scarcity rather than any Trust-specific failure, and both trustees are duly elected officials.^[8]

What the deciders concede. The enforcement regime that investigates complaints against property owners in every local trust area, Saturna included, drew formal recommendations from the BC Ombudsperson's office in the fall of 2023, after residents "voiced concern over issues of transparency, fairness and heavy-handedness."^[9] A year later, trustees and staff still disagreed over basics — including whether policy language saying staff "may" commence an investigation leaves any discretion, with staff finding that "'may' in that policy means 'must.'"^[9] As bylaw compliance and enforcement manager Warren Dingman told trustees: "These are your bylaws. I can't say I'm not going to investigate a complaint against your bylaws without proper direction and policies."^[9] To the Trust's credit, trustees launched the review themselves in March 2024 with the stated goal of "restoring public confidence" — though it remained unresolved as of that reporting.^[9]

And after five decades of exclusive planning authority, the Trust's own Council has formally conceded the result: "The Islands Trust Council has declared that a housing equity and workforce shortage crisis exists on many of the islands within the Islands Trust Area."^[10] It has published an island-specific Saturna Island Housing Affordability Profile (2023).^[11] We argue that record shows a zoning-first governance model has not kept housing within reach on the islands under its control; the Trust, for its part, endorsed a Housing Strategic Action Plan on December 5, 2023.^[10]

Even routine engagement has produced instances of friction: in 2020 correspondence, SIRRA told the Trust its reply to a September 10 letter arrived late — "We did not receive it until September 17th as you know" — and pressed a question about the Trust's prior knowledge of a hydrophone-installation proposal that, the association wrote, "you have not addressed."^[12] Friction of that kind exists between many regulators and ratepayer groups, and SIRRA has kept engaging rather than walking away.^[12]

Saturna's trustees are elected, and nothing here argues otherwise. The question is the structure they sit inside: a half-century-old regime islanders never voted to create, whose costs have outrun inflation for decades, whose chair answers to another island's voters, whose enforcement arm drew the Ombudsperson's attention, and whose own council declares a housing crisis on the islands it alone has planned. That is not a verdict on any trustee. It is the case against the institution.

^1]: [About Us — Islands Trust ^2]: [Property Taxes Part II — Islands Trust (2014) — Saturna Island Ratepayers & Residents Association ^3]: [Viewpoint: Trust budget bite too large — Gulf Islands Driftwood ^4]: [Islands Trust tax increase firms up — Gulf Islands Driftwood ^5]: [Islands Trust $11.7-million budget passes following debate at Trust Council — Penticton Herald (CHEK wire) ^6]: [Saturna Island — Local Trust Area — Islands Trust ^7]: [Saturna Island Local Trust Area Trustee Corner — Islands Trust ^8]: [Saturna Island — island archive — ABOLISH ISLANDS TRUST (2022 results, citing CivicInfo BC) ^9]: [Islands Trust wrestles with bylaw enforcement policies — Gulf Islands Driftwood ^10]: [Housing Affordability — Islands Trust ^11]: [Saturna Island Housing Affordability Profile — Islands Trust ^12]: [Islands Trust — Saturna Island Ratepayers & Residents Association (SIRRA)