Islands Trust Council regular meeting, March 8, 2023

[0:00:01] Voice 23: Good morning, Council.

[0:00:48] Voice 10: Let us come back to order. So good morning, everybody.

[0:01:30] Voice 10: I hope that you all rested well. And I want to thank you all for the commitment that you made

[0:01:39] Voice 10: yesterday to stick with us through a very long day. I know it's challenging for all of us,

[0:01:45] Voice 10: although the day might start later at one o'clock or something, we start. Most of us got up at six

[0:01:52] Voice 10: or seven o'clock in the morning and maybe earlier five five o'clock in the morning in order to uh

[0:01:58] Voice 10: get here and so that's an incredibly long day and you showed your strength and resilience uh to be

[0:02:04] Voice 10: here and i appreciate that and uh our community appreciates that and certainly uh executive

[0:02:09] Voice 10: committee is welcoming feedback about format of future meetings um we've been doing this kind of

[0:02:15] Voice 10: experiment of doing evening sessions and i think it's reasonable to consider um whether we should

[0:02:22] Voice 10: continue that or not um if the experiment has been successful in bringing more people and more

[0:02:28] Voice 10: diversity to the table um um during our council session so executive committee appreciates any

[0:02:34] Voice 10: and all feedback with respect to the meeting meeting conduct my my conduct and how that's

[0:02:40] Voice 10: all going so uh before i get too far along here um absolutely want to acknowledge that we're meeting

[0:02:48] Voice 10: here in Nanaimo territory today and of course all of you representing your communities

[0:02:55] Voice 10: let's close that door across the Coast Salish territories and a beautiful morning like today

[0:03:06] Voice 10: the sun rising up over the Nanaimo estuary and the the channel heading down towards the

[0:03:14] Voice 10: Southern Gulf Islands. Very much so. It's been the same for since time immemorial. And this would

[0:03:21] Voice 10: have been a significant village site here with lots of busyness in the springtime here on the

[0:03:28] Voice 10: coast. And so appreciate that rich history and culture that's here for us to recognize.

[0:03:36] Voice 10: Let us all remember as we go through the budget today, this is where we're going to begin. We're

[0:03:40] Voice 10: We're going to start at Section 7.

[0:03:42] Voice 10: We're going to come back to Trust Area Services, ideally at the end of the day.

[0:03:47] Voice 10: I'm trying to do some catch-up because we've missed an entire section of the agenda.

[0:03:52] Voice 10: I apologize for that.

[0:03:55] Voice 10: And let us remember to be listening and conscious of everybody else's thoughts and points of view

[0:04:02] Voice 10: and manage our own thoughts in a fashion that we can all hear and understand

[0:04:10] Voice 10: so that we can support you and support all of us in being successful

[0:04:15] Voice 10: through this process of budget.

[0:04:17] Voice 10: So without further ado, I just want to, before we go into the budget piece here,

[0:04:24] Voice 10: just sort of let you know how this unfolds.

[0:04:27] Voice 10: It's new to many of you.

[0:04:29] Voice 10: is this is our opportunity now

[0:04:32] Voice 10: to trim and adjust the budget

[0:04:35] Voice 10: as we feel is necessary.

[0:04:37] Voice 10: That'll be led by,

[0:04:40] Voice 10: where is he?

[0:04:41] Voice 10: There he is, Joe Bernardo,

[0:04:42] Voice 10: the chair of the Financial Planning Committee

[0:04:45] Voice 10: and of course, Julia Mobs,

[0:04:47] Voice 10: Director of Financial Services,

[0:04:48] Voice 10: Administrative Services.

[0:04:50] Voice 10: And once we've sort of gone through that process

[0:04:54] Voice 10: and decided on what those adjustments are

[0:04:56] Voice 10: that are necessary,

[0:04:57] Voice 10: Then Julia, over the next 12 hours, is going to tweak and adjust that to come back to us with a final number that we'll see tomorrow as a finished item.

[0:05:07] Voice 10: And then our opportunity to adopt that budget will be tomorrow.

[0:05:10] Voice 10: So let's make any changes that we need today, and then we'll be in good shape for adopting a budget tomorrow.

[0:05:19] Voice 10: So, Julia Mobs, good morning.

[0:05:21] Voice 10: Thank you for all the work that you do.

[0:05:23] Voice 10: I know this is the busiest time, along with audit, which comes almost at the same time.

[0:05:30] Voice 10: Very busy time for you, and thank you and your team for the work of the Honours Trust.

[0:05:34] Voice 10: Thank you. Over to you.

[0:05:38] Voice 27: Mr. Chair, I believe this section starts with a number of consent agenda items.

[0:05:42] Voice 27: Do we want to address those before we move into the budget session?

[0:05:45] Voice 10: Absolutely correct. I got carried away with myself.

[0:05:48] Voice 10: So we have a number of consent agenda items here at 7.1, 1, 1, 2, 1, 3, and 1, 4.

[0:05:55] Voice 10: And as we've been doing this since yesterday, these items would be received for information or otherwise basically received for information, unless there's something that you want to discuss.

[0:06:11] Voice 10: So I'll just ask if there's any items on the consent agenda that you would like to have pulled.

[0:06:17] Voice 10: And I think I saw Trustee Evans's hand up.

[0:06:21] Voice 10: Hi, Julia. Just a quick question on which.

[0:06:24] Voice 10: Sorry, which item do you want to speak to?

[0:06:26] Voice 10: 714.

[0:06:27] Voice 10: 7.14, thank you.

[0:06:29] Voice 10: So I'll come back to you.

[0:06:30] Voice 10: Anything else on the consent agenda list that anybody wishes to speak to?

[0:06:35] Voice 10: Ben Maberly.

[0:06:38] Voice 4: Yeah, thank you, Chair.

[0:06:39] Voice 4: We had moved a previous item to the consent agenda, and you put it under 7.14 in the meeting schedule.

[0:06:47] Voice 10: Oh, thank you for reminding me of that.

[0:06:49] Voice 10: that. 7.1.1.15. And that's the potential change to meeting schedule. And so I'm just going to

[0:06:59] Voice 10: turn to staff because I haven't had an update. Do we have an update? Is there a possibility

[0:07:03] Voice 10: of a June meeting? Okay. And so perhaps we'll hit that then as a non-consent agenda item

[0:07:21] Voice 10: item at 7.1.0 or something, 2.0.

[0:07:28] Voice 9: Okay, great.

[0:07:29] Voice 10: Thanks, Ben, for that reminder. I appreciate

[0:07:31] Voice 10: that. Anything else? All right. So then I'm going to take it then that 7.11, 1.2, and 1.3

[0:07:37] Voice 10: be received for information as presented. And let's go to the question on 7.1.4,

[0:07:45] Voice 10: Trustee Adams. Thank you, Chair.

[0:07:48] Voice 25: Hi, Julia. I just have a quick question on the

[0:07:51] Voice 25: the table on page 219 at the bottom.

[0:07:55] Voice 25: The numbers here don't match what's on page 248.

[0:07:59] Voice 25: So, and it's the surplus shortfall.

[0:08:02] Voice 25: Here you have 563,500 and on page 248 is 3955,

[0:08:08] Voice 25: which makes a difference in the surplus funds at the end.

[0:08:13] Voice 25: Can you tell me which one is correct?

[0:08:18] Voice 27: I'll just scroll down.

[0:08:19] Voice 27: The second page number you reference is page 248.

[0:08:30] Voice 23: You'll need to

[0:08:31] Voice 10: release your microphone there, Julia, so that.

[0:08:35] Voice 25: Yes, that's correct.

[0:08:37] Voice 23: So

[0:08:56] Voice 27: I'm just scrolling. So it's page 219 versus page 248. Is that correct?

[0:09:00] Voice 27: Those are the two figures you're looking at and you're looking at the budgeted shortfall.

[0:09:05] Voice 27: That's right. So the budgeted shortfall in the forecast does not include accounting adjustments for amortization or for capital purchases in the year.

[0:09:15] Voice 27: so at the end of every year there's an adjustment for capital purchases that are made in the year

[0:09:19] Voice 27: to remove them as expenses and show them as tangible capital assets on the balance sheet

[0:09:23] Voice 27: so that adjustment is not reflected in in the budget that is in the forecast but it will be

[0:09:31] Voice 27: adjusted for in the budget documents thank

[0:09:36] Voice 10: you julia okay so let us then if there's no further

[0:09:42] Voice 10: the questions on the financial forecast we'll receive that um for information as well and uh

[0:09:49] Voice 10: so then at uh the next section would be to uh seek a report from the ceo regarding uh potential

[0:09:56] Voice 10: uh additional uh june uh trust council in-person meeting uh

[0:10:03] Voice 7: thanks mr chair and as briefly as

[0:10:04] Voice 7: possible uh quick uh narrative uh there is agreement by trust council to have lead live

[0:10:12] Voice 7: meetings for the upcoming year given that that direction came fairly late in the calendar year

[0:10:19] Voice 7: we then scrambled to find locations and venues that would accommodate that interest so june

[0:10:27] Voice 7: as of a couple of months ago we could not find a location for june so that by necessity would

[0:10:33] Voice 7: have ended up being an electronic meeting we informed fpc of that fact and they built the

[0:10:39] Voice 7: budget under that premise so your budget right now has three meetings that are live so that's

[0:10:47] Voice 7: september december and next march um just yesterday we heard that oh there could be a venue available

[0:10:54] Voice 7: for june uh so that means i couldn't have stood up here and said in all honesty we don't have a

[0:11:00] Voice 7: venue for june unfortunately it's not vetted yet and it would probably take the rest of today or

[0:11:05] Voice 7: probably even in tomorrow to determine whether that is possible or not but it might be so if you

[0:11:13] Voice 7: did want to have that live meeting in june and we can confirm that it would occur you would have to

[0:11:18] Voice 7: re you'd have to put appropriate funds back into the budget to allow for it in the order between

[0:11:26] Voice 7: 25 and 30 000 dollars that's it full stop the other consideration that's item one item two is

[0:11:35] Voice 7: we'd like some direction from you in terms of location irrespective of june um the uh

[0:11:42] Voice 7: for september we are anticipating going to gabriola and december would be in victoria

[0:11:50] Voice 7: and march on salt spring so we just don't have specific direction from you so at some point

[0:11:56] Voice 7: before trust council is over confirmation that those venues are appropriate so for now

[0:12:04] Voice 7: Now that's all I can provide you. I don't think you have an actionable decision right this second unless you say if the venue plays out, then we will amend the budget, which I wouldn't recommend you do at this point because by lunch we might know better.

[0:12:19] Voice 7: Sorry for the detail. Does that somewhat make sense?

[0:12:23] Voice 10: It makes sense. Does it make sense to others?

[0:12:26] Voice 10: but obviously we're going to have to delay any kind of a decision here until we have more

[0:12:31] Voice 10: information assuming that there is an interest in having an in-person meeting in june and that's

[0:12:37] Voice 10: maybe the question at hand so uh i saw a couple huns up i saw may read boland i see grant scott

[0:12:46] Voice 10: and was there somebody else and ken hunter okay so may read or you're deferring to grant

[0:12:56] Voice 10: i

[0:12:57] Voice 26: just thought that um we could just go ahead we don't have to decide to put another

[0:13:05] Voice 26: meeting in the budget we can just go forward it may become obvious later that we can't book one

[0:13:14] Voice 26: of the others either so we just book as best we can looking forward and stick with three

[0:13:20] Voice 26: and we don't have to change the budget and when we run out we run out you know so if the last

[0:13:25] Voice 26: meeting and it also optimizes if we say we're only going to have three then we should do them

[0:13:31] Voice 26: sooner rather than later to get the benefit in terms of building a sense of community

[0:13:37] Voice 10: if i'm not mistaken we already have commitments for the other meetings so there's no question that

[0:13:43] Voice 10: they won't happen as planned um it's about the desire that council had to have four meetings

[0:13:49] Voice 10: in person and whether or not we want to do that

[0:13:52] Voice 10: and the opportunity that exists now

[0:13:55] Voice 10: that didn't exist before to facilitate that.

[0:13:57] Voice 10: So Grant Scott, over to you.

[0:14:04] Voice 23: No, my microphone doesn't affect yours.

[0:14:08] Voice 23: Oh, there it is. Thank you.

[0:14:13] Voice 11: CAO, very official for us.

[0:14:17] Voice 11: Last term, we had meetings on Gabriola and Salt Spring

[0:14:22] Voice 11: and galliano and others probably others i can't well i know victoria's every year in december for

[0:14:30] Voice 11: obvious reasons so i'm just wondering why there's this term there's uh back to gabriel and salt

[0:14:36] Voice 11: spring again when it hasn't been to a whole nother a number of other islands that haven't

[0:14:42] Voice 11: haven't we haven't been in for as long as i know and i understood the idea was to rotate

[0:14:47] Voice 11: through the islands now maybe there's some practical reason why that doesn't work i don't

[0:14:52] Voice 11: So could you just clarify that, please?

[0:14:57] Voice 7: Yeah, this is a muscle we haven't used in a while because of COVID.

[0:15:02] Voice 7: So it wasn't, you know, it was early, early last term that we were on that rotunda.

[0:15:09] Voice 7: And we will go where you indicate.

[0:15:12] Voice 7: Because the decision to go live is relatively late in the decision-making calendar, it's hard to get bookings.

[0:15:20] Voice 7: so we're fairly confident we can get a booking on salt spring and we're fairly confident we can get

[0:15:25] Voice 7: a booking on gabriola vis-a-vis hornby or thetis or somewhere else where we just haven't um we

[0:15:35] Voice 7: don't have the assurance that we can book in given the the short time frame we might be able to if

[0:15:41] Voice 7: you have a particular desire this meeting's the time for you to say let's go here and then we

[0:15:48] Voice 7: would research it the challenge we get is when you say let's go to x island and you don't give us the

[0:15:54] Voice 7: next option underneath that and we can't get there we're stuck and we got to come back and talk to

[0:15:59] Voice 7: trust council again so it was for general convenience of all involved and that those

[0:16:05] Voice 7: locations are good locations to host meetings thanks can

[0:16:10] Voice 11: i can i just follow up here sure

[0:16:13] Voice 11: Yes, I understand all that.

[0:16:16] Voice 11: I just found it so informative to go to those other islands for those meetings.

[0:16:21] Voice 11: Just be there, talk to the people, travel around.

[0:16:24] Voice 11: And so I just thought a whole lot out of that.

[0:16:27] Voice 11: And I'd like to do that some more.

[0:16:29] Voice 11: Probably other people would as well, new people.

[0:16:32] Voice 11: So I don't really care what other island.

[0:16:36] Voice 11: It's just that it goes back to that cycle of trying.

[0:16:39] Voice 11: you know you've got all the options in the world wherever you can arrange it it's just not maybe

[0:16:44] Voice 11: try to get them out that's all and maybe not right now maybe it's too soon to do it now but maybe

[0:16:48] Voice 11: next year that's all thanks yeah

[0:16:52] Voice 10: i think as this term unfolds the reality will be as those

[0:16:56] Voice 10: opportunities will avail themselves because we need to get back into that rhythm of actually

[0:17:02] Voice 10: when we leave a venue we booked it already for next year and we need to have confidence that

[0:17:07] Voice 10: that there's a budget that's going to support that.

[0:17:08] Voice 10: And we're in this flux with budget and COVID

[0:17:11] Voice 10: and, of course, there's all the other organization

[0:17:16] Voice 10: and people in the world that want to also visit the Gulf Islands.

[0:17:19] Voice 10: So we have to compete with them.

[0:17:20] Voice 10: Anyway, I think I get the message.

[0:17:23] Voice 10: We all get the message and we'll accommodate as best we can.

[0:17:26] Voice 10: CEO Hudson-Piller?

[0:17:27] Voice 7: The public is expecting, though,

[0:17:31] Voice 7: that you adopt an agenda with locations and times.

[0:17:34] Voice 7: Yeah.

[0:17:34] Voice 7: And that's an obligation you have as Trust Council.

[0:17:37] Voice 7: And you don't do a one-off every quarter.

[0:17:40] Voice 7: So that's why we have to get to some sort of plan at some point.

[0:17:43] Voice 10: Okay.

[0:17:44] Voice 7: So

[0:17:44] Voice 10: in terms of the budget, if we're wanting to include funds,

[0:17:49] Voice 10: then we do need to consider that today.

[0:17:52] Voice 10: And so I think what I'm going to say is I'm going to check in with the CAO at noon

[0:17:58] Voice 10: and see where we're at.

[0:17:59] Voice 10: And if there's an appetite for it, then we can consider that.

[0:18:03] Voice 10: But let's proceed with what we know.

[0:18:05] Voice 10: and we'll continue to revisit this as best we can.

[0:18:14] Voice 10: Okay, so that concludes consent agenda items in that one.

[0:18:17] Voice 10: And so now we're going to move into discussion

[0:18:19] Voice 10: and decision items.

[0:18:22] Voice 10: And so 7.2.1, March on stress council

[0:18:26] Voice 10: proposed budget session outline is before you on page 226.

[0:18:31] Voice 10: And so that's how we anticipate this is going to go today.

[0:18:41] Voice 10: day and um any questions okay so then let's go to uh 7.22 uh the draft budget assumptions and

[0:18:51] Voice 10: principles briefing and i'll ask julia mobs uh to introduce that and also um i'm just going to do

[0:18:57] Voice 10: one really important thing here i'm going to acknowledge chair uh bernardo of the financial

[0:19:02] Voice 10: planning committee and just get those of you that sit on financial planning committee just to raise

[0:19:06] Voice 10: your hand so everybody knows who we are that's awesome i want to thank you for what has been

[0:19:11] Voice 10: And a phenomenal amount of work and also a phenomenal amount of work on behalf of the LTCs looking closely at their own budgets and at staff looking at operational costs in order to bring this amazing budget that Julia has managed to bring to us today.

[0:19:30] Voice 10: And so there'll be opportunities for the chair of FBC to speak to items on the agenda accordingly.

[0:19:36] Voice 10: accordingly and I'm just going to now start off and perhaps the chair would like to have that

[0:19:42] Voice 10: opportunity now but I also want to deliver the deep provide the opportunity for the details to

[0:19:49] Voice 10: be delivered by Julia. So Chair Bernard do you want you have some opening remarks with respect

[0:19:54] Voice 10: to the budget process?

[0:19:55] Voice 16: I do thank you for that opportunity Mr. Chair. Before Director Bob's

[0:20:02] Voice 16: walks us through the budget i am indeed going to take a few minutes to explain how the mbfpc

[0:20:10] Voice 16: financial planning committee ended up deciding this is the right budget to recommend to trust

[0:20:16] Voice 16: council because that's what this is it's a recommendation from us to you i believe it's

[0:20:23] Voice 16: useful to spend a few minutes and i'll try to be concise uh going through uh how we got here

[0:20:30] Voice 16: because working to finalize the budget we found ourselves facing I guess a big picture process

[0:20:38] Voice 16: issue that trust council in due course is going to have to as a whole is going to eventually have

[0:20:43] Voice 16: to address and I'll get to that in a minute but we have process at our first meeting we were

[0:20:49] Voice 16: presented with a draft budget that contemplated something like a 10 tax increase this was due

[0:20:55] Voice 16: to circumstances that were entirely beyond trust council's control you've heard about this before

[0:21:02] Voice 16: but it's extremely relevant.

[0:21:05] Voice 16: The new BCGEU contract signed by the provincial government

[0:21:11] Voice 16: confronts us with an increase of, I'll get it wrong,

[0:21:14] Voice 16: but roughly $700,000 in our annual salary overhead.

[0:21:19] Voice 16: Accounting for that cost jump,

[0:21:21] Voice 16: and this is not advanced accounting,

[0:21:24] Voice 16: this is like arithmetic,

[0:21:26] Voice 16: accounting for that cost jump and expenditures

[0:21:28] Voice 16: in the next fiscal year would be significantly greater

[0:21:31] Voice 16: than our expected revenue.

[0:21:34] Voice 16: So we were given a draft that contemplated we'd cover that with the corresponding tax increase.

[0:21:40] Voice 16: That's not because staff is a fan of raising taxes.

[0:21:45] Voice 16: It's because staff is obligated to develop a budget that follows Trust Council's direction.

[0:21:54] Voice 16: Trust Council has directed that Islands Trust should undertake various activities and projects.

[0:21:59] Voice 16: Staff's job is to develop a budget that funds all of these ambitions.

[0:22:05] Voice 16: If there's not enough money in the kitty, staff is too polite to say it, but in those situations, Trust Council needs to look into the mirror as to why we're spending money and resources that we don't have.

[0:22:20] Voice 16: So that was the situation. Very late in the budget planning cycle, a brand new FPC was faced with a dilemma where if we did nothing about expenditures, we'd find ourselves recommending and trying to justify to you a budget with a big tax increase.

[0:22:37] Voice 16: It was a dilemma, particularly because out of 10 committee members, six had just assumed office and had, frankly, absolutely zero involvement in having developed a budget in the first place.

[0:22:48] Voice 16: in other words uh many and maybe most members of the fbc were not in a position to assess the

[0:22:57] Voice 16: merits of what were from their perspective legacy spending commitments that was a problem because

[0:23:04] Voice 16: a finance committee is not about taking things on faith you don't need a finance committee for

[0:23:11] Voice 16: that any warm body can do that what you need a finance committee for is to exercise scrutiny

[0:23:17] Voice 16: scrutiny and judgment. And doing that and doing it diligently means FPC ought not to be recommending

[0:23:25] Voice 16: any kind of tax increase unless we're satisfied. The expenditures, the tax revenue, the new tax

[0:23:34] Voice 16: revenue is intended to fund can be defended to our constituents on their merits. And as I said

[0:23:40] Voice 16: before, most of us on the committee were at a loss to occupy that mindset because we were so new to

[0:23:48] Voice 16: this. So what followed was an attempt to distinguish between discretionary and non-discretionary

[0:23:54] Voice 16: expenditures. We had to try to figure out which ones those were, and then to see what we could

[0:23:59] Voice 16: do about the discretionary ones with a view to squeezing out what cost savings we could reasonably

[0:24:09] Voice 16: undertake in order to lower the tax increase as much as possible without disrupting operations.

[0:24:14] Voice 16: considerations. Given that the majority of committee members, as I said, were newcomers,

[0:24:19] Voice 16: that was very much like trying to wield a scalpel in the dark. Some folks were more comfortable

[0:24:27] Voice 16: doing that than others. They'd had practice in that kind of knife work. As you can imagine,

[0:24:32] Voice 16: though, there was a lot of back and forth, a lot, because plenty of people were also very

[0:24:37] Voice 16: uncomfortable with that because they understood that there was a history with these commitments.

[0:24:42] Voice 16: uh and they were very self-conscious about disrupting operations so that's where we were at

[0:24:48] Voice 16: we had these not necessarily opposing camps but this was the tenor at the discussion the important

[0:24:56] Voice 16: thing to know is that this was not some ideological battle between the people who came into the

[0:25:01] Voice 16: committee already committed some kind of fiscal conservatism versus people who are coming into

[0:25:07] Voice 16: the committee that committed to some kind of fiscal liberalism that's not what was going on

[0:25:12] Voice 16: this isn't this was a pragmatic exercise it was a struggle by people everybody in the committee

[0:25:18] Voice 16: is very conscientious it's a struggle by conscientious people each with their own

[0:25:22] Voice 16: perspective collectively trying to work out a fiscally responsible solution to a very tough

[0:25:27] Voice 16: situation now with director mobbs's help this draft budget is the best we could do there's a

[0:25:34] Voice 16: tax increase in it but it isn't it isn't 10 the reason i'm going into all of this stuff is i just

[0:25:42] Voice 16: just ask that i want you to appreciate that our decision to recommend this budget to you was not

[0:25:48] Voice 16: made lightly uh it was arrived at after a lot of uh stress and work debate it is a hard one

[0:26:00] Voice 16: compromise and uh of course it's trust council's responsibility to debate um the budget and it's

[0:26:11] Voice 16: open properly for everybody to make their own comments about this or that expenditure

[0:26:17] Voice 16: but another reason i've gone into all this detail is um i don't think anybody want you know

[0:26:24] Voice 16: it's not as i'm not saying we ought not to reinvent the wheel but let's try not to reinvent

[0:26:29] Voice 16: every spoke of it now in getting to this point we discovered that quite apart from the immediate

[0:26:36] Voice 16: challenge of this salary increase the deeper reason our budgeting process is so difficult

[0:26:41] Voice 16: and you know i was kind of hinting at this before is because trust council consistently authorizes

[0:26:47] Voice 16: more work than staff has the capacity to undertake this is a structural problem and it starts with us

[0:26:55] Voice 16: and you know you've heard this you know even at our original orientation you heard some things

[0:27:01] Voice 16: along these lines before but we really do need to get a grip on this phenomenon of ours it's

[0:27:06] Voice 16: nothing to be casual about it's nothing to simply accept because what we're talking about when we do

[0:27:11] Voice 16: that is a serious lack of transparency in our budgeting process as i said before our budgets

[0:27:17] Voice 16: necessarily have to account for all of the work trust council has committed staff to do

[0:27:23] Voice 16: now that has two inevitable consequences one is that staff is stretched in so many different

[0:27:28] Voice 16: directions it's hard to complete initiatives in a timely way we've all been in that situation

[0:27:33] Voice 16: where you've got too many things to do and not enough time to do it and you're never really

[0:27:38] Voice 16: very happy about how you do any of those things because of that situation you're in.

[0:27:45] Voice 16: Putting people under that type of pressure inhibits professionalism. It gets in the way

[0:27:52] Voice 16: of people doing the best job they want to do. And we've seen the results. We have these projects

[0:27:57] Voice 16: that just take longer than they should. And we heard a presentation yesterday about

[0:28:02] Voice 16: planning not being as efficient as people would like. So that's a big problem. The other problem

[0:28:09] Voice 16: is, and this gets closer to the budgeting issue here, so there's simply no way all of the work

[0:28:14] Voice 16: we budget for in a year can possibly get done in that year. Employee turnover is a component of

[0:28:21] Voice 16: that, but any way you slice it, we still are in a situation where we don't have the staff capacity

[0:28:26] Voice 16: to do the things that Trust Council wants staff to do. What that means is many of the funding

[0:28:32] Voice 16: commitments in each budget represent work that has no hope of getting done. What does that mean?

[0:28:40] Voice 16: It means every year we commit to spending a substantial amount of money that has no hope, and we know we'll not get spent.

[0:28:53] Voice 16: That's why we constantly end up running surpluses.

[0:28:56] Voice 16: It's not because we're efficient.

[0:28:59] Voice 16: It's not because we're clever.

[0:29:00] Voice 16: It's not because we're lucky.

[0:29:01] Voice 16: It's because we're overcommitting.

[0:29:04] Voice 16: Trust Council has worked the organization into a corner where our budgets, year in and year out, always overestimate what can be realistically delivered.

[0:29:14] Voice 16: whatever that is it's not normal budgeting and it's on trust council not staff to fix it because

[0:29:21] Voice 16: we're the ones basically with the problem appetite here the solution to that uh is within reach

[0:29:30] Voice 16: and we heard some references to this before yesterday uh and it's the corporate planning

[0:29:35] Voice 16: process uh governance committee working with the fbc uh are working to develop and we hope

[0:29:42] Voice 16: hope eventually, with Trust Council support, implement a proper corporate planning process

[0:29:47] Voice 16: that ensures that in any given year, Trust Council commits staff only to a volume of work

[0:29:53] Voice 16: that staff is actually capable of accomplishing. If we do that, we will put the budgeting process

[0:30:00] Voice 16: process on a sounder footing. And more than that, I promise you, I promise you, you'll see less

[0:30:06] Voice 16: staff turnover. Because that's how it works in the real world. You know, you strain people,

[0:30:13] Voice 16: they leave. So it's not a paradox to say, if we want to get more done, we need to commit to doing

[0:30:19] Voice 16: less. Over to you, Director Moggs. I

[0:30:26] Voice 10: want to actually give the CAO an opportunity for a

[0:30:28] Voice 10: comment that's on the agenda, if he wishes to say anything. No, I decline the time

[0:30:34] Voice 7: and offer it to

[0:30:35] Voice 7: to yourself and Director Moms.

[0:30:37] Voice 7: Director Moms, the floor is yours.

[0:30:40] Voice 27: Thanks Mr. Chair, good morning council.

[0:30:42] Voice 27: The first document in the budget session

[0:30:44] Voice 27: that I'm going to speak to very briefly

[0:30:45] Voice 27: is the budget assumptions and principles document.

[0:30:47] Voice 27: This document comes to council with every iteration

[0:30:53] Voice 27: of the budget, mainly as a reminder of the assumptions

[0:30:57] Voice 27: and principles that the budget has been built on.

[0:30:59] Voice 27: Where there's been changes to assumptions and principles,

[0:31:01] Voice 27: I do try to note those items in blue font

[0:31:03] Voice 27: so it's easy for Trust Council to identify changes.

[0:31:06] Voice 27: Very briefly, I'll just speak to what some of those changes are.

[0:31:09] Voice 27: So on page 227 of the agenda package, item number one relates to application fees revenue.

[0:31:15] Voice 27: We are starting to see a slowdown in the volume of applications that are coming into the Islands Trust.

[0:31:21] Voice 27: And because of that, we have adjusted the estimated application fees revenue in next year's budget.

[0:31:27] Voice 27: The next item that's been adjusted is item number three,

[0:31:30] Voice 27: the work for the local government development application approvals program has seen a slight

[0:31:35] Voice 27: delay and so we're seeing more of that work planned for next fiscal year and so we've got

[0:31:40] Voice 27: larger grant revenue budgeted in next fiscal year to reflect that item number 12 talks to staffing

[0:31:47] Voice 27: levels previous versions of the budget assumed one or two new staff positions the current version

[0:31:53] Voice 27: of the draft budget includes three new staff positions and we'll be speaking to each of those

[0:31:57] Voice 27: new staff positions as we work through the budget materials today the only other item to speak to is

[0:32:06] Voice 27: item number 17 and this is our office leases early discussions with the galliano trustees indicated

[0:32:13] Voice 27: there may be an opportunity to release the office lease on galliano island more recent discussions

[0:32:20] Voice 27: have determined that the local trustees would like to retain that space for an additional year

[0:32:24] Voice 27: to see if it's useful for them so we can make a more informed decision about potentially releasing

[0:32:28] Voice 27: in the space next year and so we have added funds into the draft budget to keep that lease for an

[0:32:34] Voice 27: additional year nothing else i need to speak to on the assumptions document but i'm happy to take

[0:32:39] Voice 27: questions if

[0:32:39] Voice 23: there are any and some principles deb morrison sorry

[0:32:50] Voice 35: you know i just always have

[0:32:51] Voice 35: to ask this one question um so i just want to point out we did make some changes in the number

[0:32:57] Voice 35: one the fees and sales um with model fee bylaws except for the rogue islands of north pender and

[0:33:03] Voice 35: Saturna who haven't passed their model fees bylaws. But I guess the question or the thing I

[0:33:10] Voice 35: just want to highlight, given this is the first time we're going through this with the new trust

[0:33:13] Voice 35: council, is that assumption is based on the idea of the policy that's linked there, which is that

[0:33:20] Voice 35: we have 100% cost recovery on the average cost of any particular type of fee, of permit, sorry,

[0:33:29] Voice 35: sorry, a permit. And so it's not really a question for you. It's just more of a statement to unpack

[0:33:34] Voice 35: what that link does, because I just want to make sure that people understand that that's what we're

[0:33:38] Voice 35: doing in our communities. Thank you. Thank

[0:33:42] Voice 10: you. No other questions on assumptions and principles?

[0:33:45] Voice 10: Okay, you can continue to 7.2.3.

[0:33:51] Voice 27: If my volume is too low, feel free to just raise your hand or

[0:33:54] Voice 27: or indicate that you can't hear me uh so agenda item 7.2.3 begins on page 235 of the agenda

[0:34:02] Voice 27: package um it starts with a summary of all of the activities that have taken place to get the draft

[0:34:08] Voice 27: budget to the place that it is today um of course there's been a lot of work by financial planning

[0:34:12] Voice 27: committee since trust council last saw the budget um the chair of financial planning committee has

[0:34:16] Voice 27: spoken to that so i won't reiterate i'll begin an overview of the draft budget at the top of page

[0:34:22] Voice 27: page 236 of the agenda package with a high-level summary of the draft budget results.

[0:34:29] Voice 27: So the draft budget has a total proposed planned spending of $9.7 million. $8.9 million of this

[0:34:37] Voice 27: is directed through the operating budget. $671,000 of this is allocated to projects,

[0:34:42] Voice 27: and $134,000 is budgeted for the purchase of new capital assets. There's a proposed general tax

[0:34:49] Voice 27: tax increase to local trust areas of 1.75%, plus an expected 8% increase in taxation that is

[0:34:57] Voice 27: expected to be collected on new construction and development. The Bowen Island municipal tax levy

[0:35:02] Voice 27: is seeing a slight decrease in the general levy of 1.2%, plus an additional 6.6% that's expected

[0:35:10] Voice 27: to be collected on new development and new construction in that area. Once again, there is

[0:35:16] Voice 27: a proposed plan draw from surplus and reserve fund in the draft budget to fund the shortfall

[0:35:21] Voice 27: that's reflected. There's a proposed draw from the general revenue surplus fund of $251,000

[0:35:26] Voice 27: and a proposed draw from the local trust committee project reserve fund of about $184,000.

[0:35:32] Voice 27: And that will be directed to local trust committee work. When we compare the draft budget to the

[0:35:39] Voice 27: current year financial forecast, we are seeing about 11% increase over the current forecasted

[0:35:45] Voice 27: operating budget. That increase is primarily due to an increase in staff salaries and wages,

[0:35:50] Voice 27: an increase in trustee remuneration and related benefits costs, and also increases related to

[0:35:56] Voice 27: software support and licensing. We're seeing a decrease in next year's budget for projects when

[0:36:03] Voice 27: we compare it to the current year financial forecast. It's reflected at $671,000 in the

[0:36:08] Voice 27: draft budget. One item of note related to budgeting for projects at the Islands Trust is the fact that

[0:36:14] Voice 27: historically islands trust does not spend its project budgets every year we fall short in that

[0:36:20] Voice 27: arena there's a number of reasons that we might not achieve project deliverables we may experience

[0:36:25] Voice 27: staff turnover which limits our ability to achieve work there may be problems securing contractors

[0:36:30] Voice 27: in a year trust council or local trust committees may move a project from their priorities list

[0:36:36] Voice 27: many different reasons can contribute to this underspending but it is historically standard

[0:36:40] Voice 27: standard and chronic situation. When Financial Planning Committee was discussing this concept,

[0:36:45] Voice 27: they requested staff to include a greater level of detail around project underspending by project

[0:36:51] Voice 27: type. So what we see in that detail is the five-year average underspending for strategic

[0:36:57] Voice 27: plan projects is 25%. The five-year average underspending against budget for local trust

[0:37:03] Voice 27: committee projects is 44%. And the five-year average underspending against budget for

[0:37:08] Voice 27: for operational projects is 30%.

[0:37:11] Voice 27: And that information is on page 236 and 237 of the agenda.

[0:37:17] Voice 27: Our draft capital budget has increased

[0:37:19] Voice 27: over the current year forecast by $47,000.

[0:37:22] Voice 27: And that's primarily due to the replacement

[0:37:24] Voice 27: of computers nearing end of life,

[0:37:25] Voice 27: as well as server replacements and related licensing costs.

[0:37:30] Voice 27: So that covers a high level summary of the draft budget.

[0:37:32] Voice 27: And we can now move into the details,

[0:37:35] Voice 27: but I can take a pause for questions if there's any.

[0:37:38] Voice 10: Trustee Evans, anybody else?

[0:37:41] Voice 10: Go ahead, Trustee Evans.

[0:37:46] Voice 25: I was just going to ask, because I heard some confusion from questions that came from the public yesterday regarding the non-market change increase.

[0:37:56] Voice 25: And I just want to make sure that everyone understands that the non-market change increase is not the percentage increase to all taxpayers.

[0:38:04] Voice 25: So when you look at that number, that is not the tax increase.

[0:38:07] Voice 25: increase that is new monies coming in based on new new homes being developed and as a quick

[0:38:15] Voice 25: silly analogy if you've got island a and it's got 10 houses on it and you build and you you've got

[0:38:24] Voice 25: taxes of one dollar each you've got ten dollars you have four new houses that are built and they

[0:38:29] Voice 25: still pay one dollar tax per house you now have 14 that's a 40 increase that does not mean that

[0:38:35] Voice 25: everybody's paying 40% more. Thank

[0:38:42] Voice 9: you. Any other

[0:38:43] Voice 10: questions or clarity? Deb Morrison.

[0:38:46] Voice 35: Thank you, Julia. As usual, I enjoy our time together. So I'm on top of page 237,

[0:38:54] Voice 35: where you are actually on the screen there. And I just, can you just explain if,

[0:39:02] Voice 35: So these estimates show to me that we are not projecting our costs accurate to what is actually

[0:39:10] Voice 35: happening on average. And so what projections are being used in the current budget? Are they

[0:39:19] Voice 35: adjusted for this reality of how our funding lands in the world? Or are we going to end up

[0:39:25] Voice 35: with a bunch of contributions to surplus again this year after approving an increase in budget?

[0:39:29] Voice 35: So

[0:39:32] Voice 27: we haven't made substantial changes to how we're budgeting for projects in the current draft

[0:39:37] Voice 27: budget. So there is a risk that we would land in the same situation with underspending against

[0:39:43] Voice 27: projects. I do know that local trust committees did revisit some of their specific projects that

[0:39:49] Voice 27: had funding allocated. I think it's Gabriel and Salt Spring Island in particular did reduce the

[0:39:54] Voice 27: level of funding in some of their projects. But other than that, I think most of the projects

[0:40:00] Voice 27: are at where they were originally budgeted.

[0:40:03] Voice 27: There may be some discussion coming forward later on

[0:40:06] Voice 27: in this trust council session around some other projects

[0:40:10] Voice 27: that may be reduced, but in short substantially,

[0:40:13] Voice 27: we've not changed how we budget for these things.

[0:40:16] Voice 35: The follow-up chair.

[0:40:21] Voice 9: Go ahead and I'm recognizing Toby Elliot

[0:40:23] Voice 10: and you may read Boland.

[0:40:26] Voice 35: Thank you, so I guess my question is,

[0:40:30] Voice 35: and I don't know if this is rhetorical or not,

[0:40:33] Voice 35: so i apologize if it is but um is there a method for us to like overarchingly say that there is

[0:40:42] Voice 35: some percentage reduction in the budget that then is worked out internally as it goes forward

[0:40:48] Voice 35: given that we're over estimating our costs usually so like i know we can't necessarily

[0:40:55] Voice 35: take it out of each row of the budget because we don't necessarily know where that's going to be

[0:40:59] Voice 35: but is there a way to be able to take like whatever percentage off the top of project

[0:41:05] Voice 35: budgets because we know there's going to be this underspending issue um

[0:41:09] Voice 10: cao did you want to chime

[0:41:11] Voice 10: in on that um

[0:41:13] Voice 7: i can help because um what i'd say compared to previous years and given we have a new

[0:41:18] Voice 7: council we have less projects so if you hold that there will be fewer projects whereby that outcome

[0:41:27] Voice 7: come will be the result we i would say we have a better chance of not being in this position next

[0:41:34] Voice 7: year relative to last year same with the strategic planning projects they're more modest in this

[0:41:43] Voice 7: budget relative to the previous ambitions of last year because more of the work has been done

[0:41:49] Voice 7: does that does that make sense as opposed to a piece by piece version there's more there's

[0:41:58] Voice 7: There's fewer LTC projects that are more condensed compared to the previous budget.

[0:42:06] Voice 35: So, yes, thank you. I understand what you're saying, that we basically are working more closely into our capacity, I think is what you're trying to say.

[0:42:14] Voice 35: I guess the question still stands for Julia. Is there a financial mechanism to kind of also account for that type of change?

[0:42:25] Voice 27: There's a couple of things I will say.

[0:42:27] Voice 27: one of the things that I see when we're planning for projects is there's an assumption made that

[0:42:32] Voice 27: we'll be fully staffed. When we look at the salaries expense line, there's an assumption

[0:42:37] Voice 27: made that we're not going to be fully staffed. We have an adjustment for staff turnover. So I

[0:42:42] Voice 27: don't believe that same assumption for staff turnover is built into some of our project

[0:42:47] Voice 27: feasibility work. So that would be something we could look at for future. If there was a desire

[0:42:53] Voice 27: to you know acknowledge that we're chronically over budgeting uh what we need for projects uh

[0:42:59] Voice 27: you could determine a percentage that you wish to reduce project spending by and apply it in the

[0:43:04] Voice 27: budget the difficulty then becomes how that's portioned out you know

[0:43:09] Voice 27: is every project going

[0:43:10] Voice 27: to take a 10 haircut are you going to have a few projects that wear that and others that remain the

[0:43:15] Voice 27: same so without a clear direction as to which projects will see a reduced budget it can be

[0:43:21] Voice 27: more difficult um you know there may be recommendations from staff along those lines

[0:43:26] Voice 27: um it's it's something that's workable but it could create some problems down the road

[0:43:30] Voice 27: thank

[0:43:34] Voice 9: you toby elliott uh marie

[0:43:37] Voice 10: boland and laura patrick

[0:43:39] Voice 21: thank you chair and thank you director

[0:43:42] Voice 21: mobs um yeah just in reference to the haircut um to local trust committee projects and then

[0:43:50] Voice 21: And I wanted to have maybe a bit of a conversation about what are we deferring and pushing down the road in the context of we're dipping into our surplus now.

[0:44:02] Voice 21: The work for the Gabriela LTC and Salt Spring LTCs still needs to get done.

[0:44:09] Voice 21: We just trimmed this year in light of CPI index being at, what, 6%, 7%.

[0:44:17] Voice 21: Other local governments have had to raise taxes between 5% and 10% this year, and we are, you know, looking at a very low tax increase.

[0:44:29] Voice 21: So are we looking at a situation where we're just deferring, we're kicking the problem down the road, and we still need to get the work done?

[0:44:39] Voice 21: So Gabriel's, you know, OCP review, I'll just speak to that.

[0:44:44] Voice 21: It's gone to $18,000.

[0:44:46] Voice 21: We're doing the preliminary work.

[0:44:47] Voice 21: we still need sixty seven thousand seventy thousand dollars to do it and that's a modest

[0:44:51] Voice 21: um that's not a lot of money to do the kind of work that has been delayed for uh ten years so

[0:44:58] Voice 21: i just want to have a conversation are we borrowing against the future

[0:45:02] Voice 21: and really being careful about not predicating um a pattern of budgeting

[0:45:10] Voice 21: budgeting based on this year specifically because of the particular conditions of

[0:45:17] Voice 21: our budget the surplus increases and then the general cost of increase of living it's not a

[0:45:25] Voice 21: very clear question but i'd just like a conversation about that we'll

[0:45:31] Voice 27: ask a question of clarity if i

[0:45:32] Voice 27: may are you speaking specifically to the fact that there's a draw in the budget from surplus and

[0:45:38] Voice 27: reserve funds to pay for these projects and is that a type of borrowing from the future

[0:45:44] Voice 27: um the answer short answer is yes where we have a budget year that draws significant funds

[0:45:51] Voice 27: from surplus or reserve we deplete the surplus and reserve funds in that year

[0:45:58] Voice 27: um and so what that means is that in the next budget cycle there's no money there to draw on

[0:46:03] Voice 27: to pay for planned spending. So if we had $500,000 being drawn from surplus this year and we actually

[0:46:12] Voice 27: achieve that, we do spend that money out of surplus. Next year, if we have a similar $500,000

[0:46:17] Voice 27: plan for projects or spending, we no longer have surplus to pay for that. We would have to

[0:46:22] Voice 27: use taxation. So we'd see a substantial tax increase in that second year. We do actually

[0:46:27] Voice 27: see that in the five-year financial plan, which we'll be looking at tomorrow. What tends to be

[0:46:31] Voice 27: the reality at Islands Trust is that we budget to have planned draws from surplus and reserve.

[0:46:39] Voice 27: And as the year goes on, we underspend against budget. We don't achieve what we expect to

[0:46:44] Voice 27: achieve. Therefore, we don't make those planned draws from surplus. So they're still there in

[0:46:48] Voice 27: the next year and they get drawn on again. So it is a repetitive cycle. But if we do have a year

[0:46:55] Voice 27: where we actually spend our budget and we actually make those draws from surplus, the year following

[0:46:59] Voice 27: will be very difficult thanks

[0:47:04] Voice 21: for that and and i think that's what i'm getting at is do we want to

[0:47:08] Voice 21: make a plan where we're dipping wholeheartedly into our surplus and then we're actually we're

[0:47:16] Voice 21: accurately predicting how much we're going to spend and we do spend all that money and then

[0:47:21] Voice 21: we are facing a very tough year next year because the work still needs to get done it still needs

[0:47:28] Voice 21: needs to get funded.

[0:47:29] Voice 21: And that's what I need my fellow trustees to hear.

[0:47:33] Voice 21: This is a land use planning agency.

[0:47:36] Voice 21: We cannot neglect our OCP reviews.

[0:47:39] Voice 21: This is all in the governance report.

[0:47:40] Voice 21: The work still needs to get done.

[0:47:42] Voice 21: So we need to plan for it, not just this taxation year,

[0:47:45] Voice 21: but five years in the future.

[0:47:47] Voice 21: So just flagging that, thanks.

[0:47:49] Voice 10: Thank you.

[0:47:50] Voice 10: So I'm getting a developing speakers list here.

[0:47:53] Voice 10: So Mairead Boland, Laura Patrick, Joe Bernardo,

[0:47:59] Voice 23: Christine Evans and Kate-Louise Stamford.

[0:48:06] Voice 26: Thanks.

[0:48:07] Voice 26: Just Julia did reference it,

[0:48:10] Voice 26: but this year, in an effort to reduce the budget,

[0:48:15] Voice 26: in a normal year or in the past,

[0:48:18] Voice 26: there has been significant staff vacancy through the year,

[0:48:22] Voice 26: and that was over-budgeted for us.

[0:48:25] Voice 26: So I think it was 100,000 was taken out of the budget

[0:48:30] Voice 26: on the basis that there would be vacancies through the year.

[0:48:34] Voice 26: And that's one of the items that normally feeds the surplus fund.

[0:48:38] Voice 26: But this year, it won't be, for sure.

[0:48:42] Voice 26: Okay, thank you.

[0:48:43] Voice 9: Thank you.

[0:48:44] Voice 9: Laura Patrick?

[0:48:47] Voice 18: This exact issue was discussed in detail at the Financial Planning Committee.

[0:48:53] Voice 18: And I know a lot of you don't need the extra time to watch our committee meetings.

[0:48:57] Voice 18: But what we were facing was we have this information.

[0:49:01] Voice 18: we're like okay we could trim let's trim the the project budgets by x percent and that'll solve the

[0:49:06] Voice 18: issue and then we're like well where do we cut that which project do we cut so that was why we

[0:49:11] Voice 18: increased the surplus draw so that we at least weren't going to be taxing on that overestimation

[0:49:18] Voice 18: so that was my recollection of the of the thinking that we had applied to this this problem thank you

[0:49:26] Voice 10: you, Joe Bernardo.

[0:49:28] Voice 16: Thank you. To address

[0:49:30] Voice 16: Trustee Elliott's question, I think what we've

[0:49:34] Voice 16: deferred this year is the genuine

[0:49:39] Voice 16: strategic planning that was missing from this year's budget

[0:49:42] Voice 16: planning. We have a strategic plan,

[0:49:48] Voice 16: but it's not connected to

[0:49:51] Voice 16: our fiscal planning. And that's what corporate planning is all about,

[0:49:55] Voice 16: about is making strategic decisions, but in the process of choosing which projects and activities

[0:50:05] Voice 16: we want to fund, we do it with an understanding that it's going to cost money. And so when you

[0:50:11] Voice 16: approve project A, you approve the funding for it for the whole life of the project. And you also

[0:50:18] Voice 16: work into it an understanding of how long that project is going to take. So it comes with a

[0:50:22] Voice 16: business plan not just a business case a real plan that means when trust council is being asked to

[0:50:29] Voice 16: approve project a we really know what we're getting into and we've made a cost benefit

[0:50:34] Voice 16: analysis and we've made a commitment to it and whether um the ocps or something else gets priority

[0:50:45] Voice 16: that becomes it's at that juncture in that corporate planning process that's when we're

[0:50:51] Voice 16: confronted with the decision do we advance the gabriola ocp or we do we do some research into

[0:50:58] Voice 16: the unique population of slugs on keats island uh the debate happens it lasts 30 seconds gabriela

[0:51:06] Voice 16: gets its ocp what happens to the slug project nothing we don't do what we've done before

[0:51:13] Voice 16: which try to sort of pretend to keep people happy we sort of pretend we're going to do it

[0:51:17] Voice 16: We just forget about it. We move on. We've made a choice. And with a proper corporate planning process, we are going to be confronted with doing something that we haven't done before, which is a cost-benefit analysis for projects and a choice between them.

[0:51:34] Voice 16: that's what we've deferred and uh we have been consistent with precedent in deferring that

[0:51:41] Voice 16: that's what has to change if we want to get to a sound budgeting process thank you thank you joe

[0:51:50] Voice 10: um christina evans thank

[0:51:53] Voice 25: you i was also going to respond to trustee elliot um similarly to what

[0:51:59] Voice 25: Joe Bernardo has said, I'm going to expand on it a little bit. In this fiscal year for this fiscal

[0:52:05] Voice 25: budget, we don't have in our hands a corporate plan process by which to budget against. We don't

[0:52:16] Voice 25: have a process by which we can say these are the available number of staff hours per year.

[0:52:23] Voice 25: What are they going to be budgeted against? And once they're used up, we don't add any more budget

[0:52:28] Voice 25: items into the mix. It's cut off so that come next year, we have a true budget that we should

[0:52:37] Voice 25: be hitting, not with massive surpluses. So this year, we can't break that cycle. We have to work

[0:52:45] Voice 25: with what's been handed to us and what's been sort of done in the past with some tweaks as

[0:52:51] Voice 25: to the best of our ability without this true corporate process in our hands, a strategy

[0:52:56] Voice 25: process in our hands. It's different to what we've been doing and hopefully it'll help us with

[0:53:03] Voice 25: how we run our business as Trust Council to spend the tax dollars that are hard-earned by our

[0:53:11] Voice 25: constituents and do it and for us as Trust Council in a more fiscally responsible manner

[0:53:19] Voice 25: than perhaps has been done in the past and that's not to say that it wasn't done fiscally

[0:53:24] Voice 25: responsible in the past they were lacking a tool that would help us get further down that path

[0:53:30] Voice 25: and so by creating this efficiency we should be able to get to a place where we can

[0:53:36] Voice 25: maintain our surplus and know what we're spending and without overburdening the staff and to come to

[0:53:47] Voice 25: good decisions as a trust council as to where we're going to spend that money.

[0:53:51] Voice 25: thank you thank

[0:53:54] Voice 9: you kate louise stanford thank

[0:54:00] Voice 20: you chair also in reference to trustee elliott's

[0:54:03] Voice 20: concerns i share those concerns i and as a part of the gambier local trust committee we're in the

[0:54:09] Voice 20: middle of an ocp process that is terribly underfunded and we have maintained uh um

[0:54:19] Voice 20: some kind of idea that if we're fiscally responsible and we put as little money in

[0:54:24] Voice 20: as possible we will get through a process and it shows like we need to be able to invest in our

[0:54:31] Voice 20: core responsibilities ocps i look at other communities ocps are upwards about quarter of

[0:54:38] Voice 20: a million dollars to run and i think for gabriola for salt spring it's critically important but also

[0:54:46] Voice 20: these independent um other local trust committees which are independent entities when we look at

[0:54:53] Voice 20: strategic across the trust council we also have to acknowledge that we are 16 independent bodies

[0:55:00] Voice 20: that all require a certain level of funding and acknowledgement we can't just look at it as one

[0:55:06] Voice 20: entity so i do encourage that we i really appreciate the work that's being done here

[0:55:13] Voice 20: it's incredible that you can come in at a budget level uh increase this low i am really concerned

[0:55:20] Voice 20: what it's going to mean for the next three years, and that our ability to advance our own projects

[0:55:26] Voice 20: will be severely limited for the equally important bigger projects such as Gabriel and Salisbury.

[0:55:34] Voice 20: Thank

[0:55:36] Voice 10: you, Kate Louise. Deb Morrison.

[0:55:39] Voice 35: Thank you. So I think what has been illuminated here,

[0:55:43] Voice 35: and I don't want to be too far off our current budget, our current agenda item, but I think

[0:55:47] Voice 35: what's being illuminated here is that we have an intersection between how we are structured and how

[0:55:54] Voice 35: we are organized around our governance issues with how we are prioritizing and budgeting related to

[0:56:00] Voice 35: our budgeting issues and I think critically important to who we are as an organization

[0:56:06] Voice 35: how we are transparent in that work with our communities and so like I think the thing that

[0:56:15] Voice 35: christina and joe are talking to is is really important because what we're trying to do is

[0:56:20] Voice 35: figure out a way to be so clear about each item like myself in the last four years and it's not

[0:56:27] Voice 35: like i haven't been deep inside those numbers right but i have struggled to understand what

[0:56:33] Voice 35: is the full cost of project x because i don't understand where the hours are for staff i don't

[0:56:40] Voice 35: understand where the other material resources I don't see the entire picture of the cost for that

[0:56:45] Voice 35: project and so and I'm slowly starting to get an understanding of that but like that should be

[0:56:51] Voice 35: clear it's public money and so and if that's completely clear then we can make those hard

[0:56:59] Voice 35: decisions and commit so staff aren't having to try to pull back resources halfway through a project

[0:57:05] Voice 35: and deal with two cents instead of like $200,000.

[0:57:08] Voice 35: And so, but we can be clear

[0:57:10] Voice 35: in how we're committing to those projects over time

[0:57:14] Voice 35: because what happens is without that clarity,

[0:57:17] Voice 35: 26 of us around this table

[0:57:19] Voice 35: start to pick our pet project and argue for it.

[0:57:22] Voice 35: And that's a governance issue

[0:57:24] Voice 35: related to our budgeting problems.

[0:57:26] Voice 35: And so that's why I'm like a big fan

[0:57:31] Voice 35: of trying to look at all of these different pieces

[0:57:33] Voice 35: in parallel.

[0:57:34] Voice 35: So I do think we are in a situation this year where we're not going to have that kind of perfect information and we do have to, like, go forward with how we're looking at the budget.

[0:57:44] Voice 35: I greatly appreciate the Financial Planning Committee's attention to try and figure out a way forward on this.

[0:57:51] Voice 35: So, yeah, but it's a hard situation because we have the imperfect amount of information to be able to share with ourselves and with our communities right now.

[0:57:58] Voice 35: Thank you.

[0:58:02] Voice 23: Thank you, Grant Scott.

[0:58:06] Voice 11: Thank you.

[0:58:07] Voice 11: Yeah, I'm not exactly sure how appropriate this is,

[0:58:10] Voice 11: but today's International Women's Day.

[0:58:13] Voice 11: So there are 12.

[0:58:18] Voice 23: There's

[0:58:18] Voice 11: 12 of them around the table,

[0:58:20] Voice 11: and there's those brilliant ones in the back.

[0:58:23] Voice 11: And there's, Laurie, get your fingers up there, Laurie.

[0:58:26] Voice 11: Both hands, come on.

[0:58:28] Voice 11: There she is.

[0:58:32] Voice 11: Claire, Kate.

[0:58:35] Voice 11: I don't know the woman in the back there.

[0:58:39] Voice 11: But there she is.

[0:58:41] Voice 11: So anyway, thank you all. And it's a privilege to work with all of you.

[0:58:47] Voice 11: So here are my back to the budget. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you.

[0:58:52] Voice 11: You know, it's never going to be simple, right? What was it? Oh, yeah.

[0:58:59] Voice 11: Kate, you mentioned very wisely. You mentioned Salt Spring and Salt Spring, Gabriola, Gambier, your OCPs.

[0:59:11] Voice 11: please when you say those words say hornby as well because we have exactly the same problems and

[0:59:17] Voice 11: we're not we're hoping to not come back for more money this year we got 15 000 last year as you

[0:59:24] Voice 11: recall i had to uh feed i think would be the right word to get that money but anyway uh so just

[0:59:32] Voice 11: please include hornby because it's critically important on our island too

[0:59:36] Voice 10: thanks thank you

[0:59:38] Voice 10: grant and thank you for recognizing international women's day um that's fantastic thank you um i

[0:59:46] Voice 10: think i see dag folks hand up on the budget if we can yes

[0:59:53] Voice 37: yes absolutely on the budget um

[0:59:56] Voice 37: i'm not a numbers person so the details isn't my

[1:00:00] Voice 37: strength kind of thing but that's more of the overall picture of it um in in in my experience

[1:00:08] Voice 37: in business you you produce a product or a service and you earn um a reward for that

[1:00:16] Voice 37: from your customer and with that reward without those resources the money that you get for that

[1:00:23] Voice 37: is what you build your budget for for continuing to provide the service or the or the product here

[1:00:29] Voice 37: Here, we are, we just, we're sort of kind of far away from that in a way, I think.

[1:00:36] Voice 37: And that's my suggestion, is that we need to kind of keep that in mind, is that that's

[1:00:42] Voice 37: kind of what we're doing here, too.

[1:00:43] Voice 37: We provide a service, and that service has value.

[1:00:47] Voice 37: And the only difference between a business and the trust is that we just up the taxes.

[1:00:55] Voice 37: We don't earn it.

[1:00:57] Voice 37: We don't think of earning it.

[1:00:58] Voice 37: we don't have to prove ourselves to earn it because the customers aren't you know choosing

[1:01:04] Voice 37: to buy or not choosing to buy based on how attractive your product or service is we just

[1:01:09] Voice 37: up the taxes it's arbitrary and so having that opportunity to do that is very it's very easy i

[1:01:18] Voice 37: think to change the way you think about budgeting in in business you can't just like like i i don't

[1:01:27] Voice 37: know any business that doesn't during budgeting time have uh somebody from the top say you're

[1:01:33] Voice 37: going to come under this number you're going to decrease by so many percent or you can only

[1:01:39] Voice 37: increase by so many percent over previous years and here i feel like we just wanted to get the

[1:01:46] Voice 37: work done and whatever the work costs will that's where we're going to go there's there's no ceiling

[1:01:51] Voice 37: there's no uh yeah i don't know if that makes sense but i feel like we've gone through the

[1:01:58] Voice 37: process and i really appreciate the the incredible diligence that is apparent on the financial

[1:02:04] Voice 37: committee uh to do a very tough job and deliberate all this but it didn't start out with well i don't

[1:02:11] Voice 37: think it started out with we shall reduce by a certain amount and i feel that the messages that

[1:02:20] Voice 37: we're getting quite regularly from our our constituents the taxpayers is that they're not

[1:02:27] Voice 37: super happy with what we've delivered there's a lot of unhappiness with what we've delivered

[1:02:34] Voice 37: and so that's a dilemma you're not providing the service but you're asking for it's kind of like

[1:02:41] Voice 37: forcing your customer to buy more anyway even though your product is crappy i'm not saying

[1:02:47] Voice 37: is crappy, but some people feel it's crappy or not good enough. I don't think we're putting

[1:02:52] Voice 37: enough focus on that. And I think the situation we're in right now is kind of like we're aiming

[1:03:01] Voice 37: at or the thinking is that we'll do a lot, but in fact, we're doing it kind of poorly because

[1:03:08] Voice 37: we're doing so much. And maybe we can do less, but do it well. And so that concept, I think,

[1:03:17] Voice 37: needs to creep in here into our thinking and the other question is which comes up all the time in

[1:03:26] Voice 37: business is can we can more be done with less can we accomplish to get more stuff done with less

[1:03:32] Voice 37: and i think the um and i'm new everybody knows that just like many of us here and so still

[1:03:39] Voice 37: still learning and stuff, but, you know, how the trust functions.

[1:03:45] Voice 37: I see that we're not very flexible as an organization.

[1:03:53] Voice 37: We're fairly rigid.

[1:03:55] Voice 37: This is kind of how it's done.

[1:03:56] Voice 37: This is what it's going to cost because of the way we have done it.

[1:03:59] Voice 37: And we're going to continue to do it like that.

[1:04:01] Voice 37: And that's why it costs what it costs.

[1:04:03] Voice 37: And I think we should think about challenging ourselves to explore becoming more flexible, having more tools, searching for newer ways of doing things, you know.

[1:04:18] Voice 37: And sometimes when you do that, and I've seen this many times, sometimes, you know, a team gets challenged with that.

[1:04:26] Voice 37: Do more with less.

[1:04:27] Voice 37: And they grumble.

[1:04:28] Voice 37: Of course they grumble because, you know, you're wanting more for less.

[1:04:31] Voice 37: But in the end, that forces creativity and looking out of the box and coming up with solutions and ways of doing things that actually is more effective, while sometimes costing less.

[1:04:47] Voice 37: So I think those are all things we really need to wrestle with.

[1:04:50] Voice 37: um uh joe you uh mentioned your your plan which i which i really appreciated hearing about and i

[1:05:01] Voice 37: think your plan is is good in terms of how we're going to go into this next year and and cut

[1:05:07] Voice 37: projects uh you know after evaluating them and then just leaving it and moving on i think that's

[1:05:14] Voice 37: That's a really good approach, but at this point, it's an idea or a plan, and my suggestion

[1:05:24] Voice 37: is that the way to ensure that those plans happen is to cut beforehand.

[1:05:32] Voice 37: Force yourselves to do it because the budget isn't there.

[1:05:36] Voice 37: You said we can't do it.

[1:05:40] Voice 37: You don't say, you know, I want to do it.

[1:05:43] Voice 37: i don't trust us with all the complexity that we have to actually be able to do that unless we

[1:05:51] Voice 37: force ourselves so um i i'm probably going to be voting against the budget even though i appreciate

[1:05:59] Voice 37: the work that's gone into it but it's kind of on the principle of if we don't start having somebody

[1:06:05] Voice 37: say no I don't agree with increasing the budget and I won't vote for it if how

[1:06:13] Voice 37: are we how are we going to get there how are we going to get a panel on this if

[1:06:19] Voice 37: we don't start making that kind of statement and I'm I'm not trying to

[1:06:24] Voice 37: convince anybody else to join me in that I'm just saying that's the truth for me

[1:06:28] Voice 37: and i still appreciate all the work

[1:06:31] Voice 23: thank you oh sorry thank uh thank

[1:06:38] Voice 10: you um we're having quite a

[1:06:42] Voice 10: far-ranging conversation above and beyond what the budget item is here and i think that's good

[1:06:48] Voice 10: and i want to dwell in this space to get a sense of where everybody's at on the budget

[1:06:53] Voice 10: but it's also important to remember to try to make stay so focused because of course every time

[1:07:00] Voice 10: somebody introduces a new idea, somebody else wants to add

[1:07:04] Voice 10: to that new idea. And it's not wrong. I just want us all to be

[1:07:08] Voice 10: cognizant that by the end of the day, we need to have

[1:07:12] Voice 10: the budget finalized. And so I'm very pleased

[1:07:16] Voice 10: that we're having this conversation. But let's

[1:07:19] Voice 10: remember that there's still a number of items here yet to discuss. And what we're

[1:07:24] Voice 10: talking about here specifically is the budget overview. And so I think it's

[1:07:28] Voice 10: really great that we're sharing this so uh there's some responses to what uh dag was saying there but

[1:07:34] Voice 10: i do want to maintain my speakers list and go with lee middleton joe bernardo i think i saw

[1:07:40] Voice 10: deb morrison and susan yates no and that you know in reality i should also try to uh respect those

[1:07:47] Voice 10: that haven't spoken once already and so maybe i'll swing over after lee to susan yates and then

[1:07:54] Voice 10: and pick up Joe Bernardo.

[1:07:55] Voice 10: Thank you.

[1:07:58] Voice 12: Thank you, Chair.

[1:07:59] Voice 12: And that Grant Scott, what a smoothie.

[1:08:02] Voice 12: It's my new role model.

[1:08:06] Voice 12: And far ranging.

[1:08:08] Voice 12: Yeah, that's not a budgetary comment.

[1:08:10] Voice 12: He's invaluable.

[1:08:13] Voice 12: Now, I had the misfortune of missing the no doubt

[1:08:17] Voice 12: stage rumblings of our chair

[1:08:19] Voice 12: of the Financial Planning Committee early this morning.

[1:08:21] Voice 12: And he may have said something about what I would say,

[1:08:24] Voice 12: but it's like a question of philosophy or what's the intent behind a budget so conceived right and

[1:08:31] Voice 12: and there needs to be a buy-in as to what's the plan people are being asked to not um see some

[1:08:38] Voice 12: of their projects come to fruition be they ocp uh work all very valuable there's no question of that

[1:08:44] Voice 12: and i think what is being asked is that there be some faith that this group over the course

[1:08:51] Voice 12: course of a year can come up with the tools that will allow us to equitably and transparently

[1:08:59] Voice 12: evaluate projects and fund them appropriately in the next cycle so that means doing without

[1:09:06] Voice 12: while we lack the tools uh forward motion on some of these projects no doubt and i hear what toby

[1:09:12] Voice 12: said earlier about the ocps absolutely is it kicking it down the road a year i suppose like

[1:09:18] Voice 12: in essence it is but i think it's a question then of having faith that we can come up with tools

[1:09:24] Voice 12: that when decisions are made by this group we're all behind them we know they've got support be it

[1:09:30] Voice 12: you know a limited consensus model where you can live with it you may not be like 100 percent

[1:09:34] Voice 12: uh cheerleader uh of the budget item but generally the budget will move forward and we're never in a

[1:09:40] Voice 12: position where we have to wonder sitting around this table will the budget pass um and so that

[1:09:46] Voice 12: That's what I'm thinking is being asked of us by the Financial Planning Committee, is to have a little faith that this group, not just the Financial Planning Committee, the Governance Committee, and then all of us around the Council table, can come up with tools that blend strategic planning with the construction of a budget in a way where we all stand a good fighting chance of having the projects that we know are important to be funded.

[1:10:13] Voice 12: and if they're not funded we understand why we understand what we might do be able to do to get

[1:10:18] Voice 12: them funded so i would say that in to the chair's comments an overview of the budget process is i

[1:10:28] Voice 12: think that is in essence what the financial planning committee is asking of us in that case

[1:10:34] Voice 12: i would say i would take the leadership of the financial planning committee and say they've

[1:10:38] Voice 12: thoroughly been through this budget and i would vote for it on that premise um yes it's not giving

[1:10:44] Voice 12: people uh everything that they need and legitimately they need like that's not an argument

[1:10:49] Voice 12: to say that the need is not legitimate it's saying that it's premised this way so that we can put the

[1:10:55] Voice 12: tools together to have a really strong budget process and a really strong plan for getting

[1:11:01] Voice 12: people's or council's projects moving forward thank you chair well

[1:11:07] Voice 10: thank you lee for speaking

[1:11:09] Voice 10: to have a support of the FPC, indeed.

[1:11:13] Voice 10: Susan Yates, and then Joe Bernardo.

[1:11:18] Voice 34: Thank you, Chair Luckham.

[1:11:22] Voice 34: I'm on the Financial Planning Committee,

[1:11:24] Voice 34: and I really appreciate what Trustee Middleton has just said,

[1:11:29] Voice 34: because they did do a good job.

[1:11:32] Voice 34: I did not agree with everything, but I think as a committee,

[1:11:36] Voice 34: they did a great job, and I do have faith in them.

[1:11:39] Voice 34: I did want to bring up one thing, in that I've been following the budget process for the Trust for 35 years, most especially during the last five years.

[1:11:53] Voice 34: And I've seen many struggles.

[1:11:55] Voice 34: One of the things that will always stay with me is something that Scott Colburn said last year at exactly this time.

[1:12:04] Voice 34: And he said, there is an equity deficit within the trust, whereby long-term planning for ecology and cultural heritage get delayed and passed on to future generations for decades.

[1:12:21] Voice 34: And this is true, because the work that we do on the Islands Trust is very different from any other local government.

[1:12:30] Voice 34: And that's sometimes hard to remember.

[1:12:32] Voice 34: He also said that we are fighting for scraps of funding between the islands, because the province has abandoned us. And indeed, the province has abandoned us. But that aside, we often talk about the principle of cutting the budget, cutting the budget, cutting the budget.

[1:12:52] Voice 34: I campaigned three times 30 years ago and one time last fall on not cutting the budget.

[1:13:03] Voice 34: I had a lot of support from my constituents to make these programs work, to do groundwater mapping, to do cultural heritage mapping, to get official community plans done, to finish the policy statement.

[1:13:17] Voice 34: That's what I talked about during my campaign, never cutting the budget, never undermining or devaluing the work of the trust.

[1:13:27] Voice 34: So I will always be looking to staff who, by the way, do an astonishing job of getting our desires, getting them done with all of the things we ask for.

[1:13:43] Voice 34: um i will always be wanting to support whatever budget we come up with because the staff has

[1:13:53] Voice 34: has helped us to get to that point thank

[1:13:58] Voice 10: you um i was hoping that i might give joe bernardo the

[1:14:02] Voice 10: opportunity for the last word on this particular item there'll be more opportunities to speak the

[1:14:08] Voice 10: budget as we go through those cases that are not in etc etc there's lots more time so let me go to

[1:14:14] Voice 10: to joe and then i'll see if there's still a desire to speak to the budget overview joe

[1:14:19] Voice 10: thank you and

[1:14:21] Voice 16: i also appreciate chair luckham's remarks earlier about that uh discussing the big picture at the

[1:14:29] Voice 16: outset of this i think is a good investment but he's also right that um there's actually a

[1:14:34] Voice 16: substantial amount of detail work we have to get to but if i can briefly address some of the

[1:14:39] Voice 16: comments here uh trustees folks um i'm not i'm sympathetic to where trustee bulk is coming from

[1:14:47] Voice 16: in fact i think it's helpful perhaps for this group to understand that for um quite a few of

[1:14:53] Voice 16: us in the financial planning committee a zero percent tax increase was our starting point

[1:14:58] Voice 16: uh we i'll speak personally i was looking at the budget i looked at the business cases

[1:15:03] Voice 16: I couldn't see any factual basis in my own mind to assess the merits of anything I didn't understand

[1:15:11] Voice 16: what was worth keeping and what wasn't worth keeping I just didn't have the information there

[1:15:18] Voice 16: and looking at the information that was available was a little alarming because I realized the

[1:15:23] Voice 16: information just isn't there so we start some of us started a zero percent starting point we start

[1:15:30] Voice 16: trying to look at the discretionary stuff that we've got into and what is the response that we

[1:15:35] Voice 16: get from other people that's you know if you go for a zero percent increase folks that's a plan

[1:15:41] Voice 16: that you know you could have a successful surgery but you're going to kill the patient

[1:15:47] Voice 16: the fact that we're frustrated over how these expenditures happen

[1:15:57] Voice 16: isn't a license to start getting careless about how we run the operation this is still an ongoing

[1:16:04] Voice 16: going operating organization it doesn't exist in the abstract things still have to work so this

[1:16:11] Voice 16: again as we can personally hear i'm doing this is a transitional year we do need to get to the

[1:16:16] Voice 16: place that trustee fault was talking about but pulling the trigger now uh to get to an

[1:16:23] Voice 16: to a particular number isn't going to solve the problems that got us here that's what we have to

[1:16:29] Voice 16: to do first. And that leads me into responding very briefly to the remarks that Trustees

[1:16:34] Voice 16: Stanford, Elliott, and Yates were talking about. They have concerns about priorities.

[1:16:42] Voice 16: And my message is, this is why you want a corporate planning process. For the first time,

[1:16:48] Voice 16: if we can put it together, it's not my plan, it's the governance committee that initiated this.

[1:16:52] Voice 16: For the first time, it will give us a forum for individual trustees and different groups to advocate directly in the process for what they believe should be our priorities, have that debate.

[1:17:09] Voice 16: And once a priority is identified, and this is the key thing, it will lock it in as a funding priority.

[1:17:14] Voice 16: For example, with the Gambier project, if we do have a proper corporate planning process, it probably should be identified as a top priority.

[1:17:27] Voice 16: What does that mean? It means the funding for it, the resources, the money, and the timeline will be documented.

[1:17:36] Voice 16: And it's like, we're going in this direction.

[1:17:39] Voice 16: Three weeks later, somebody has some other great idea about something. Sorry, that's not happening.

[1:17:43] Voice 16: We're taking care of Gambier.

[1:17:46] Voice 16: likewise gabriel likewise other initiatives that make it on the priority list because once you've

[1:17:51] Voice 16: got a corporate planning process that allows you to actually legitimately budget things it means

[1:17:58] Voice 16: you can design projects so they get completed anyhow i've said enough uh i'm kind of repeating

[1:18:05] Voice 16: myself a bit uh i'll leave it at that

[1:18:07] Voice 10: thank you joe appreciate your leadership is there anybody

[1:18:11] Voice 10: Anybody else who wishes to speak to the item on the agenda?

[1:18:15] Voice 10: Christina Evans and Grant Scott.

[1:18:17] Voice 25: So I just want to remind or bring forward,

[1:18:22] Voice 25: it doesn't matter how much money we get in our budget,

[1:18:26] Voice 25: a key component of getting all of these projects done

[1:18:30] Voice 25: is the availability of staff hours.

[1:18:33] Voice 25: Right now our staff are so overloaded,

[1:18:35] Voice 25: there is so much overtime being done,

[1:18:38] Voice 25: we're burning staff out.

[1:18:39] Voice 25: That's not sustainable.

[1:18:40] Voice 25: sustainable. So while all of these projects are important, in order to get them done effectively

[1:18:47] Voice 25: and efficiently, we as a trust council have to make sure that we are not overburdening staff

[1:18:54] Voice 25: so that they can get the work done. And we have to give them a reasonable amount of work that can

[1:18:59] Voice 25: be accomplished in one fiscal year. Right now, the amount of projects that we've got on that list

[1:19:05] Voice 25: cannot be done in one fiscal year which is why this particular year we have decided to do as

[1:19:13] Voice 25: has been done in the past which is to draw on surplus because there will likely be surplus at

[1:19:19] Voice 25: the end of this year and this is a flawed way of doing things by the end of this year we are hoping

[1:19:26] Voice 25: to have a corporate planning process to break that cycle so we're not saying that projects

[1:19:33] Voice 25: projects shouldn't have the money what we're saying is there isn't the staff to do the work

[1:19:39] Voice 25: thank you thank

[1:19:42] Voice 9: you um grant scott and

[1:19:45] Voice 10: then we'll go back to

[1:19:45] Voice 9: julia thank

[1:19:48] Voice 11: you i i realized i missed

[1:19:50] Voice 11: julia in my little earlier um

[1:19:53] Voice 31: and

[1:19:57] Voice 11: i think the reason i missed her she's up there with her usual

[1:20:00] Voice 11: quiet confidence so thank you julia keep

[1:20:11] Voice 16: trustee scott out of every lounge you see

[1:20:15] Voice 31: okay

[1:20:19] Voice 10: thank you for this uh sharing thank you joe for your leadership on this and thank you for

[1:20:24] Voice 10: everybody on financial planning committee's commitment to the process um and it seems

[1:20:29] Voice 10: obvious to me that julia after having heard this far-ranging conversation is there anything that

[1:20:36] Voice 10: that you think about what you've heard

[1:20:39] Voice 10: that can help us assist you and support you in this process?

[1:20:46] Voice 27: It's very kind of you, Chair, to offer me that opportunity.

[1:20:49] Voice 27: I agree a solid corporate plan in place

[1:20:53] Voice 27: will assist with the budget process.

[1:20:55] Voice 27: So if we have that plan in place for our next budget cycle,

[1:20:59] Voice 27: I think things will be a lot smoother.

[1:21:00] Voice 27: There's opportunities as well for Trust Council

[1:21:03] Voice 27: to weigh heavier into the budget assumptions and principles.

[1:21:06] Voice 27: principles so the budget assumptions and principles that document is set before the

[1:21:10] Voice 27: budget cycle begins that's where trust council sets out the things that they want to value in

[1:21:16] Voice 27: the budget you know what are some principles that we want to embrace if there is a principle you

[1:21:22] Voice 27: know at council table we want to embrace a certain level of spending or not that can be built into

[1:21:26] Voice 27: the budget that would assist financial planning committee in their work you know to understand

[1:21:32] Voice 27: understand sort of the goal that they're working towards. But yes, I agree that certainly that

[1:21:37] Voice 27: corporate plan will go a long way to assist us.

[1:21:41] Voice 10: Okay. And thank you very much for taking us back

[1:21:44] Voice 10: to the budget assumptions and principles document. I've always said that's the most important

[1:21:48] Voice 10: document that we have that guides us. And indeed, if we want to change something, let's talk about

[1:21:53] Voice 10: changing the assumptions and principles. So at this juncture, without further ado, let's move

[1:21:59] Voice 10: into some of the detail of the budget we don't necessarily need to drill down into all of this

[1:22:03] Voice 10: and i want to get us to the debate and discussion session about what's in and what's out um in order

[1:22:09] Voice 10: to provide that opportunity to you so there's lots more opportunity here i do want to go for

[1:22:14] Voice 10: a break at 11 o'clock um and then we can continue on with the remainder of it but at this juncture

[1:22:20] Voice 10: 7.2.4 page 245 on your agenda is the changes and i'm guessing uh julia that probably you just want

[1:22:32] Voice 10: to do a brief summary on this over to you however you think it's necessary to get council to be

[1:22:38] Voice 10: fully aware of what's changed uh

[1:22:45] Voice 27: you're referencing 725 the numerical budget detail is that where

[1:22:50] Voice 27: you're at 7

[1:22:51] Voice 10: .24 i think is what we we haven't touched on that just yet

[1:22:55] Voice 27: 24 so that that document

[1:22:58] Voice 27: simply summarizes some of the changes that financial planning committee made to the budget

[1:23:01] Voice 27: at their most recent meeting um i don't think it's necessary for me to speak to that i think

[1:23:07] Voice 27: what's more relevant is for me to finish the presentation um on the budget overview okay

[1:23:13] Voice 10: so the go ahead okay

[1:23:14] Voice 27: so i'm back on page 237 of the agenda package this is this is where we look

[1:23:20] Voice 27: look at the detail of the budget. So we've completed a high level summary and now we can

[1:23:25] Voice 27: look at some of the details line by line. So we'll begin with planned revenues. The largest

[1:23:30] Voice 27: revenue source of Islands Trust, of course, remains property taxes. We are seeing an $8 million

[1:23:37] Voice 27: budget for local trust area taxes, which is a 10% increase over and above the previous year's

[1:23:42] Voice 27: budget for tax revenue. The expectation is that there'll be a general tax increase of 1.75%

[1:23:49] Voice 27: percent within local trust areas, plus an additional eight percent in tax revenue generated

[1:23:53] Voice 27: from new construction and development. The Bowen Island municipal tax levy is calculated at $341,000

[1:24:00] Voice 27: in the budget, which is 5.4 percent over and above last year's budget. It is expected that all of

[1:24:07] Voice 27: this increase and more will be collected on new construction and development, and that the average

[1:24:11] Voice 27: taxpayer within Bowen Island will actually experience a reduction in their taxes of about 1.1

[1:24:18] Voice 27: We do have a special tax requisition that's come to Council, a request from Salter and

[1:24:23] Voice 27: Liberal Trust Committee for the ongoing work of SWPA. There's an individual item in the budget

[1:24:29] Voice 27: session related to this, so we'll speak to that later. Our grant revenues in the budget are planned

[1:24:34] Voice 27: for $570,000. We have our unrestricted provincial grant still reading at $180,000, no change from

[1:24:42] Voice 27: historical years. We have a restricted federal grant for the Islands Trust Conservancy Species

[1:24:47] Voice 27: at Risk work and that's included in the budget at $220,000. The restricted provincial grant for

[1:24:53] Voice 27: local government development applications processing. We do have money in next year's

[1:24:58] Voice 27: budget for this work. It is an ongoing project. It began this year and it will be spilling over

[1:25:02] Voice 27: into next year. So we have $148,000 in grant revenue to complete that project next year.

[1:25:08] Voice 27: There's a restricted provincial grant from Makeway Foundation as part of Watershed's BC for $22,000 in the budget.

[1:25:15] Voice 27: And of course, we have an individual line for contingent grant income.

[1:25:18] Voice 27: It simply gives us a place to record any grants that might be awarded to us as the year progresses.

[1:25:24] Voice 27: Other revenue sources are application fees and interest income.

[1:25:28] Voice 27: I mentioned previously that we're starting to see a slowdown in application volumes.

[1:25:32] Voice 27: and so we've reduced the application fees revenue

[1:25:35] Voice 27: that's in this draft of the budget

[1:25:36] Voice 27: and it's reading at $192,000.

[1:25:39] Voice 27: Interest income is higher than it has been historically

[1:25:42] Voice 27: as of course, interest rates are higher.

[1:25:43] Voice 27: We've got $133,000 budgeted there.

[1:25:48] Voice 27: As mentioned, we're still planning to draw

[1:25:50] Voice 27: from surplus and reserve in the year.

[1:25:52] Voice 27: $435,000 is planned to be drawn from surplus and reserve.

[1:25:56] Voice 27: And for the interest of council,

[1:25:58] Voice 27: staff have determined that the minimum balance required

[1:26:01] Voice 27: to be maintained in the surplus fund with those planned draws will be maintained. So that balance

[1:26:07] Voice 27: is not in jeopardy with this magnitude of draws. When we move on to planned expenditures on page

[1:26:13] Voice 27: 239 of the agenda, we see that once again, the largest expense to Islands Trust remains staff

[1:26:18] Voice 27: salaries and benefits expense. It's estimated at $6.3 million in the budget, which represents 64%

[1:26:25] Voice 27: of the overall draft budget. This dollar or these dollars will pay for 64 full-time equivalent staff

[1:26:31] Voice 27: staff members, which includes three newly proposed staff positions and three co-op students.

[1:26:37] Voice 27: There are business cases in the agenda package for all of the newly proposed staff positions,

[1:26:42] Voice 27: and if council wishes for staff to speak to those, there'll be an opportunity for that

[1:26:45] Voice 27: later on in the budget session. So there's a number of factors that influence the budget line

[1:26:53] Voice 27: for salaries and benefits. Of course, adding new staff positions is one of those factors.

[1:26:59] Voice 27: The Manager of Finance and Accounting, which is a newly proposed staff position, has a price tag of about $102,000.

[1:27:06] Voice 27: The Local Trust Committee Meeting Administrator has a price tag of about $67,000 in next year's budget.

[1:27:11] Voice 27: And the Administrative Coordinator has a price tag of about $87,000 in the budget.

[1:27:15] Voice 27: So those are all driving salaries figures upwards.

[1:27:21] Voice 27: As mentioned previously, our union staff, of course, their increases are governed by the BCGEU agreement.

[1:27:27] Voice 27: there is an effective 6.1% wage increase built into the budget for all union staff.

[1:27:34] Voice 27: The union agreement says that the actual amount to be awarded to staff will land in the range of

[1:27:39] Voice 27: 5.5% to 6.75%. So we don't know at this juncture where the actual increase will land. So for the

[1:27:46] Voice 27: purposes of budgeting, we chose the midpoint, and that's what's reflected in the budget.

[1:27:51] Voice 27: $55,000 is included in the budget, once again, to account for staff overtime. That number is

[1:27:56] Voice 27: based on historical analysis. We do pay a benefit rate to the public service agency at 25.4%.

[1:28:03] Voice 27: That is to reimburse them for their contributions on behalf of staff related to things like

[1:28:08] Voice 27: CPP and EI and employer health tax and pension contributions for staff. We just heard yesterday

[1:28:14] Voice 27: they have confirmed that that rate will remain the same next year. And so we will not have a

[1:28:19] Voice 27: budget adjustment related to that. So timely communication coming from them. We also have

[1:28:24] Voice 27: a reduction of $160,000 against the salaries line, and that's to account for the fact that

[1:28:29] Voice 27: we are very likely to have staff turnover as is historically the norm. Trust area remuneration

[1:28:35] Voice 27: is budgeted at about $700,000. That reflects the CPI increase of 7%, which is based on the

[1:28:41] Voice 27: December CPI factor for December, which is an amount that's governed by policy. There's been

[1:28:47] Voice 27: adjustments for the number of folios in each local trust area. Employer health tax remains

[1:28:52] Voice 27: means calculated at 1.9% of trustee-based salary. And of course, we've included committee meeting

[1:28:58] Voice 27: remuneration for trustees that serve on committees as well. Trust council meeting expenses in the

[1:29:05] Voice 27: version of the budget that's before you, plans for three in-person trust council meetings. So

[1:29:10] Voice 27: that's a price tag of $82,500. If there was a desire to fund four in-person trust council

[1:29:16] Voice 27: meetings, that figure would be increased to $110,000. The average cost for an in-person

[1:29:21] Voice 27: trust council meeting is $27,500. That's what we've estimated. Executive committee meetings

[1:29:27] Voice 27: have a nominal amount of $5,200. That's based on their plans to meet four times in person in the

[1:29:33] Voice 27: year. And council committee expenses, meeting expenses are budgeted $8,500 with the assumption

[1:29:40] Voice 27: that most meetings will be held electronically with a few in person. Local trust committee

[1:29:46] Voice 27: direct expenses have reduced, have been reduced over previous fiscal budgets. That's to account

[1:29:51] Voice 27: account for the fact that one of the newly proposed staff positions, the local trust

[1:29:54] Voice 27: committee meeting administrator, will take on some of the minute-taking responsibilities

[1:29:57] Voice 27: that traditionally live with the on-island.

[1:30:00] Voice 27: contractors who take minutes for local trust committee meetings. So if that staff position

[1:30:05] Voice 27: is not supported by council, if it's removed from the budget, we would have to increase the budget

[1:30:10] Voice 27: line for LCC direct expenses to make sure that we can pay for the contracted minute takers that

[1:30:15] Voice 27: would be required. Local trust committee project expenses are reading at $250,000 in the budget.

[1:30:23] Voice 27: So this was a cap that was directed by financial planning committee. We did have a couple of local

[1:30:28] Voice 27: trust committees who reduced their budget asks and so we've been able to achieve that cap at 250 000

[1:30:33] Voice 27: the list of those projects is included in the agenda and um the chair can pull uh council

[1:30:41] Voice 27: later on in the budget cycle to see which of these business cases they may want staff to speak to

[1:30:48] Voice 27: there's also a feasibility assessment that's been prepared by the director of planning services

[1:30:52] Voice 27: to help trustees understand whether or not all of these projects could be achieved in any given year

[1:30:57] Voice 27: and he can very ably speak to that later on in budget session if council wishes for him to do so

[1:31:03] Voice 27: island stress conservancy expenses uh excluding staff costs are coming in at 297 000 that's a

[1:31:10] Voice 27: request from the conservancy board the slight increases are due mainly to um the development

[1:31:15] Voice 27: of a first nations engagement plan with a price tag of ten thousand dollars as well as some small

[1:31:21] Voice 27: Small changes in monies for new land conservation.

[1:31:25] Voice 27: But the majority of conservancy increases are funded by grant funds.

[1:31:29] Voice 27: So there is $220,000 included in the budget for species at risk work.

[1:31:33] Voice 27: And that's funding that value of Island Trust Conservancy spending.

[1:31:39] Voice 27: Our office leases and associated costs are budgeted at $475,000.

[1:31:44] Voice 27: That makes the assumption that we are going to retain our office spaces in Victoria,

[1:31:48] Voice 27: Gabriola and Salt Spring.

[1:31:50] Voice 27: And as I mentioned previously, now we will also be retaining the space on Galliano Island for trustees and staff to use.

[1:31:57] Voice 27: FOI and records management, recruitment and labor relations and payroll processing all have budgets that are retained at historical levels at $10,000, $21,000 and $19,500, respectively.

[1:32:11] Voice 27: Insurance, once again, is costing us a pretty penny.

[1:32:14] Voice 27: It's budgeted at $208,000, which is based on our current rates that we're receiving from insurers.

[1:32:21] Voice 27: When we turn to software support and licensing costs, we see that they're budgeted at $150,000, which is almost double what we had in the previous year budget.

[1:32:35] Voice 27: There's $41,000 in new costs for the maintenance of a new software system that's being implemented at the trust.

[1:32:41] Voice 27: So that new software system is CityView.

[1:32:43] Voice 27: It's tied to the local government development applications processing project, and that new software comes with a maintenance price tag of $41,000 a year.

[1:32:51] Voice 27: There's $16,000 included for Zoom meetings.

[1:32:54] Voice 27: I think we're pretty committed to the use of Zoom.

[1:32:57] Voice 27: And there's $9,000 in software costs for a new client relationship management system that will be used throughout the Islands Trust to maintain relationships with donors, external vendors, and also First Nations.

[1:33:11] Voice 27: Computer hardware and software is budgeted at $129,000, primarily to replace three servers in the year.

[1:33:17] Voice 27: And of course, there's some related licensing that comes along with that.

[1:33:20] Voice 27: there's also the purchase of six new computers that are reaching end of life and three new

[1:33:25] Voice 27: computers for the newly proposed staff positions as well as contracted support to complete these

[1:33:30] Voice 27: various projects which has a price tag of thirty thousand dollars strategic plan projects are

[1:33:37] Voice 27: budgeted at one hundred and seventy nine thousand dollars we've got the list of those up on the

[1:33:40] Voice 27: screen on page 243 of the agenda item most of these projects have business cases attached and

[1:33:46] Voice 27: And, of course, the council will be pulled to see if any of those they wish staff to speak to.

[1:33:54] Voice 27: On page 244, we see we've got two operational projects.

[1:33:58] Voice 27: One relates to the local government development applications approval program that I've mentioned several times now, carrying over into next fiscal year.

[1:34:05] Voice 27: There's $148,000 in planned spending on that work next year.

[1:34:08] Voice 27: That is fully funded by grant funds, so the taxpayer is not paying for that work.

[1:34:12] Voice 27: There's also a $15,000 request for expense claim system upgrades.

[1:34:16] Voice 27: there's a business case included in the agenda package

[1:34:19] Voice 27: for that request as well.

[1:34:21] Voice 27: Again, that can be pulled for discussion.

[1:34:25] Voice 27: That felt like a very quick overview

[1:34:27] Voice 27: of what's in the detail of the budget,

[1:34:30] Voice 27: but I agree that we need to have some time for,

[1:34:34] Voice 27: have ample time for trustees questions and debate.

[1:34:36] Voice 27: So I think I'll pause there for questions

[1:34:38] Voice 27: on what I've communicated

[1:34:39] Voice 27: before we move into business case review.

[1:34:42] Voice 23: Thank you, microphone.

[1:34:51] Voice 10: Erin Campbell,

[1:34:52] Voice 9: anybody else wish to ask questions?

[1:34:54] Voice 9: Deb Morrison.

[1:34:56] Voice 9: Go ahead, Aaron.

[1:34:57] Voice 9: Microphone off, Julia.

[1:35:01] Voice 14: I just had a question about when you're talking about the conservancy funds,

[1:35:07] Voice 14: I thought that you said something about having money set aside for purchasing land

[1:35:12] Voice 14: or something to do with money.

[1:35:16] Voice 14: It just sounded unclear as to what that money was for.

[1:35:24] Voice 27: I think what I may have said is there's an increase in some of the funds that they have

[1:35:29] Voice 27: to pay for new land conservation not

[1:35:36] Voice 35: new land purchases yeah

[1:35:38] Voice 10: deb morrison thanks

[1:35:40] Voice 35: um julia in the

[1:35:43] Voice 35: ltc project expenses um can you just name how that chunk of the budget will address multi-island

[1:35:51] Voice 35: project funding so like the water project that went on on on the southern islands because if it's

[1:35:59] Voice 35: Because I just am unclear how we allocate for that inside that or if that's just one of those things that we bring back in project cases more strategically into the trust.

[1:36:10] Voice 35: Yeah, so like I see individual projects listed here as possible specific funding requests.

[1:36:17] Voice 35: But like if I did this four years ago, there would have been a North Pender water project that then ended up being an entire Southern Gulf Islands water project.

[1:36:24] Voice 35: And so how it's allocated in the budget, I think, is just unclear to me.

[1:36:32] Voice 35: And maybe it's because of this overlap of what we were talking about earlier with strategic planning related to, yeah.

[1:36:38] Voice 35: Because it's not an island-specific expense.

[1:36:41] Voice 35: It's a regional planning effort.

[1:36:43] Voice 35: So I guess that's my question more.

[1:36:44] Voice 35: How do we differentiate the LTC projects from regional planning projects?

[1:36:49] Voice 35: it.

[1:36:51] Voice 27: So the LTC projects are allocated out to the individual local trust committees when those

[1:36:56] Voice 27: projects are coming direct from local trust committees. Regional planning work, when you're

[1:37:02] Voice 27: talking about how is it allocated, do you mean which department of the budget is it landing in?

[1:37:09] Voice 35: Yeah, and maybe this is a question for the CEO or for planning, just because I think like sometimes

[1:37:15] Voice 35: the bin in the budget that things end up in is confusing to me, right? Like a project starts as

[1:37:20] Voice 35: an ltc project and then morphs into a regional project and like i didn't have particular control

[1:37:26] Voice 35: over that necessarily in my ltc um so that the timeline in the project's charter moved because

[1:37:32] Voice 35: it became a regional project versus a local project and the budget moved too so i just

[1:37:37] Voice 35: i'd like to just know where that lands in our budgeting process um

[1:37:43] Voice 7: i can't speak to mr chair

[1:37:46] Voice 7: um i forget the specific details of that you'd know that better than me but

[1:37:50] Voice 7: But a project that's sort of federally based or sub-regional would be a strategic plan.

[1:37:56] Voice 7: It would either be in the strategic planning budget basket or be in the LTC basket.

[1:38:03] Voice 7: And traditionally at the trust, those baskets have stayed apart.

[1:38:08] Voice 7: And what I'm hearing about the corporate planning process is that how do those relate better?

[1:38:14] Voice 7: The strategies associated with those things relate better.

[1:38:17] Voice 7: better. Previously, there would have been the concept that, and you all remember this,

[1:38:23] Voice 7: the model bylaw. The most efficient way for us to amend an OCP was for us to all agree

[1:38:30] Voice 7: on the key elements associated, federally agree, and then all of the LTCs to then adopt those,

[1:38:36] Voice 7: make those OCP amendments. It's questionable whether that's been a successful philosophy.

[1:38:42] Voice 7: So, now I'm seeing that the question you're asking needs to be addressed is that indeed LTC specific projects need to be more strategically grounded at a trust council level.

[1:38:55] Voice 7: So, we'll have better answers for you in the coming years.

[1:39:02] Voice 9: Okay, thank you, everyone.

[1:39:04] Voice 10: Anybody else any questions on the briefing.

[1:39:08] Voice 10: briefing? Toby Elliott and Lee Middleton.

[1:39:11] Voice 21: I think actually Lee Middleton had his hand up first if

[1:39:13] Voice 21: you want to go.

[1:39:17] Voice 12: It's just a quick question, Julia, on the city view. I'm assuming that would be

[1:39:23] Voice 12: classed as software as a service if it's $41,000 a year. Or was there an additional, an original

[1:39:29] Voice 12: purchase and set up amount budget? I don't recall that line item. If you could just give a bit of

[1:39:36] Voice 12: history on that would be great thank you so

[1:39:41] Voice 27: yeah this 41 000 is actually just maintenance costs

[1:39:44] Voice 27: for the software system which we're procuring in the current fiscal year um i believe it is a

[1:39:49] Voice 27: software as a service i'd have to turn to director cermak to confirm the city view software that's

[1:39:57] Voice 27: the software as a service provision thumbs

[1:39:59] Voice 23: up so

[1:40:05] Voice 12: that that is the basically the service cost

[1:40:08] Voice 12: cost. And was there a typical software as a service model, there'd be no original capital

[1:40:16] Voice 12: outlay, is that the case?

[1:40:20] Voice 27: So yeah, in a traditional software as a service, you aren't

[1:40:23] Voice 27: purchasing the software and owning it in-house, which used to be the typical model. Now software

[1:40:29] Voice 27: as a service is you're accessing the software system, you know, on the servers in the cloud,

[1:40:33] Voice 27: and you're paying a fee for that on a monthly basis or an annual basis. We're actually seeing

[1:40:38] Voice 27: that is driving costs up for us unfortunately it's just the way it goes um but that seems to be

[1:40:44] Voice 27: the way that most of the industry is going in um and so this would follow that same model

[1:40:54] Voice 9: toby back to you uh

[1:40:56] Voice 21: thank you chair um so to to one question on one point uh the question about

[1:41:02] Voice 21: do you have a rough idea of the council committee meetings um used to be in person before covid and

[1:41:08] Voice 21: And so 2022-23 was at $2,400, which I'm assuming is a historical low.

[1:41:13] Voice 21: But before that, was there any rough number of how much we spent annually to get trustees together in council committee meetings?

[1:41:26] Voice 27: Yes. So pre-pandemic, when we would meet in person four times a year, we budgeted around $25,000 per in-person meeting.

[1:41:35] Voice 27: we have increased that figure in the current draft budget of course inflation is high

[1:41:40] Voice 27: and we know you know we're going to have to pay more for to get together in person so it's

[1:41:46] Voice 27: twenty seven thousand five hundred dollars per in-person meeting that's in the current draft

[1:41:50] Voice 27: budget i

[1:41:53] Voice 7: think you're asking whether it's council committees yeah and julia would know that better

[1:42:00] Voice 7: than me i think was around the in the area of around eight thousand dollars a year ish was

[1:42:07] Voice 7: previously booked for fpc um rpc and others to meet on a fully live basis somewhere between eight

[1:42:15] Voice 7: and ten thousand dollars a year and now it's 2500. would you agree if you turn your mic on

[1:42:22] Voice 27: disagree while your mic is on okay um yeah traditionally we'd budget about a thousand

[1:42:28] Voice 27: dollars for an in-person meeting for council committees executive committee can be a little

[1:42:34] Voice 27: bit more expensive it does change with each term because you've got a different complement

[1:42:38] Voice 27: of trustees traveling from different places so that was our average is a thousand dollars and

[1:42:44] Voice 27: that still will be used thank you

[1:42:46] Voice 9: and

[1:42:47] Voice 21: i just had one point about the conservancy or being on the

[1:42:52] Voice 21: the Conservancy Board, just to make a point that as we are donated more lands and properties and

[1:42:59] Voice 21: areas for conservation, those management fees go up and the legal fees because and as we're

[1:43:05] Voice 21: getting more interest from First Nations to be involved in long range property management

[1:43:12] Voice 21: discussions, the reconciliation budget does need to be in there. So that's why I think fees are

[1:43:17] Voice 21: going up we've had some significant donations and acquisitions and that's great wins but there's a

[1:43:22] Voice 21: built-in operating cost to that to those okay

[1:43:31] Voice 23: julia i think

[1:43:33] Voice 10: that does it for questions from

[1:43:34] Voice 10: this side you want to continue from on to the next section i

[1:43:39] Voice 27: think at this juncture it would

[1:43:41] Voice 27: be a good place for the chair to pull trust council to see which of the business cases they

[1:43:45] Voice 27: would like staff to review or to simply ask respond to questions on we have five business

[1:43:51] Voice 27: cases related to strategic plan projects there's six business cases related to local trust committee

[1:43:56] Voice 27: projects uh one business case for operational projects and of course the three business cases

[1:44:01] Voice 27: associated with the three new staff positions okay

[1:44:06] Voice 10: um there's also much later on in the agenda is

[1:44:11] Voice 10: the business case is not advanced and so that's at the discretion of fbc uh and or others i should

[1:44:19] Voice 10: presume so i'm presuming at this point you want to have uh uh get a get an indication from trustees

[1:44:26] Voice 10: about whether they're satisfied for those items to remain in the budget or ex or to add or remove

[1:44:33] Voice 10: items from the budget at this point i

[1:44:37] Voice 27: think at this point it would be good to understand if

[1:44:40] Voice 27: council wants staff to report out on any of those business cases okay if we were to report out on

[1:44:47] Voice 27: on all of them may eat into the time for a trustee debate.

[1:44:51] Voice 27: So it makes sense to run a poll to see which one's trustees.

[1:44:54] Voice 10: Okay, well, I don't have a list of those in front of me.

[1:44:57] Voice 10: And so then I'll just see if trustees have something

[1:45:02] Voice 10: that's on their minds that they need to have information

[1:45:07] Voice 10: regarding of those projects that are in the budget.

[1:45:10] Voice 10: Christina Evans.

[1:45:13] Voice 25: Just a quick question is,

[1:45:14] Voice 25: is are we skipping over the budget changes

[1:45:17] Voice 25: and going straight to business cases?

[1:45:25] Voice 10: That's, I think, your intention is to skip over 7.2.4

[1:45:34] Voice 10: and the preceding, the following items?

[1:45:38] Voice 27: Yeah, that report should have come actually

[1:45:40] Voice 27: at the start of the budget session.

[1:45:43] Voice 27: It highlights some of the changes

[1:45:45] Voice 27: that financial planning committee made to the budget.

[1:45:47] Voice 27: it. I think our chair gave a good summary of the work that financial planning committee put in. I

[1:45:51] Voice 27: don't know if we need to speak to that, but happy to, if council wishes, I would suggest it should

[1:45:56] Voice 27: happen after the business case discussions.

[1:45:58] Voice 10: Okay. So what we're looking for then at this

[1:46:02] Voice 10: time is business cases. So Deb Morrison.

[1:46:06] Voice 35: Sorry, maybe I just somehow missed something there, but

[1:46:10] Voice 35: to me, like the business cases are 7.2.7, 7.2.6 was the surplus. Are we saying that we

[1:46:18] Voice 35: that we don't need to talk about that right now

[1:46:19] Voice 35: or that we can talk about that right now.

[1:46:22] Voice 9: Julia.

[1:46:25] Voice 27: I'm happy to speak to it.

[1:46:27] Voice 27: Those there's a number of attachments

[1:46:29] Voice 27: that are with the budget overview draft.

[1:46:32] Voice 27: Usually they're just attachments

[1:46:33] Voice 27: that are there for reference.

[1:46:34] Voice 27: I don't traditionally speak to them, but certainly I can.

[1:46:38] Voice 10: Okay, so I think that maybe there's a desire

[1:46:40] Voice 10: to briefly summarize them.

[1:46:42] Voice 10: And that's what I've been struggling with

[1:46:45] Voice 10: is that the items that I see that maybe need a bit

[1:46:48] Voice 10: of a summary to help council determine

[1:46:50] Voice 10: determine where we're at is 7.2.4. What's changed, although, you know, as you've indicated,

[1:46:57] Voice 10: the chair of FPC kind of covered that off a little bit, but the numerical detail is 7.5,

[1:47:02] Voice 10: or 2.5, 2.6 is surplus fund allocation. And then the business case summaries, 2.7, I think it might

[1:47:09] Voice 10: be helpful if we have a list to have that on the screen to help refresh trustees' memories about

[1:47:14] Voice 10: the items that we're talking about um so can you provide that brief summary for us to get us on the

[1:47:21] Voice 10: right page and then i'm going to note that i've got um christina evans and alex allen on my on

[1:47:27] Voice 10: my speakers list and i'll follow through with that and no you're off okay thank you

[1:47:32] Voice 35: and chair like my

[1:47:33] Voice 35: my question related to 7.2.6 was a very focused specific question if i could put it on the table

[1:47:39] Voice 35: and when Julia is summarizing.

[1:47:40] Voice 35: Please, yeah, 7.21?

[1:47:43] Voice 35: Six.

[1:47:44] Voice 35: Okay, yeah.

[1:47:45] Voice 35: So my question, Julia,

[1:47:46] Voice 35: was just around the surplus allocations.

[1:47:49] Voice 35: I know, and it would be helpful

[1:47:51] Voice 35: if you're like just crystal clear,

[1:47:52] Voice 35: like you can be around this,

[1:47:54] Voice 35: about how much of the surplus

[1:47:56] Voice 35: do we need to maintain

[1:47:57] Voice 35: for that security component?

[1:47:58] Voice 35: I think that Trustee Elliott

[1:48:00] Voice 35: is talking about

[1:48:01] Voice 35: and our legal obligation

[1:48:02] Voice 35: to maintain a specific

[1:48:04] Voice 35: quantity of funding

[1:48:05] Voice 35: and how close are we to that limit

[1:48:07] Voice 35: is what I'd like to just have clear, clear for.

[1:48:14] Voice 27: So with the current draft of the budget

[1:48:17] Voice 27: and the current proposed draws from surplus,

[1:48:19] Voice 27: we are meeting right down to the line,

[1:48:22] Voice 27: the minimum required balance.

[1:48:24] Voice 27: I believe it is $1.86 million.

[1:48:27] Voice 27: That's the minimum amount that's required.

[1:48:30] Voice 27: And with this draw, we hit 1.86 million.

[1:48:34] Voice 23: You're welcome.

[1:48:37] Voice 23: Okay.

[1:48:39] Voice 23: Alex Allen, you had a question?

[1:48:44] Voice 10: do you have a question about a business case yes please proceed okay you

[1:48:51] Voice 6: know i want the

[1:48:52] Voice 6: hornby island ocp on there uh the salt spring island ocp the administrator meeting administrator

[1:49:00] Voice 6: and then i'd like to talk about in general business cases regarding third-party consultants

[1:49:05] Voice 10: i'm sure so do you have a specific uh question like what what do you want to know at this point

[1:49:11] Voice 10: to help you with your decision-making?

[1:49:14] Voice 6: Well, I have quite a few things.

[1:49:19] Voice 6: Overall, I really have concerns with third-party consultants

[1:49:22] Voice 6: being hired, specifically with our OCP REB reviews.

[1:49:27] Voice 6: I wasn't sure whether to bring it up now

[1:49:29] Voice 6: or whether at a closed meeting.

[1:49:33] Voice 6: Because I have issues with our particular consultants

[1:49:35] Voice 6: that we had on our island.

[1:49:38] Voice 10: Sorry?

[1:49:40] Voice 10: Yeah, so I'm struggling with understanding

[1:49:42] Voice 10: understanding um the your the hornby ocp has been funded within the budget and there's a number

[1:49:48] Voice 10: there and certainly the uh and maybe staff can help me out here certainly the ability for

[1:49:54] Voice 10: contractors to be hired to deliver that service to you is a decision that happens at the regional

[1:50:00] Voice 10: planning or the and the local trust committee level as to how that's going to be um taken on

[1:50:07] Voice 10: Would that be a fair assumption? Yeah.

[1:50:12] Voice 6: All right. But can I also talk about, so I'm confused here because I thought we, you know, you wanted to hear which business case I'd like to bring up and discuss.

[1:50:19] Voice 6: Yeah. So this is it.

[1:50:21] Voice 10: Oh, I see. I think that probably the intention here, and Julia, you helped me out, is I think that what we're seeking is whether or not we are continuing to want to support those particular business cases being included or excluded from the budget.

[1:50:39] Voice 10: And so if they're included in the budget and council funds them, then the determination of how you deliver on that project will be made at the LTC and the regional planning office level.

[1:50:51] Voice 10: is the way i would capture this yeah so um i don't want to move off of alex allen

[1:50:57] Voice 10: and grant i i'd see your hand up i want to respect what alex is trying to understand because i think

[1:51:03] Voice 10: it's important that we do understand how this process works you

[1:51:07] Voice 6: know i read throughout all

[1:51:08] Voice 6: the business cases and why i wanted to talk about particular ones is because i really had concerns

[1:51:12] Voice 6: with what um was written in the comments from staff and i just want to question a lot of

[1:51:18] Voice 6: uh particular comments that were made okay so what's the question okay um

[1:51:23] Voice 23: sorry my mouse is

[1:51:27] Voice 23: turning to her my

[1:51:28] Voice 6: mouse is turning to iran

[1:51:29] Voice 23: shall

[1:51:32] Voice 10: i go to grant okay

[1:51:33] Voice 6: no okay so um regarding the

[1:51:36] Voice 6: saltering island if you review why um the request they requested 227 000 now it's gone to 96 000 but

[1:51:44] Voice 6: yet it's still going to consume the same staffing resources so i'd like to know about that i have a

[1:51:49] Voice 6: few questions so i just

[1:51:50] Voice 10: ask that now okay so there's the first question do we have a are we

[1:51:55] Voice 10: prepared to have an answer for that um i'm seeing that step on cermak has his microphone somebody

[1:52:01] Voice 10: else has got a microphone on everybody turn microphones off stephan cermak you have the air

[1:52:06] Voice 10: thank

[1:52:06] Voice 17: you mr chair and and thank you trusty allen for the question um so as you know we we don't

[1:52:12] Voice 17: quite have an excellent science on how we allocate staff hours the assumption that was made here is

[1:52:17] Voice 17: that the um we have the same planner in charge of the project um and that project whether it's being

[1:52:25] Voice 17: managing a contract or spending the time doing the work themselves it's it's they'll be spending most

[1:52:30] Voice 17: their time doing that project if that makes sense

[1:52:34] Voice 23: sorry

[1:52:36] Voice 6: and then also uh i'm really concerned about

[1:52:39] Voice 6: um given the culture in the salt spring community along with certain predetermined ideas

[1:52:43] Voice 6: is, la, la, la, that it was a better idea

[1:52:48] Voice 6: to hire a third-party consultant, and I totally disagree. I mean, I think if there's an issue

[1:52:52] Voice 6: with Islands Trust on Salt Spring and, well, Hornby and a few

[1:52:56] Voice 6: other islands, then why are the staff not involved

[1:53:00] Voice 6: in this and the consultant? I just find that a very strange choice.

[1:53:05] Voice 6: If they want Islands Trust to look good on Salt Spring, then why

[1:53:09] Voice 6: have a third-party consultant? I don't see how that's going to make it better.

[1:53:14] Voice 6: And then I have a question regarding when we do have requests for consultants, like the purchasing procedure, is it a request for quote or is it a request for proposal when we do have a third-party consultant regarding our OCP, OEB reviews in particular?

[1:53:33] Voice 6: Is it money or is it quality?

[1:53:39] Voice 10: So is there a – do you understand the question?

[1:53:43] Voice 10: steph i'm sure i might turn your mic off alex allen thank

[1:53:46] Voice 17: you thank you again so traditionally

[1:53:49] Voice 17: it's a request for proposal because we understand what the deliverable is and what we're asking for

[1:53:55] Voice 17: or as we're traditionally in the islands trust we use the reach the rfq the request for quote

[1:54:01] Voice 17: when we have more of an idea of a broad idea of the deliverables we want but not the specifics

[1:54:07] Voice 17: in how so there's two different methodologies one's very specific we know we would want when

[1:54:12] Voice 17: we want and how we want it whereas the other is a little bit more vague and we're asking them to

[1:54:16] Voice 17: tell us how they would deliver this overall project so i believe in these circumstances

[1:54:21] Voice 17: the rfp is what we use and that's the proposal we would be using for the third person um

[1:54:28] Voice 17: consultation services thanks

[1:54:32] Voice 6: and then um regarding the meeting administrator is that i don't

[1:54:37] Voice 6: understand how they're going to deal with so they're going to be doing the minute taking of

[1:54:41] Voice 6: every single trust meeting is this what's going to happen because i don't understand that how

[1:54:46] Voice 6: they're going to be able to do that and also have concerns that this is a local position and

[1:54:52] Voice 6: it's a good gig and i don't like to see it going off an island okay somebody want to answer that

[1:54:58] Voice 10: david mauer yeah

[1:55:01] Voice 3: the meeting uh administrative position for the local trust committee it's not

[1:55:04] Voice 3: going to be able to do all of the local trust committee uh minutes they're still going to be

[1:55:09] Voice 3: some that will not happen that way and the way it will work we will be using zoom in some instances

[1:55:16] Voice 3: in other instances the person can go to the island it will really depend on the meeting

[1:55:20] Voice 3: and those are the details we'll have to work out okay

[1:55:26] Voice 9: thank you if i may follow

[1:55:28] Voice 27: up on that

[1:55:29] Voice 27: oh

[1:55:30] Voice 9: please the

[1:55:30] Voice 27: amount that's been reduced from local trust committee draft expenses in the budget

[1:55:35] Voice 27: does take into account the fact that not all minutes are going to be taken by the new staff

[1:55:40] Voice 27: position so we didn't remove dollars for all the minute takers and acknowledgement we'd still need

[1:55:44] Voice 27: some okay

[1:55:48] Voice 10: so i want to kind of keep track of my speakers this as i saw hands going up and so what

[1:55:53] Voice 10: i've got is jamie harris grant scott deb morrison jamie thank

[1:56:00] Voice 5: you mr chair i was wanting to speak

[1:56:02] Voice 5: to 7.2.14 uh 7

[1:56:07] Voice 10: .2.4

[1:56:08] Voice 5: .14 is that is this the appropriate time to speak about this oh no

[1:56:13] Voice 10: No, that's the, we're not quite there yet.

[1:56:16] Voice 10: That's the SWPA.

[1:56:17] Voice 10: So I think let's deal with the business cases

[1:56:20] Voice 10: and then the SWPA is a separate request for decision.

[1:56:24] Voice 10: Okay, thank you.

[1:56:25] Voice 22: I just didn't want

[1:56:25] Voice 10: to miss my opportunity.

[1:56:27] Voice 10: I'll make sure that you do.

[1:56:28] Voice 10: Yeah.

[1:56:30] Voice 10: So back to my list, Grant Scott.

[1:56:34] Voice 11: Thank you.

[1:56:35] Voice 11: What I heard earlier, I think,

[1:56:37] Voice 11: was that once that business case was accepted by council,

[1:56:43] Voice 11: So the $15,000 was allocated last term.

[1:56:46] Voice 11: So I assumed that that funding would be basically turned over with, you know, the structure of an assistance of Gabriel office on how to allocate, how to spend that money.

[1:57:02] Voice 11: Once that business case was accepted, until a consultant was hired, we didn't hear anything about what the RFP, Request for Proposals, or the choice of consultants, or the contract that was entered into.

[1:57:25] Voice 11: to and we we i mean i shouldn't say we i really felt that i understood that we would be part of

[1:57:33] Voice 11: that process and i was surprised when we weren't and we're still trying to get to to the to the

[1:57:39] Voice 11: kind of the now we're supposed to get a report from the consultants at the end of march so we're

[1:57:48] Voice 11: kind of waiting to see what that is and if that doesn't link up with that business case this i

[1:57:54] Voice 11: I just feel like we went and got money almost under false pretenses.

[1:57:57] Voice 11: So I really want to understand and make sure next time this happens that that sort of chain of business case, RFP, contract, choice of consultant, report, all is under the, if not the total control law, but at least under, goes back to the LTC.

[1:58:19] Voice 11: Sure.

[1:58:21] Voice 10: So although what you're asking certainly has a financial responsibility and an oversight of council to ensure that our business practices are appropriate, I don't think that my read here is that that particular conversation needs to happen with staff, with your regional planning manager, to ensure that you understand the processes that are in place associated with procurement and all of that.

[1:58:45] Voice 10: and it's not necessarily um tied directly into what we're focusing here today on ensuring that

[1:58:53] Voice 10: the 2024 budget is in place so appreciate that and advise you and i think staff probably agree

[1:58:59] Voice 10: that have that conversation and seek that clarity because you're absolutely right we want to do the

[1:59:05] Voice 10: right thing

[1:59:05] Voice 25: point of privilege chair uh point of privilege where are we in the agenda right now

[1:59:11] Voice 25: because i'm confused are we like somewhere between 7.24 and 7.29 where are we thank

[1:59:17] Voice 23: you thank you um

[1:59:25] Voice 23: we are

[1:59:25] Voice 10: broadly in um essentially what we've been asked is to provide uh input on 7.27

[1:59:34] Voice 10: business case summaries um in order to um provide you the opportunity to make any amendments or

[1:59:47] Voice 10: adjustments to the budget that you might see fit yeah and the agenda is not it's funny how

[1:59:55] Voice 10: we create the agenda we expect well this is how it'll flow and then when in real time you start

[2:00:00] Voice 10: do it it kind of falls out slightly differently and that's sort of what i'm experiencing as well

[2:00:05] Voice 10: but um i'm going to go to deb morrison and then judy getty and sam walsh thank

[2:00:11] Voice 35: you um i just

[2:00:14] Voice 35: wanted to come back to something that uh alex allen um named and that is um it would be really

[2:00:21] Voice 35: really helpful to, so maybe just on the budget end of this, I do think that the administrative

[2:00:32] Voice 35: need for an island administrator to do notes and that outside the islands, some islands need that

[2:00:38] Voice 35: because we're having trouble finding people to do that on the islands. It's not that we

[2:00:44] Voice 35: wouldn't want that resource to be on the islands, it's that we can't locate that resource on our

[2:00:49] Voice 35: our islands and it's not for lack of trying and so um you know and but i i guess the the qualifier

[2:00:57] Voice 35: on that is that as we decide which islands use that service and which islands don't use that

[2:01:03] Voice 35: service that we actually work with trustees to ensure that you know the right islands are getting

[2:01:09] Voice 35: in the right you know if there's yeah i think the point's taken thank you thanks

[2:01:13] Voice 10: deb and we are at

[2:01:15] Voice 10: at 11 o'clock. I want to go to our break, but let's just let the last two speakers that I've

[2:01:19] Voice 10: got on my list, Judith Getty and Sam Horswick, and then we'll go for our break.

[2:01:25] Voice 36: I'm having trouble

[2:01:26] Voice 36: following this in terms of the business case summaries that have the nice one paragraph in

[2:01:33] Voice 36: terms of what the allocations are and then the actual budget requests. And I'd like to,

[2:01:38] Voice 36: if we're taking a break now, that would be very helpful to try and cross-reference.

[2:01:42] Voice 36: Okay,

[2:01:43] Voice 10: so let's try and clarify that over the break.

[2:01:46] Voice 10: Next speaker, Sam Forsyth.

[2:01:51] Voice 14: Yeah, well, we are just about to go to break,

[2:01:53] Voice 14: and so perhaps this will happen afterwards.

[2:01:55] Voice 14: But I do have specific questions about specific business cases.

[2:01:59] Voice 14: And it's really just, and it's not sort of pro or for right off the hop,

[2:02:05] Voice 14: but I would love to, in the spirit of the really fantastic work

[2:02:10] Voice 14: that I think the Financial Planning Committee has done

[2:02:12] Voice 14: to apply the brakes in preparation for a change of direction strategically for the trust.

[2:02:19] Voice 14: I know that one of the big budget issues for the trust in general is staff, and I absolutely

[2:02:25] Voice 14: want to support staff.

[2:02:26] Voice 14: I'm keenly aware of the fact that we overwork them and underpay them, and as a consequence,

[2:02:31] Voice 14: we don't keep them.

[2:02:32] Voice 14: I'm really keen to explore the options that are in the business cases for the new staff

[2:02:38] Voice 14: and just make sure that we're really examining those choices carefully before we take on more staff,

[2:02:47] Voice 14: because I would hate to just throw more people into that fire before we fix the overarching problems that we have

[2:02:55] Voice 14: in terms of being a burden on our very hardworking staff.

[2:03:00] Voice 14: So I'd love to explore some of those options because I think there's some really good options in those business cases.

[2:03:05] Voice 14: So I'd love to hear from the various people who are responsible for those and talk about it.

[2:03:10] Voice 10: Okay, thank you, Sam. I'm sort of considering my thoughts here about how to stage this and

[2:03:19] Voice 10: set expectations. I'm reluctant to say that this is kind of the 11th hour to have too much of an

[2:03:27] Voice 10: in-depth discussion about this. This idea and these notions have been fairly well vetted,

[2:03:33] Voice 10: fairly well delivered in terms of business cases by staff, with absolutely trying to achieve the

[2:03:38] Voice 10: intentions that you're wanting to go through. But I want to give you that chance to speak to that.

[2:03:44] Voice 10: as much as is possible.

[2:03:46] Voice 10: And so before I say, let's go to my break,

[2:03:50] Voice 10: I just am conscious of not seeing David Graham

[2:03:53] Voice 10: on the screen here.

[2:03:55] Voice 10: And I want to make sure, David Graham,

[2:03:56] Voice 10: that you have an opportunity to speak.

[2:04:00] Voice 10: And I'll ask you this to speak again

[2:04:03] Voice 10: when we come back from our break.

[2:04:05] Voice 10: So let's go for our break

[2:04:07] Voice 10: and let's come back at 11.20.

[2:04:10] Voice 10: So I want to respect that 15 minutes

[2:04:11] Voice 10: And then we will clarify where we're going to go when we come back from the break.

[2:04:15] Voice 10: So,

[2:21:40] Voice 23: Council, you've

[2:21:41] Voice 10: had two minutes extra.

[2:21:42] Voice 10: Let us come back to our seats to continue the conversation.

[2:21:49] Voice 10: And when I hear the hubbub fall in volume, I'll know that you've heard me and we're returning to our chairs.

[2:21:56] Voice 10: Was it blueberry?

[2:22:13] Voice 10: It was blueberry. Very nice.

[2:22:15] Voice 23: Okay, Council.

[2:22:38] Voice 23: I see a few

[2:22:41] Voice 10: vacant seats, but I'm hoping that you're in the room and listening, because I do want to proceed, but I also want to make sure that we're all on the same page.

[2:22:54] Voice 10: So I'm going to start by just turning your minds back to item 7.2.1 on our agenda, which is the session summary.

[2:23:07] Voice 10: And this was our expectation of what we're going to go through.

[2:23:11] Voice 10: And Julia has provided us a summary on what she thinks that you need to be briefed on and brought up to date to.

[2:23:27] Voice 10: Financial Planning Committee has recommended you a budget to you.

[2:23:34] Voice 10: And all of that information is in the agenda package.

[2:23:38] Voice 10: And so what we're seeking here right now, and we're going to go through a sequence here, is looking at those items in the draft budget that you may want to seek more information or clarity on, which are the, and we're going to go through them one at a time, which is the strategic plan items, the LTC projects, operational items, and staffing.

[2:24:03] Voice 10: And so we're going to go through the list of those things one at a time and essentially figure out which ones you want to speak to or which ones would just accept as presented.

[2:24:16] Voice 10: And then coming out of this, we'll want to have debate and basically counsel directions to staff for change in the draft budget that has been recommended to us by financial planning committee.

[2:24:34] Voice 10: Does that help?

[2:24:38] Voice 10: I'm not seeing any questions go up.

[2:24:40] Voice 10: So let us begin then, Julia, and I'm just seeing Susan Yates.

[2:24:45] Voice 10: And so we've got if we can possibly make these things on the screen bigger and that lower that lower box there would be helpful to for everybody to focus on where we're at.

[2:24:57] Voice 10: This is where we're at. This is what we've been through. And we're now at this questions for more detail and comments and then debate and direction for change.

[2:25:08] Voice 10: But let's maybe save the direction for changes after we've answered all the questions.

[2:25:12] Voice 10: Now, Susan Yates, you have a question.

[2:25:14] Voice 10: Thank

[2:25:16] Voice 34: you, Chair Luckham.

[2:25:18] Voice 34: It is just a question because the Financial Planning Committee did recommend removing one Trust Council meeting in person because a location could not be found.

[2:25:30] Voice 34: But we know now that a location can be found.

[2:25:34] Voice 34: So I just want to know where to address that.

[2:25:38] Voice 23: Julia?

[2:25:38] Voice 23: you?

[2:25:42] Voice 27: Council could direct staff to include additional funding for a fourth meeting. They

[2:25:48] Voice 27: could do that at this juncture. They could wait until after we review the business cases. I don't

[2:25:54] Voice 27: think it's of significance when it happens.

[2:25:57] Voice 10: So I'm just going to make a note of that, and I'm sure

[2:26:00] Voice 10: that you won't miss the opportunity. But let's go through the list that I suggested. So this is

[2:26:07] Voice 10: is where we're at on our session overview and what we're looking for is the strategic plan

[2:26:13] Voice 10: list.

[2:26:14] Voice 27: Page 255 of the agenda package will list the strategic plan projects. Thank you.

[2:26:22] Voice 27: So this is

[2:26:23] Voice 27: what's included in the draft budget for strategic plan work. Most of these items do have a business

[2:26:29] Voice 27: case that's included in the agenda package. If there's a business case that trustees would like

[2:26:33] Voice 27: staff to speak to or that they have questions on, now is the time to raise your hand for that.

[2:26:38] Voice 27: all

[2:26:40] Voice 10: right anybody any questions on the strategic plan projects okay i'm going to assume there are

[2:26:49] Voice 10: no questions let's go to the ltc projects uh

[2:26:55] Voice 27: that's page 241 of the agenda package we've got

[2:26:58] Voice 27: a list of local trust committee projects that are receiving funding in the year these projects also

[2:27:02] Voice 27: have business cases included in the agenda if there's questions on those business cases or

[2:27:07] Voice 27: trustees wish for staff to speak to them now is the time to speak up on that so

[2:27:12] Voice 10: is that the the

[2:27:13] Voice 10: list at the very bottom of the page yes so

[2:27:17] Voice 10: let's just zoom in on that a bit

[2:27:19] Voice 9: if we can lori thank

[2:27:20] Voice 9: you give you

[2:27:24] Voice 9: a moment to reflect on that christina evans a microphone off julia

[2:27:31] Voice 25: sorry i'm not sure if

[2:27:33] Voice 25: this is the place to talk to it um page 275 does the local trust committee projects is that is this

[2:27:42] Voice 25: the place to talk about that or

[2:27:44] Voice 9: are we coming to that separately

[2:27:45] Voice 9: um i think that's what we're

[2:27:47] Voice 9: Is that what we're talking about, Julia?

[2:27:53] Voice 9: I'm sorry.

[2:27:54] Voice 9: Yeah, go ahead.

[2:27:56] Voice 27: Yes, if you'd like that report to be spoken to,

[2:27:58] Voice 27: if it relates to local trust committee projects,

[2:28:00] Voice 27: this would be the time.

[2:28:02] Voice 10: Okay.

[2:28:03] Voice 10: So who's going to speak to that?

[2:28:05] Voice 10: Oh, you were going to ask a question.

[2:28:07] Voice 10: Okay.

[2:28:07] Voice 25: Yeah, I just wanted to know when to ask it.

[2:28:09] Voice 25: So if we can go to page 276,

[2:28:13] Voice 25: and actually if we can go to 278,

[2:28:18] Voice 25: the table that we're looking at here,

[2:28:20] Voice 25: year. On page 279, there is talking about the number of available hours in the year, which

[2:28:32] Voice 25: you said was about 3,300 hours based on full staff retention. Knowing that we don't have full

[2:28:39] Voice 25: staff retention and approximately 10% is lost per year, we're looking at 3,000 hours. The

[2:28:49] Voice 25: the difference of that is 500, sorry, 800 hours that we have a shortfall of, that we know we're

[2:28:57] Voice 25: going to have a shortfall of. So looking at the table, we're looking at 3,400 hours on table three

[2:29:03] Voice 25: and 400 hours on table one. So if we already know that we're going to only have about 3,000 hours

[2:29:11] Voice 25: to budget against, budgeting for 3,800 hours and over budget of 800 hours that we don't have staff

[2:29:19] Voice 25: for should perhaps be looked at and this is where the strategic planning is going to come into play

[2:29:24] Voice 25: i'm not suggesting that we we deal with it in this budget this is just something i want to

[2:29:29] Voice 25: bring to people's attention as to where the problems are lying okay

[2:29:33] Voice 10: so we don't need to

[2:29:35] Voice 10: address that today for this budget that's good news but you want us to think about this as we

[2:29:41] Voice 10: go into our next budgeting process okay thank you very much for that that's very helpful um

[2:29:46] Voice 10: Grant Scott, on the projects.

[2:29:52] Voice 11: Dr. Peter, thanks.

[2:29:54] Voice 11: Just keeping us focused.

[2:29:57] Voice 11: The Hornby 15,000 up there.

[2:30:00] Voice 11: was in last year's budget wasn't it julia you

[2:30:09] Voice 10: know i i'm going to interrupt here because and i've not

[2:30:12] Voice 10: said anything earlier i think we need a little clarity about the concept of carrying over which

[2:30:19] Voice 10: technically doesn't exist certainly you can reserve but i'm not going to paraphrase but

[2:30:25] Voice 10: this is this year's budget and this money's in here and whatever was in last year's budget is

[2:30:30] Voice 10: whatever was in last year's budget whether it was spent or not uh

[2:30:35] Voice 27: that is correct uh if there's

[2:30:38] Voice 27: funding in the current year budget for a project if that project is not going to be complete a

[2:30:43] Voice 27: request can be put forward for the unspent monies to flow into next fiscal year to complete the

[2:30:48] Voice 27: project um i think what's happening here is i mean i'd have to let director sermac speak to this this

[2:30:53] Voice 27: is his report um this is looking more at hours and there may be hours related to a current year

[2:30:58] Voice 27: your project if it is going to carry over into next year that may be relevant for the feasibility

[2:31:04] Voice 23: assessment please yeah

[2:31:11] Voice 17: thank you through the chair so i'll repeat that the you know the

[2:31:14] Voice 17: estimating the staff hours has been based on historical experience of how many projects a

[2:31:19] Voice 17: planner can manage it well

[2:31:21] Voice 10: actually the staff hours is a separate thing from the budget requisition

[2:31:24] Voice 10: and i think grant scott's question is about fifteen thousand dollars that was allocated last

[2:31:29] Voice 10: year and this year excellent

[2:31:32] Voice 17: thank you um i honestly i'm not sure about this year but i do

[2:31:35] Voice 17: know that the business case does clearly indicate that their request is for next fiscal right

[2:31:40] Voice 9: does

[2:31:42] Voice 17: that help grant no

[2:31:43] Voice 11: well i as far as i know there hasn't been a business case has gone in for another

[2:31:47] Voice 11: 15 for this budget yeah so

[2:31:50] Voice 11: i just don't understand why that 15 which is going to be spent by the end

[2:31:55] Voice 23: of march is there is that contributing

[2:32:04] Voice 11: to the whatever nine point million of this year because

[2:32:07] Voice 11: i believe that

[2:32:08] Voice 27: spending is um a proposed spending for next fiscal can you confirm second yes i can

[2:32:15] Voice 17: confirm that so

[2:32:19] Voice 27: this is a request for funding for next fiscal year for fiscal 2023-24 that's

[2:32:24] Voice 27: come forward i believe there's a business case um that would speak to that fifteen thousand dollars

[2:32:28] Voice 27: page 294 okay

[2:32:32] Voice 10: so monies that were budgeted last year that haven't been spent are now being

[2:32:38] Voice 10: re-requested for this year anyway uh let us continue are there any other questions on any

[2:32:46] Voice 10: of the other

[2:32:46] Voice 23: projects can we come back to the projects list thank you page 241 yeah thank you

[2:33:05] Voice 23: yeah that section at the bottom brilliant any

[2:33:08] Voice 9: further questions or clarity on the projects list

[2:33:14] Voice 9: Okay. So we're content with

[2:33:17] Voice 10: that. So let's move to the next section, which is operational. And

[2:33:22] Voice 10: Julia? Page 308. Thank

[2:33:24] Voice 23: you. Any questions on those three items? Okay. Let's go to the staffing

[2:33:47] Voice 10: option. Deb Morrison.

[2:33:51] Voice 35: Thank you. I have a few questions on the staffing. And so just to be

[2:33:56] Voice 35: clear on process right now, we're asking questions on staffing or we're proposing any changes that

[2:34:01] Voice 35: we'd want to make

[2:34:02] Voice 10: um well let's ask questions and then i'm going to broadly ask for any proposed

[2:34:08] Voice 10: changes to the draft budget from fbc thank you you have questions yes

[2:34:13] Voice 35: and forewarning i'm not

[2:34:14] Voice 35: actually suggesting changes to the draft budget i'm just suggesting changes to how we're doing

[2:34:18] Voice 35: the hiring so um and

[2:34:20] Voice 10: so now up on the screen we're on staffing is that correct not yet okay

[2:34:25] Voice 10: Okay. And is this, can we proceed with, yeah, can we get, I think we've dealt with operations.

[2:34:39] Voice 10: There aren't any questions on, there are questions on operations. Okay. I had moved on from that

[2:34:44] Voice 10: already. I missed your hand. So please. So just put you on hold for a minute there, Deb.

[2:34:50] Voice 10: So on the item on the screen, operations, Trustee Evans.

[2:34:56] Voice 25: Hi, thank you. I'm not sure if a decision has been made yet with regards to the expense claim

[2:35:01] Voice 25: system enhancements if we're going for the custom solution versus an off-the-shelf

[2:35:08] Voice 25: third-party application? Has that decision already

[2:35:12] Voice 25: been made? That's page 311.

[2:35:14] Voice 10: Yeah, so that's a good question. So $15,000 is in the budget, and we'll turn to staff for whether

[2:35:21] Voice 10: or not that's in-house or third-party, I think is the question. Is somebody

[2:35:25] Voice 23: prepared to answer that?

[2:35:28] Voice 23: that? Well,

[2:35:35] Voice 7: I believe the recommendation is to go get a custom rate as it is in the business case.

[2:35:41] Voice 10: That's what's in the business case. Okay. Thank you. Again, Trustee Evans, somebody's mic is on.

[2:35:49] Voice 10: There we go. Thank

[2:35:50] Voice 25: you. So my follow-up question to that is having been in the tech industry for

[2:35:56] Voice 25: most of my career and dealing with bespoke applications, I know that there are a lot of

[2:36:02] Voice 25: bugs and the initial price is never the end price and it gets very expensive so i'm just

[2:36:07] Voice 25: wondering if this has been thoroughly vetted and thought through and if there has if there is a

[2:36:13] Voice 25: really good bound um uh scope for this work to occur so there doesn't wind up with a lot of

[2:36:21] Voice 25: scope creep which will wind up with a lot of budget creep um because oftentimes these things

[2:36:27] Voice 25: wind up costing so much more to try and fix all of the errors because it's not being something that's

[2:36:33] Voice 25: had like an off-the-shelf application is thoroughly vetted

[2:36:38] Voice 25: and you know what you're getting.

[2:36:42] Voice 10: I suspect there is no

[2:36:44] Voice 7: off-the-shelf application.

[2:36:45] Voice 7: Well, I think the business case does describe that,

[2:36:49] Voice 7: and Mark and his team have done a fair amount of analysis,

[2:36:51] Voice 7: and I think it's a 55% solution, meaning it's having looked at it,

[2:36:58] Voice 7: the custom option is just better than the off-the-shelf offering.

[2:37:02] Voice 7: Yes, it is the preferred recommended option,

[2:37:07] Voice 7: and that it's recommended that they proceed on that basis.

[2:37:11] Voice 7: I can certainly get him to join us if you wanted to get into specifics.

[2:37:17] Voice 7: But, yeah, if there has been thinking and options looked at, the answer would be yes.

[2:37:24] Voice 7: Okay, thank you for the question.

[2:37:25] Voice 7: Thank you.

[2:37:26] Voice 10: So is that it on operational items?

[2:37:29] Voice 10: Lee Middleton, operational items?

[2:37:31] Voice 12: Thank you, yeah, just a quick clarification.

[2:37:32] Voice 12: application um the final item that is funded through the grant from the province is that also

[2:37:38] Voice 12: including onboarding and training for the city view software application or is that totally

[2:37:44] Voice 12: separate okay director

[2:37:49] Voice 27: freighter or director sir back is best place to address that he's

[2:37:53] Voice 27: overseeing the work sir

[2:37:56] Voice 12: could you repeat the question sure just after some clarity of what

[2:38:00] Voice 12: what is included i know it is through a grant which is great but from the province the uh final

[2:38:06] Voice 12: I know it was the final item there,

[2:38:07] Voice 12: but it's the local government development approvals program.

[2:38:13] Voice 12: Yeah, to the tune of 147, 795.

[2:38:18] Voice 12: And the question was,

[2:38:19] Voice 12: does that include acquisition and training

[2:38:23] Voice 12: for the CityView software package,

[2:38:25] Voice 12: or is this not contemplating any kind of onboarding

[2:38:29] Voice 12: of software at separate activities?

[2:38:36] Voice 17: I thank you for the question and through the chair.

[2:38:38] Voice 17: Yeah, it includes training for all staff and onboarding, and it's quite the extensive exercise to do so.

[2:38:47] Voice 10: Thank you.

[2:38:49] Voice 10: Anything else on operations?

[2:38:52] Voice 10: Okay, let's go to staffing.

[2:38:53] Voice 10: Let's get that up on the screen.

[2:38:55] Voice 13: Page 314.

[2:39:03] Voice 10: So now I'm going to go to Deb Morrison.

[2:39:05] Voice 10: She had a question on staffing or comment.

[2:39:09] Voice 35: I got comments.

[2:39:11] Voice 35: I got questions.

[2:39:11] Voice 35: Okay, so first maybe a comment on the manager of finance and accounting.

[2:39:16] Voice 35: That seems to me a really critical role, given everything we've talked about in terms of providing financial cases, business cases, doing that additional work.

[2:39:24] Voice 35: So I completely am in the support of that.

[2:39:28] Voice 35: And also, I think that could help us with transparency to our communities.

[2:39:32] Voice 35: So that'll be really helpful.

[2:39:34] Voice 35: There are three cases here.

[2:39:37] Voice 35: The LTC meeting administrator, the administrative coordinator.

[2:39:40] Voice 35: And if we can scroll down a tiny bit, the planning services, planning services, administrative staff adjustments piece.

[2:39:50] Voice 35: OK, so those three pieces, the question I have here is, are those permanent additions to FTE allocations for staffing or are they temporary, like one year additions?

[2:40:11] Voice 7: Those are permanent FTEs. Each is an FTE. The financial planning, the meeting administrator, and the admin coordinator.

[2:40:27] Voice 35: And then also the planning services administrative adjustment is an additional portion of an FTE. Is that correct?

[2:40:35] Voice 7: It's an adjustment up in grid level for each of those positions. So it's not really an extra FTE.

[2:40:42] Voice 7: it's the individual will be going from a certain grid level to an enhanced group so there's a and

[2:40:49] Voice 7: business cases associated thank

[2:40:52] Voice 35: you for that clarification so then and and let me know if

[2:40:55] Voice 35: this is not the right moment to do this but i sent lori a couple motions to make those one year

[2:41:00] Voice 35: conditional appointments based on the fact that i believe we need to have our governance

[2:41:06] Voice 35: governance work and other things in order before we add permanent FTEs into the staff at the trust

[2:41:12] Voice 35: at the moment, with the exception of the financial planning thing that I think everyone can agree we

[2:41:16] Voice 35: need to have.

[2:41:18] Voice 10: Okay, we can come to those motions in a minute. I just want to acknowledge good

[2:41:23] Voice 10: practice. I meant to mention this earlier, but certainly if you have some kind of a motion for

[2:41:29] Voice 10: an adjustment to the budget, if you can forward it in some fashion to Laurie, and in the old days,

[2:41:35] Voice 10: we just used to write it down on a piece of paper and we'd hand it to them that works too

[2:41:39] Voice 10: if you haven't had the ability to send an email so um that will help facilitate moving the

[2:41:45] Voice 10: conversation forward so is there anything else on staffing uh trustee evans just

[2:41:52] Voice 25: i think uh what

[2:41:53] Voice 25: trustee morrison just suggested would help mitigate my question here but i'm noticing on um

[2:42:00] Voice 25: the meeting administrator on page 328, that the risk is medium for this person to be able to

[2:42:12] Voice 25: attend all meetings, LTC meetings, and will therefore not be able to deliver or manage

[2:42:17] Voice 25: on-site equipment to every meeting, which is, I believe, the reason why they're being hired.

[2:42:21] Voice 25: And so that we're still going to require other administrative support from the various islands.

[2:42:27] Voice 25: So, while reading this business case, I still struggle with this particular position.

[2:42:37] Voice 10: Right. So, CAO Hatton-Pill, do you want to address that?

[2:42:40] Voice 7: Well, thank you very much.

[2:42:42] Voice 7: So, the meeting, let's just back up one second and look at what we're trying to accomplish from a broadcasting meetings perspective,

[2:42:52] Voice 7: which I'm going to suggest is unique in the country, if not the province.

[2:42:57] Voice 7: And that is taking 15, 16, 17 different bodies and providing real time, either recording and posting or the ability for citizens who aren't in the space to participate in meetings.

[2:43:14] Voice 7: So that's a technical challenge right now.

[2:43:16] Voice 7: And of course, it was born, frankly, Trust Council said, let's do this before COVID.

[2:43:21] Voice 7: And we were in the process of it.

[2:43:23] Voice 7: And then it was accelerated by COVID.

[2:43:26] Voice 7: We've never staffed for it.

[2:43:28] Voice 7: so we've just done it and what that's me means is there's six or seven positions at the allens

[2:43:35] Voice 7: trust where we've taken some of their time and reallocated it to doing this there is no i don't

[2:43:43] Voice 7: think we could find a job description for this we've created it to try and relieve to get people

[2:43:50] Voice 7: to go back to the jobs they were doing and to the best of our ability address have a central person

[2:43:57] Voice 7: and who is coordinating all of this tech moves um the administration of your meetings relieving our

[2:44:06] Voice 7: i.t people from having to provide oversight to all of these different meetings because frankly

[2:44:11] Voice 7: we're paying them more than we're paying them too much to sit there and monitor a meeting

[2:44:17] Voice 7: um they should be on other strategic um items so you know i use the analogy earlier of we've

[2:44:23] Voice 7: had the dinner but we haven't paid for it um this is the best option available we looked at a suite

[2:44:30] Voice 7: of different options and that is make this disperse this across the island to a bunch of

[2:44:34] Voice 7: different individuals but we're struggling to get minute takers forget about people who have

[2:44:39] Voice 7: a technological you know in a given island we're going to have people have that technological

[2:44:42] Voice 7: ability but comprehensively it would be a real challenge so to do it and i know you've got

[2:44:49] Voice 7: motions coming forward so maybe i'll save my remarks and i would just i feel it it's my job

[2:44:54] Voice 7: to advise you whether something can work once for one year or don't bother doing it and we'll find

[2:45:01] Voice 7: another solution um so i'll save i'll save that for if if that gets on the table but that meeting

[2:45:07] Voice 7: administrator position will be doing some of the minutes it will be doing most of the meeting

[2:45:12] Voice 7: coordination and then the remainder will be done by the people who are doing it now but instead of

[2:45:18] Voice 7: them doing it 100% of the time, they'll only be doing it 20% of the time. So that's, in essence,

[2:45:24] Voice 7: is the attempt here. It's backcasting to a loss of current productivity at the Alms Trust. Thanks.

[2:45:34] Voice 10: Thanks for that explanation. That helped. Great. Anybody else on staffing? Otherwise, I think

[2:45:42] Voice 10: it's amazing where the time goes. We're 20 minutes away from a lunch break already.

[2:45:48] Voice 10: and we may creep in. I'm just going to give you a note. We may creep into that lunch space

[2:45:52] Voice 10: because we do have guests coming to present to us at 110. So without further ado, I'm going to turn

[2:46:01] Voice 10: to Laurie and say, I'm assuming you've received, I know for sure, at least one submission for

[2:46:08] Voice 10: motions to amend the draft budget that we have before us. And so if you could just let me know

[2:46:14] Voice 10: who the first person is on your list then i'll turn to that person to ask for the motion but

[2:46:18] Voice 10: before i do that i just want to give the chair of fbc one a moment to just after everything we've

[2:46:25] Voice 10: heard already this morning if you have any more uh remarks regarding the terrific recommendation

[2:46:31] Voice 10: that you've advanced to council at this point and if you don't have anything to say that's fine too

[2:46:36] Voice 10: i

[2:46:38] Voice 16: don't really have a lot to say um um notwithstanding the work the fbc put into it

[2:46:45] Voice 16: the jurisdiction of this body is to examine and assess the budget so there's a trade-off here

[2:46:52] Voice 16: between efficiency and executing your duty yeah uh

[2:46:56] Voice 16: i think we yeah no i know we're taking up time

[2:46:59] Voice 16: but it seems to me we're on track we're doing what we're supposed to be doing perfect thank you

[2:47:04] Voice 10: um is it deb morrison deb morrison the floor is yours i'll

[2:47:12] Voice 35: read it i know laurie's getting there

[2:47:14] Voice 35: And I might not move the last one. I have to think about it. So that the trust that the Trust Council direct staff to specify that the legislative services meeting administrator position be named as temporary for one year.

[2:47:27] Voice 10: OK, so that's moved. Do I have a seconder? A seconder by Trustee Evans. Would you wish to speak to your motion?

[2:47:38] Voice 10: Yes.

[2:47:40] Voice 35: So I live on one of the rowdy islands, shall we say, and I'm proud of it. But there are deep concerns in our community across many islands about budget related to what we've been talking about today, our strategic planning, the governance, the relationship of all these different elements.

[2:47:59] Voice 35: I really applaud the financial planning committee, because I think you've done a really good job at trying to figure out how to go forward right now. But I cannot vote for a budget that has an additional increase in staff that I can't connect clearly to a business case that shows how it fits into the flow of overall work, which is what we're going to see a little bit more in the next year.

[2:48:22] Voice 35: And so I literally can't vote for this budget from an elected official in my own community perspective unless we have a couple of these positions that are related to these strategic cases as temporary for this year.

[2:48:38] Voice 35: And I completely understand many of the problems that we have in terms of finding staffing that's temporary or not, but I'm just in a difficult position that way.

[2:48:49] Voice 10: Thank you.

[2:48:51] Voice 10: Any speakers on the motion?

[2:48:54] Voice 10: Trustee Evans, you were the seconder, so you go ahead, and then we'll come to Sam.

[2:49:00] Voice 10: Okay,

[2:49:00] Voice 25: thank you. I was going to say, the reason why I would support this is once this work has been done with regards to the strategic planning process, this position may turn into a full-time position.

[2:49:13] Voice 25: or by the time we've actually done all the work we may look at it and go well now that we actually

[2:49:18] Voice 25: know how to allocate work we don't need this position but it gives us that option to review

[2:49:25] Voice 25: these at the end of this year okay

[2:49:29] Voice 10: thank you sam borswick thank

[2:49:32] Voice 14: you uh yeah i would also like to

[2:49:35] Voice 14: speak in support of the motion i for very much the same reasons that the trustee evans is talking

[2:49:40] Voice 14: talking about i absolutely understand that there's an unevenness in terms of technical support for

[2:49:46] Voice 14: meetings i for many years did technical support for conferences very much like this one's very

[2:49:52] Voice 14: strange to be sitting at the table instead of lurking behind a curtain um so i mean in another

[2:49:58] Voice 14: world i would apply for this job in a heartbeat because i would love to travel around and like

[2:50:02] Voice 14: administrate all your meetings i know i can't do that but i would um i totally support that it's

[2:50:07] Voice 14: It's it's a really good thing. And I but I also know that there's different requirements on different islands, different islands.

[2:50:12] Voice 14: Some islands do have, you know, better access to support. Some islands don't need that.

[2:50:17] Voice 14: In some cases, the planner is capable of helping with that. In some cases, the EC members is is happy to to do those bits and pieces.

[2:50:25] Voice 14: I think it would be wise for us as we're examining our strategic over overall process to not lock ourselves into making this decision hastily.

[2:50:35] Voice 14: Thank

[2:50:37] Voice 10: you. Any other speakers on the CAO wishes to address the council?

[2:50:43] Voice 7: Well, yeah, I feel that I should point out the opportunities and jeopardy associated with any of these.

[2:50:49] Voice 7: And this answer wouldn't apply to all the premises that you're putting forward.

[2:50:56] Voice 7: Notwithstanding the strategic direction of the organization,

[2:50:58] Voice 7: I think we've passed a time where broadcasting meetings and the transparency of that process is really in question.

[2:51:08] Voice 7: Like that's going to happen. And we're doing it and we're two years into it.

[2:51:14] Voice 7: And the strategic direction of the organization will change.

[2:51:18] Voice 7: Like if you collectively didn't want to do this, we would have to not broadcast meetings.

[2:51:24] Voice 7: meetings right if if because we simply just don't have the capacity to deliver on that so

[2:51:31] Voice 7: it's hard to hire and as you know and you've already acknowledged it's challenging to hire

[2:51:37] Voice 7: for a specialized position for one year and then restart that process when I think that likely we

[2:51:45] Voice 7: will be broadcasting past that one year horizon so I just offer that consideration and the last

[2:51:53] Voice 7: one would be that this is a strategic priority of the organization and it was established in

[2:51:58] Voice 7: the previous strategic plan as to broadcast meetings across the trust area pre-pandemic

[2:52:04] Voice 7: so it exists in your long-term thinking area but thank you thank

[2:52:09] Voice 10: you for that um okay are you

[2:52:12] Voice 10: wanting to speak to the motion okay so um trustee bernardo david maude and a whole ton of people

[2:52:23] Voice 10: I

[2:52:24] Voice 16: can be very brief. I just want to address the observation that the CEO just made. Without getting to the merits of this particular thing, I think we need to open up our minds here to something, which is that adopting a meaningful corporate planning process means the strategic decisions of the past, every last one of them, not just this one, goes on the table.

[2:52:51] Voice 16: because what has to happen in order for that process to be effective is there has to be a

[2:52:56] Voice 16: cost-benefit analysis for everything that we're doing not just in the future but what we're doing

[2:53:01] Voice 16: now so this would be an example of a thing where at some juncture we have to ask ourselves a hard

[2:53:08] Voice 16: question like we understand the merits of transparency but we have to ask ourselves

[2:53:14] Voice 16: the question is the money and the staff resources that we're spending on delivering that transparency

[2:53:22] Voice 16: transparency does it materially add to the advancement of the trust object or not

[2:53:28] Voice 16: relative to some other project so i don't really want to wade into the debate about this particular

[2:53:35] Voice 16: thing i just want to post the thought that any time we encounter what seems like a tension between

[2:53:43] Voice 16: a past strategic decision and current thinking well we're not chained to the past like we can

[2:53:53] Voice 16: you know the strategic decision made two years ago three years ago or 30 years ago

[2:53:58] Voice 16: are irrelevant to the strategic decisions that we make that's what the corporate planning process

[2:54:03] Voice 16: is all about and that's where the real transparency should be at the end of the day

[2:54:07] Voice 16: so with all of these different issues let's not chain ourselves to an assumption that because

[2:54:11] Voice 16: we've been doing it or because a decision was made made them passive but we necessarily want

[2:54:15] Voice 16: to continue with it and that's without directly addressing the merits of this particular item

[2:54:20] Voice 16: on thank you thank

[2:54:22] Voice 10: you um trustee maude uh trustee fast and trustee elliot thank you chair um

[2:54:27] Trustee Maude: i sort

[2:54:29] Trustee Maude: of bring another sort of perspective to it as a vice chair and sharing your ltcs most the ltcs that

[2:54:35] Trustee Maude: i chair use a remote minute taker so electronic broadcasting is a must it's not really an option

[2:54:43] Trustee Maude: because an on-office minute taker is not available the logistics that we all know for setting up

[2:54:50] Trustee Maude: those electronic meetings is complicated i'm not a geek i i thank you know the support that we get

[2:54:57] Trustee Maude: from from mark and daphne and others that sort of you know we wouldn't survive like we we did

[2:55:04] Trustee Maude: a meeting on north pender on a saturday a few weeks ago and i couldn't get into zoom

[2:55:12] Trustee Maude: all our tech support couldn't get into zoom and we ended up um where where mark on a saturday

[2:55:18] Trustee Maude: afternoon from home managed to to backdoor us into zoom it was beyond anybody's technical

[2:55:25] Trustee Maude: capabilities doing it so there's a huge support network and i really recognize you know if we

[2:55:31] Trustee Maude: have a specialist support person doing this it'll make everybody's life easier like like right now

[2:55:37] Trustee Maude: like robin and will support us so much in doing setting up these meetings and making things happen

[2:55:43] Trustee Maude: and and go well and beyond and i can't imagine how they do their job day in and day out without

[2:55:50] Trustee Maude: pulling their hell dealing with people like me and you know it would be so much easier if one

[2:55:56] Trustee Maude: it was one person's job and if the policy was with the trust that every new hire was for one year

[2:56:04] Trustee Maude: basically as a feel-out and learning experience i know i'm saying if that was the deal i would go

[2:56:10] Trustee Maude: okay that's what it is but in this position i really think it's a specialized position it's one

[2:56:16] Trustee Maude: that we're probably going to be hard pressed to find that special person and i don't think you're

[2:56:23] Trustee Maude: going to find them if it's just for a one-year position and i don't think in my mind that

[2:56:28] Trustee Maude: position is going away and there's been time and time and time and time i've sit around this table

[2:56:33] Trustee Maude: and i've looked at hiring positions going do we really need that this is one of the ones where

[2:56:39] Trustee Maude: where I kind of get that we really need it

[2:56:41] Trustee Maude: because times have changed, our needs have changed.

[2:56:44] Trustee Maude: This whole Zoom thing has put us upside down

[2:56:46] Trustee Maude: and the skillset that's needed

[2:56:49] Trustee Maude: to sort of support these meetings.

[2:56:51] Trustee Maude: And then the other sort of conjoining things

[2:56:53] Trustee Maude: that we can't find minute takers.

[2:56:55] Trustee Maude: So that centralized minute taking,

[2:56:57] Trustee Maude: I really get where it's a good idea.

[2:56:59] Trustee Maude: So from the side of the table,

[2:57:02] Trustee Maude: and I voted against a lot of the hires over the years,

[2:57:04] Trustee Maude: this is one where I think it's a really, really smart move.

[2:57:07] Trustee Maude: I think it's forward-looking, and I don't think a year from now we're going to sit here and regret doing it. Thank you.

[2:57:14] Voice 10: Thank you. Sue Ellen Fast.

[2:57:17] Trustee Fast: Thank you. I'll be voting against this motion because I agree with some of the previous speakers, especially Dave Maude just spoke about.

[2:57:28] Trustee Fast: I would also say, and I too have a background in organizing live conferences and online before there were such things like back in 2008.

[2:57:41] Trustee Fast: Okay, so I'm thinking in my experience as a vice chair last term, citizens want even more functions.

[2:57:50] Trustee Fast: Hornby Island, where you might expect that people were not too keen on Zoom, hey, they want more.

[2:57:56] Trustee Fast: They want to be able to chime in while they're cooking and gardening.

[2:57:59] Trustee Fast: They want full participation over Zoom, more than what we were doing with just the broadcasting.

[2:58:06] Trustee Fast: That's just one example.

[2:58:07] Trustee Fast: I think Russ has mentioned the productivity, the amount of work time I saw siphoned off the side of people's desks when they were also following a Zoom meeting the whole time, waiting to hear their name.

[2:58:21] Trustee Fast: and um i uh i think about the accessibility committee that we're going to set up and how

[2:58:30] Trustee Fast: much um these broadcasted meetings and the interactivity with zoom brings to access for

[2:58:37] Trustee Fast: people who might not normally be able to come to a meeting um of course and the recordings and um

[2:58:43] Trustee Fast: so i uh i think that committee's work was going to be tied in uh also with this position i think um

[2:58:49] Trustee Fast: And to expect, anyway, I think it might take more than a year to get to a corporate plan.

[2:58:55] Trustee Fast: I don't know.

[2:58:56] Trustee Fast: But I think to make it position temporary and then have it go for another year and another

[2:59:00] Trustee Fast: year, which I've seen in other organizations, is an error.

[2:59:05] Trustee Fast: I think we should face the fact that the digital future is here.

[2:59:09] Trustee Fast: It's only going to get more and that we need this position going forward.

[2:59:14] Trustee Fast: Thank you.

[2:59:16] Voice 10: Thank you.

[2:59:16] Voice 10: I have Trustee Elliott, Trustee Peterson, and Trustee Morris.

[2:59:22] Voice 21: Thank you. Most well, Trustee Maude and Sue Ellen Faust, you both spoke to basically what I was thinking.

[2:59:31] Voice 21: My question was, what is the the risk of being able to fill this job if it's a temporary one year position versus full time employment?

[2:59:42] Voice 21: I think that's sort of been answered already. I cannot vote in favor of this motion.

[2:59:47] Voice 21: I do understand your concerns, Trustee Morrison, and your duty to your constituents, but I think this is one case where we're already paying for it, and it's sort of a foregone conclusion this is going to be.

[3:00:00] Voice 21: the need in the future so i just for that reason can't support the motion thanks trustee peterson

[3:00:06] Voice 15: yeah thank you chair i'm just going to amplify some of what i've heard

[3:00:10] Voice 15: from some of the other speakers in opposition to this um i think that uh in terms of electronic

[3:00:17] Voice 15: meetings the genie is out of the bottle um we're not there's going to be a huge public outcry if

[3:00:23] Voice 15: If we make electronic access to our meeting processes

[3:00:28] Voice 15: less accessible in any way, the demand is for more.

[3:00:34] Voice 15: And I think in terms of the budgetary implications,

[3:00:40] Voice 15: if we're in a situation where we're continuing to fill this kind of function,

[3:00:46] Voice 15: backfilling this with higher paid staff,

[3:00:49] Voice 15: I think we're actually in a negative budgetary responsibility rather than having a dedicated person.

[3:00:57] Voice 15: Thank you.

[3:01:01] Voice 10: Okay, thank you, Jim.

[3:01:02] Voice 10: So I have Deb Morrison, Mayreed Boland, and Aaron Campbell, and Janine Dodds.

[3:01:12] Voice 35: Chair, I would ask that I go at the end because other speakers haven't spoke yet.

[3:01:16] Voice 10: Very kind, thank you.

[3:01:20] Voice 10: Mayreed Boland.

[3:01:21] Voice 10: I

[3:01:23] Voice 26: just have a suggestion that, you know, there are, there's another position, and there are three co-op student positions in the mix. If we consider all of those before we vote, because people are very passionate about this one, and the content that this would deliver.

[3:01:40] Voice 26: but as the general principle of adding positions maybe we should go through all of them and then

[3:01:47] Voice 26: come back and consider them one at a time having discussed each of them thank you

[3:01:56] Voice 10: that's certainly

[3:01:58] Voice 10: a great suggestion in a situation where we had an infinite amount of time i would like to just say

[3:02:05] Voice 10: that financial planning committee made a recommendation and has considered that element

[3:02:10] Voice 10: and I think we're going on the financial planning committee recommendation here

[3:02:14] Voice 10: and we have a motion on the floor and so I'm going to continue with speakers

[3:02:19] Voice 10: on the motion on the floor. Aaron Campbell.

[3:02:24] Voice 14: I'm just wondering we are talking about something

[3:02:27] Voice 14: whether it's a foregone conclusion something that we're using we feel like we it has value

[3:02:33] Voice 14: to the organization to actually know what the numbers of people attending that are actually

[3:02:39] Voice 14: using these services that we're offering as far as like a cost analysis to we're providing this

[3:02:45] Voice 14: service or x number of dollars a year based on 20 people joining a meeting or two people joining a

[3:02:53] Voice 14: meeting or 100 people joining a meeting like what are we really trying what service are we really

[3:02:58] Voice 14: trying to offer here that's

[3:03:02] Voice 10: a good question i don't know that we have necessarily concrete

[3:03:06] Voice 10: concrete answers to that but of course it's not just people attending it's those also viewing the

[3:03:11] Voice 10: streaming that

[3:03:13] Voice 14: that's what i mean is is how many people are viewing the streaming to make this like

[3:03:18] Voice 14: we're we're trying to make a case for supporting something that we don't know anything about

[3:03:27] Voice 10: um i don't know that we don't know anything about but if we don't have

[3:03:31] Voice 10: anybody on staff

[3:03:32] Voice 10: So I'd have an opportunity to fill

[3:03:34] Voice 23: in the blank here.

[3:03:39] Voice 23: Well,

[3:03:40] Voice 7: there's a few things.

[3:03:42] Voice 7: Yesterday there, I think there were 75 views of this meeting.

[3:03:46] Voice 7: Yeah.

[3:03:47] Voice 7: Yeah.

[3:03:47] Voice 7: There's.

[3:03:48] Voice 7: Yeah.

[3:03:51] Voice 7: The other.

[3:03:53] Voice 7: The other cost factor is not having staff go to all of your meetings.

[3:04:01] Voice 7: So we've had years of staff going to LTCs, traveling to LTCs, and the issue might not come up.

[3:04:10] Voice 7: So we've sent the staff to Hornby Island or wherever, and they take the ferry, they drive their cars, they go to the meeting, something else more important comes up, they go home.

[3:04:22] Voice 7: so this is we're piggybacking a cost savings if you will associated with less requirement to move

[3:04:30] Voice 7: the staff throughout the trust area um as well in terms of metrics associated with individual lt's

[3:04:38] Voice 7: all 16 different bodies i don't have that right here i think you're quite right quite often it's

[3:04:43] Voice 7: nine people um but we also have other you know if you looked at the average but there might be

[3:04:51] Voice 7: events where you have a CIM or something really critical to a community's decision-making process

[3:04:59] Voice 7: where you'd have many people attending that. But yeah, if you need to leverage specific LTC by LTC

[3:05:10] Voice 7: Google data, we could probably access some of that. I just don't have all that with me right now.

[3:05:19] Voice 10: Okay. Janine Dodds, Tim Peterson, Judith Geddy.

[3:05:22] Voice 10: me so

[3:05:26] Voice 24: i want to i want to summarize something i think islands trust council forgets is all of our

[3:05:32] Voice 24: meetings as russ just mentioned require a lot of people to drive a lot of vehicles ride a lot of

[3:05:38] Voice 24: ferries we talk a lot about preserve and protect i think that covid gave us zoom and zoom is probably

[3:05:46] Voice 24: the best thing and the most important preserve and protect function that the islands trust is

[3:05:52] Voice 24: going to have so an example is community information meeting we had one last fall on maine

[3:05:57] Voice 24: people were able to participate in such a way with this technology that it was as though they

[3:06:03] Voice 24: were in the room people that were in the room could ask questions people that were on zoom

[3:06:08] Voice 24: could ask questions it is a huge function and we need to be using it a lot more and i really don't

[3:06:15] Voice 24: i don't have a community who's up in arms about my budget but i would have no problem going back

[3:06:20] Voice 24: back to my community, say, yes, we are spending X number of dollars more, but we are going to

[3:06:26] Voice 24: reduce the amount of travel and waste of time that happens in all of our communities by having

[3:06:32] Voice 24: this position. So I would be voting no.

[3:06:35] Voice 35: Point of order. Yes.

[3:06:38] Voice 35: We're not arguing the motion.

[3:06:41] Voice 35: The motion right now is not about removing a position. The

[3:06:45] Voice 35: motion is about a one year.

[3:06:47] Voice 35: And so I really need us to argue the motion.

[3:06:52] Voice 10: Understood.

[3:06:53] Voice 10: This is changing the classification of the position from permanent to temporary.

[3:06:58] Voice 10: So let's be clear on that.

[3:07:01] Voice 10: And I'm just going to say the only way to decide this is going to be to call the vote.

[3:07:05] Voice 10: And so I've got two more.

[3:07:07] Voice 10: Can I call point of information?

[3:07:08] Voice 10: Pardon?

[3:07:09] Voice 10: Can

[3:07:09] Voice 5: I call point of information?

[3:07:12] Voice 5: Go ahead.

[3:07:14] Voice 5: I'm just trying to get the procedure right.

[3:07:16] Voice 5: just in regards to what janine had mentioned what motion was she saying no to to this one or to the

[3:07:22] Voice 5: we

[3:07:22] Voice 10: are speaking to the motion that's on the screen but

[3:07:25] Voice 5: janine was was not not

[3:07:27] Voice 10: not in as

[3:07:28] Voice 10: directed way as maybe it could have been and so what we're talking about a motion

[3:07:33] Voice 10: is not to eliminate the role but to change it from permanent to temporary the disagreement

[3:07:39] Voice 5: was with this though i

[3:07:44] Voice 24: i didn't word it well so my what i was trying to point out is this should

[3:07:48] Voice 24: not be temporary this should be a permanent position so i'm voting no to the temporary

[3:07:53] Voice 10: thank you um tim peterson judith getty and i think i'd like to call the vote oh i'm sorry

[3:08:00] Voice 10: and deb morrison was on my list um and and thank you for being so gracious to let others go first

[3:08:06] Voice 10: and then let's call the vote because i think maybe this is more motions and we're not going to get

[3:08:13] Voice 10: to them

[3:08:13] Voice 15: okay very very briefly um i i also agree that this is not going to be a temporary the need

[3:08:20] Voice 15: for this is not going to be temporary it's going to be permanent and just to trustee campbell's

[3:08:25] Voice 15: question there was over 100 participants at our most recent uh rmb community information meeting

[3:08:32] Voice 15: by zoom thank

[3:08:34] Voice 10: you judas getty my

[3:08:37] Voice 36: question was clarification and dev answered that oh i see

[3:08:42] Voice 10: Okay, great. Deb Morrison.

[3:08:44] Voice 35: Thank you. So I'm going to take a second, and I know we're in a

[3:08:48] Voice 35: rush, but I'm going to take a second. So in 2019, Ben McConkie put a motion on the table to like

[3:08:54] Voice 35: have Zoom meetings be a thing. This was before COVID. So, and we were like guerrilla recording

[3:09:00] Voice 35: our meetings on North Pender. So I am going to be the last person that thinks we shouldn't be

[3:09:06] Voice 35: recording and streaming meetings. All right. So that's not what I'm debating. I also understand

[3:09:12] Voice 35: completely that staff need the resources to do it. What I'm arguing is a totally different argument

[3:09:20] Voice 35: that I'm not actually hearing anybody argue back against. So I'm arguing that we need to not be

[3:09:28] Voice 35: be focusing on only one position at a time as we're approving this budget this one year when

[3:09:37] Voice 35: we have a new trust council not all trustees understand the implications of adding FTEs to

[3:09:43] Voice 35: our budget and that as we move forward next year not that every year we would roll forward it I

[3:09:52] Voice 35: wouldn't agree with doing this next year because next year we would understand hopefully the

[3:09:56] Voice 35: implications of FTEs. But what I am saying is that if we're going to add FTEs to our budget,

[3:10:03] Voice 35: we should be respectful to the staff that we're hiring, that we either are honest about the fact

[3:10:10] Voice 35: that we can keep them long-term or that we are not sure if we can keep them long-term.

[3:10:15] Voice 35: And I cannot honestly say right now, because we haven't gone through this strategic budgetary

[3:10:21] Voice 35: initiative of like really thinking about this position in light of all sorts of other planning

[3:10:26] Voice 35: work how staff might be reallocated into you know serving this role in different ways all of these

[3:10:32] Voice 35: different complexities and this trust that's moving right now because the governance report

[3:10:36] Voice 35: because of this conversation i just i can't say for certain that if we hired staff that we wouldn't

[3:10:42] Voice 35: pull back budget next year and i so i feel like we need to be a little bit cautious right now

[3:10:49] Voice 35: about approving FTEs, additional like permanent FTEs, when we're not really sure that those

[3:10:57] Voice 35: resources wouldn't come from other staff moving around in the organization. Do we need a Zoom

[3:11:01] Voice 35: support? Yes, of course we do. Of course we do. I'm not arguing that. What I'm arguing is where

[3:11:09] Voice 35: those resources are coming from is not clear to me right now. And financially and fiscally

[3:11:15] Voice 35: responsibly, I cannot communicate with the information I have in my hand how I would

[3:11:20] Voice 35: justify this in my community. Yes, they would know we need Zoom resources. Of course they do.

[3:11:26] Voice 35: Our island's all over that. But they're going to ask, why is an additional staff member? What else

[3:11:32] Voice 35: is everybody doing in the other areas? And I can't clearly answer that question. And because

[3:11:38] Voice 35: I can't answer that question, I can't support a permanent FTE.

[3:11:43] Voice 10: Okay, thank you. So are we ready

[3:11:45] Voice 10: to call the vote excellent all those now just be clear here the

[3:11:51] Voice 10: motion is on the screen to change

[3:11:54] Voice 10: the position from a permanent position to a temporary for one year and so i'm going to call

[3:11:59] Voice 10: the vote all those and can i get this a

[3:12:00] Voice 35: recorded vote please i would ask this

[3:12:03] Voice 10: to be a recorded vote

[3:12:05] Voice 10: sure um all those in favor please raise your hands and

[3:12:12] Voice 23: david uh we could see you on the screen there

[3:12:14] Voice 23: for a bit 14

[3:12:25] Voice 9: in favor so now those opposed please raise your hands and

[3:12:39] Voice 10: 11 opposed so is that what

[3:12:41] Voice 10: you wanted was numbers no

[3:12:44] Voice 35: i've been asked by community members on budget related things to

[3:12:47] Voice 35: record who's voting which

[3:12:48] Voice 23: way we we

[3:12:54] Voice 10: don't require people yeah as a

[3:12:57] Voice 10: policy if i remember rightly we've

[3:12:59] Voice 10: not listed historically for that and so obviously the video recording shows to some extent that

[3:13:08] Voice 10: that's something we'll need to consider as a process in the future but 14 in favor 11 opposed

[3:13:23] Voice 10: yeah that's okay and I just realized I voted in the wrong section but that's my fault

[3:13:32] Voice 10: nonetheless it won't make a difference to the outcome everybody was clear on what they were

[3:13:37] Voice 10: voting it wasn't it was just me all right so then that fails oh sorry it passes yeah failure

[3:13:44] Voice 10: is a different thing so thank you so that passes and um so um quite honestly at a quarter past 12

[3:13:52] Voice 10: i want to go for lunch because i want to be sure that you have your lunch break and we're going to

[3:13:56] Voice 10: come back at one o'clock and we're going to be moving into our next session and hopefully we

[3:14:00] Voice 10: can get through that session when we'll be returning to the budget before the end of the day

[3:14:04] Voice 10: we

[3:14:04] Voice 23: do have a necessity at one o'clock testing testing

[3:14:59] Voice 23: Fantastic.

[3:43:35] Voice 23: Hi Sarah.

[3:43:37] Voice 13: Hi. I think they're just finishing lunch but we are here. We are here. Hi there

[3:43:45] Voice 13: Sarah. It's Laurie. Hi.

[3:43:49] Voice 24: Hi Laurie. We're just having our lunch and finishing up. I see you're

[3:43:53] Voice 24: both online so. Yeah we're here.

[3:43:57] Voice 22: Multitasking as usual. I'm gonna turn you off and I'm gonna

[3:44:01] Voice 22: mute you unless you want to talk like because everybody will hear you if you do talk so.

[3:44:06] Voice 22: that's

[3:44:07] Voice 13: fine thank you

[3:44:08] Voice 23: thank you so much well council

[3:55:44] Voice 10: hopefully we can find our seats

[3:55:48] Voice 10: find out some of our colleagues that are missing we do not have a quorum

[3:55:52] Voice 10: sitting at the table i'd love to see that happen janine had to go yeah

[3:56:00] Voice 23: that was soft

[3:57:47] Voice 10: well council i was mistaken in believing it was one o'clock already it's only two minutes

[3:57:52] Voice 10: before it. But I'm glad you've all managed to rise to my call. And we'll just give our

[3:57:59] Voice 10: other colleagues a minute or so to rejoin us. But just want to let you know, I have asked to

[3:58:08] Voice 10: have dinner delayed by half an hour, because we're scheduled to go to 530. And they were

[3:58:15] Voice 10: planning on serving dinner hot at that time. And I would prefer that you have a hot dinner

[3:58:21] Voice 10: rather than a cold dinner so i've asked them to delay that by to six o'clock and that'll give us

[3:58:26] Voice 10: a little bit more opportunity to do some catch-up and uh certainly that's my own sense of paranoia

[3:58:33] Voice 10: about not being on schedule and um it has been suggested that i'm too kind and so i'm going to

[3:58:39] Voice 10: be less kind to uh try and get us uh through um uh because it's critical that we uh have

[3:58:48] Voice 10: have any changes to the budget included for the Director of Administrative Services, Julia

[3:58:57] Voice 10: Mobs.

[3:58:59] Voice 10: And it's also critical that we catch up with some of the other things that we haven't looked

[3:59:03] Voice 10: at, including trust area services and the like.

[3:59:08] Voice 10: So welcome back, everybody.

[3:59:11] Voice 10: Welcome back to the members of the public.

[3:59:13] Voice 10: Thank you for joining us today for the Trust Council of March, our budget bylaw session.

[3:59:19] Voice 10: session we've been calling it. And I want to acknowledge that we're meeting

[3:59:23] Voice 10: in Coast Salish Territory here in Nanaimo

[3:59:26] Voice 10: of the territory of the Sinaimo people. And it's

[3:59:30] Voice 10: an honour and privilege to be here in this

[3:59:34] Voice 10: amazing location in beautiful

[3:59:38] Voice 10: Nanaimo. We are going

[3:59:43] Voice 10: to move directly into the planning services

[3:59:47] Voice 10: services section of our agenda. And we're going to pick up the budget items when we've completed

[3:59:54] Voice 10: this section because we have some guests coming in scheduled in a couple of minutes. They're already

[3:59:59] Voice 10: with us.

[4:00:00] Voice 10: And then we'll pick up the budget once we've completed this section of the agenda.

[4:00:11] Voice 10: Where's my agenda?

[4:00:17] Voice 10: So just to start off, welcome, Stefan Cermak, as Director of Regional Planning Services.

[4:00:26] Voice 10: Is this your first council in that new role?

[4:00:32] Voice 17: No, Mr. Chair.

[4:00:33] Voice 10: I

[4:00:33] Voice 17: was here in December.

[4:00:34] Voice 17: member, but

[4:00:34] Voice 10: maybe we're still breaking in back then. Anyway, welcome and thank you for the you

[4:00:40] Voice 10: and your team's work in supporting the mandate of the Allen's Trust. So we have some consent

[4:00:47] Voice 10: agenda items, three of them here before us today. And I'm just going to ask the same question I've

[4:00:53] Voice 10: been asking throughout the meeting. Are there any items that trustees wish to speak to on the

[4:00:59] Voice 10: the consent agenda item list so laura patrick which one do you wish to speak to 8.1.1 8.1.1

[4:01:07] Voice 10: okay anybody else okay oh go ahead

[4:01:14] Voice 22: we're

[4:01:19] Voice 10: coming back to that

[4:01:31] Voice 10: so therefore now i'm going to oh aaron campbell you want to speak to something yeah

[4:01:38] Voice 14: i think 8.1.3

[4:01:40] Voice 10: 8.13 okay great thank you so then i'll take it then the 8.12 be uh uh received uh as information

[4:01:50] Voice 10: um and then let's go to 8.11 director planning services report um trustee patrick what did you

[4:01:57] Voice 10: have on that one

[4:02:01] Voice 18: 403 oh thank you on page 403 uh on the the the new process the uh city view

[4:02:09] Voice 18: we were told in the last week there was a one of the things that was being done was a sort of a

[4:02:14] Voice 18: review of the process and that was being included into the city view contract is that report going

[4:02:21] Voice 18: to come to trust council the review that was done as part of that through

[4:02:28] Voice 17: the chair i don't believe

[4:02:29] Voice 17: so that was not the intention that that i've seen in the contract is um is that the contractor is

[4:02:35] Voice 17: going to review the process and implement those changes directly into the software and the flow

[4:02:39] Voice 17: and the whole process there.

[4:02:44] Voice 23: Okay, that answers the question, follow up.

[4:02:48] Voice 10: Oh, okay, go ahead.

[4:02:53] Voice 18: On the freshwater sustainability piece,

[4:02:57] Voice 18: you emphasize that the work that's being done

[4:02:59] Voice 18: is not a groundwater availability assessment.

[4:03:02] Voice 18: I think just, I won't get into detail of asking what,

[4:03:05] Voice 18: ask you to explain what the differences are here,

[4:03:07] Voice 18: but I think it's important when we're having

[4:03:09] Voice 18: these technical pieces that people understand

[4:03:11] Voice 18: what is a groundwater availability assessment

[4:03:14] Voice 18: versus a groundwater recharge mapping,

[4:03:16] Voice 18: I think just for trustees education purposes.

[4:03:21] Voice 18: The final question I had was on the chart on page 405.

[4:03:27] Voice 18: We have, as you said,

[4:03:29] Voice 18: we've had a humongous increase in applications

[4:03:32] Voice 18: from doubling from 2015 to the last couple of years.

[4:03:37] Voice 18: So, but we didn't double our staff.

[4:03:40] Voice 18: So did that mean we processed applications at the expense of having planners available for planning work for projects?

[4:03:56] Voice 17: Through the chair, I don't have the exact stance of the breakdown of projects versus applications staff hours pre-COVID and post-COVID, or I don't know what era of COVID we're in now.

[4:04:07] Voice 17: But I can say that we hired a planning technician, I believe it was in 2019 or 2018, and the timing there was fortuitous as we saw a rise.

[4:04:18] Voice 17: As you can see in the pre-graph, we were rising.

[4:04:20] Voice 17: A lot of that was through building permit applications.

[4:04:23] Voice 17: And so a significant number of those rise in building permit applications have been processed by that new staff person.

[4:04:31] Voice 17: So we did manage to get that one staff person in on time for a lot of these.

[4:04:36] Voice 17: but yes, staff have been unusually busy

[4:04:40] Voice 17: processing these applications

[4:04:41] Voice 17: but I can't quite say at the expense of projects.

[4:04:50] Voice 10: Okay, thank you.

[4:04:51] Voice 10: So is that, you're done there, Laura Patrick?

[4:04:54] Voice 10: Okay, thank you.

[4:04:56] Voice 10: So on 8.11, is there somebody else that wishes to speak?

[4:05:01] Voice 10: Yeah, it's helpful if you simply raise your hand

[4:05:04] Voice 10: so that I can know that you wanted to speak.

[4:05:07] Voice 10: So I think I saw Alex Allen earlier

[4:05:09] Voice 10: and Deb Morrison second.

[4:05:11] Voice 10: Anybody else?

[4:05:14] Voice 10: i'll go ahead on 1.1 yeah

[4:05:17] Voice 6: i just thought it would be this is more a comment really helpful

[4:05:20] Voice 6: if we could actually have the um the tables broken down by island in terms of if that's

[4:05:25] Voice 6: possible i don't know not now of

[4:05:28] Voice 10: course but okay thank you you'll take that under consideration

[4:05:33] Voice 10: thank you um deb morrison hey

[4:05:37] Voice 35: um thanks for the report um one of the things that just as a follow

[4:05:42] Voice 35: up to trustee Patrick is can you name so either have twice as much work and it's done in half as

[4:05:52] Voice 35: much time or by twice as many planners it's kind of like so so if we have that an increase in

[4:05:58] Voice 35: workload we neither need more planning staff we need to slow the the permit like delivery

[4:06:04] Voice 35: capacity down or we have to shuffle around workload and like reallocate resources I guess

[4:06:12] Voice 35: my question is if we slow the permitting process down um can you just speak to that like what are

[4:06:21] Voice 35: the implications of just slowing the delivery rate of permits but i think that would help because

[4:06:26] Voice 35: and is it even across all permits that it gets slowed down or is there prioritization of permits

[4:06:31] Voice 35: that kind of thing sure

[4:06:34] Voice 17: through the chair i understand the question correctly um it's a

[4:06:37] Voice 17: So what if question and if we slow down the processing speed of applications, what would the impact be?

[4:06:45] Voice 35: No, sorry. It's it's more about like you have an increase in permits.

[4:06:50] Voice 35: If you don't have additional staff resources to resource that, then what is the implication?

[4:06:55] Voice 35: I guess so it is a little bit. What is the implication of slowing permits and do they slow evenly or do different permits slow at different rate?

[4:07:03] Voice 17: Okay, thank you. So I will point out that as per the report, you see, I hate to call them the Twin Towers, but that's what they look like up there of the last two years of applications, the increase.

[4:07:14] Voice 17: Where we're sitting now is the 2019-20, more or less on that check. So kind of back on the trajectory that we were pre-COVID.

[4:07:23] Voice 17: And I think we have enough planning resources to deal with that in terms of processing applications in a timely manner.

[4:07:30] Voice 17: We deal with applications in the first in, first in, first out method, so we don't prioritize applications that I'm aware of that might be different than each LTC. It is possible for LTCs to pass resolutions to prioritize applications that way, as well as we do sometimes enter into extraordinary cost recovery processes that allow us to process those quicker with dedicated resources.

[4:07:58] Voice 17: So that's happened as well.

[4:08:00] Voice 17: But I would say for handling application processes in the plan or resources, we have what we need to do what we need to do in a timely manner, which is required by legislation, which is required by policies and what have you.

[4:08:16] Voice 17: The hard thing really right now is the transition, keeping everybody up to speed on those changes.

[4:08:22] Voice 17: But I'll take the opportunity to remind the Trust Council that you adopted policy changes, which are seeing the fruits of that labour starting pretty much in April.

[4:08:32] Voice 17: And that's these new teams that we've been creating, both regional planning team, local planning team and current planning team.

[4:08:38] Voice 17: And we're having much more sort of managerial oversight.

[4:08:41] Voice 17: And that's been leading to more consistencies between the offices.

[4:08:45] Voice 17: And it's been leading to more, actually, orientation and training of finding the gaps and holes so that what you see happen on Oranby, you'll see on Saltsbury, Saltsbury, Gambier, et cetera.

[4:08:55] Voice 17: So you should be seeing more consistent product and a more consistent time across the island because of the policies that this body adopted over the last two years.

[4:09:08] Voice 23: Okay.

[4:09:09] Voice 23: Any other questions on item 1.11?

[4:09:15] Voice 10: Okay.

[4:09:15] Voice 10: Okay. So then we'll move on to questions that have arisen on 8.1.3. I think

[4:09:20] Voice 23: that was Aaron Campbell. Aaron, was that you 8.1.3?

[4:09:34] Voice 10: You're going to have to use the microphone.

[4:09:37] I

[4:09:40] Voice 14: wanted to know if we could actually have a discussion about what the statistics actually are for everybody to hear as opposed to just staying in the agenda.

[4:09:50] Voice 14: And I'm

[4:09:54] Voice 10: not sure what your question is.

[4:09:55] Voice 10: So the briefing is in the report.

[4:09:57] Voice 10: Do you have a specific question about that you'd like to ask about the report or more general?

[4:10:02] Voice 14: No, no, it wasn't a specific question.

[4:10:06] Voice 14: It was to have them shared actually in the meeting as opposed to just being a briefing in the agenda.

[4:10:17] Voice 10: So what do you mean by shared?

[4:10:19] Voice 10: Do you want to have a roundtable discussion about that report?

[4:10:22] Voice 10: I'm failing to understand.

[4:10:29] Voice 9: Marie?

[4:10:35] Voice 26: So I have a specific question, which is the report always has one, sometimes two.

[4:10:43] Voice 26: Actually, holy smokes, Saturn is now up to six.

[4:10:48] Voice 26: And I was just wondering, is that, are they the same six or two, whatever?

[4:10:57] Voice 26: Or are they turning over like you're getting rid of two and then, you know, four more turn up?

[4:11:03] Voice 26: I'm just curious, as these numbers, do they represent, I know someplace there was something

[4:11:10] Voice 26: that said all of these were opened and closed.

[4:11:13] Voice 26: I just get a sense of the turnover in numbers, especially when they're quite small like that.

[4:11:22] Voice 10: You have to turn your microphone off, Mary.

[4:11:26] Voice 23: Yeah.

[4:11:26] Voice 10: Microphone off.

[4:11:28] Voice 17: Thank you through the chair.

[4:11:30] Voice 17: I'm going to propose, Mr. Chair, that we have the violent enforcement statistical component

[4:11:35] Voice 17: it be attached to the bylaw enforcement briefing after the presentations so that all the bylaw

[4:11:41] Voice 17: enforcement information is presented at once and we can get to a trustee campbell's questions about

[4:11:45] Voice 17: the stats there and a bit of a presentation and what have you at that time that makes more sense

[4:11:50] Voice 17: to put it all together okay

[4:11:52] Voice 10: so is that all right we can delay that until after the presentation

[4:11:56] Voice 10: okay i'm glad we got through to that so is there anything so i think that concludes in that item

[4:12:02] Voice 10: Very good.

[4:12:02] Voice 10: So let's go then on to our discussion and decision items.

[4:12:05] Voice 10: And the first thing that we're going to do, I'm going to turn it over to Stefan to do the introductions.

[4:12:12] Voice 10: But we've got representatives from the B.C. Office of the Ombudsperson.

[4:12:17] Voice 10: That's going to be Wendy Byron and Jennifer Jones here to speak to us.

[4:12:20] Voice 10: And we also have representation from the Attorney General's Office.

[4:12:23] Voice 10: And that's Matthew Jackson.

[4:12:25] Voice 10: And I'll turn it over to Stefan Cermak to lead us through this session with our guests.

[4:12:31] Voice 17: over to you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Let me just expand my screen so I can read it properly.

[4:12:37] Voice 17: So during the December, I'm going to do a bit of a brief overview to start.

[4:12:40] Voice 17: During the December 2022 Trust Council meeting, the Trust Council requested a session on bylaw

[4:12:47] Voice 17: enforcement policy and practice at this session. And so you have it here today. To support Trust

[4:12:53] Voice 17: Council's direction, a report on current bylaw enforcement practice has been included in the

[4:12:58] Voice 17: agenda and a session has been developed including guest speakers as you mentioned from the attorney

[4:13:03] Voice 17: general's office and the ombudsperson's office these reports in the sessions will describe the

[4:13:08] Voice 17: enforcement process and authorities describe the current authorities of local trust committees

[4:13:13] Voice 17: trustees and trust council describe the number and nature of open files describe the issues

[4:13:18] Voice 17: and number of nature of complaints by citizens citizens on how the service is delivered including

[4:13:25] Voice 17: including charges of bias, diversity, bullying, and proportionality.

[4:13:29] Voice 17: Following receipt of this work and the sessions with the mentioned people,

[4:13:33] Voice 17: CHESS Council may provide direction on how it wishes to proceed.

[4:13:42] Voice 23: Oops, sorry. Technical glitch. Excellent.

[4:13:55] Voice 17: So first up will be Matthew Jackson. He's from the Attorney General's Office.

[4:14:00] Voice 17: The Attorney's General Office manages the adjudication process,

[4:14:03] Voice 17: which provides an unbiased and neutral appeal process to review issued bylaw notifications

[4:14:09] Voice 17: for factual errors when bylaw compliance agreements are unsuccessful. Matthew has a

[4:14:14] Voice 17: presentation. He's on your screen and he'll tell you more. Matthew will be available to answer

[4:14:19] Voice 17: questions that you may have. And we have about 30 minutes and then we'll transition to the next

[4:14:24] Voice 17: presentation. So without any further ado, welcome, Matthew. Thank you very much for attending.

[4:14:31] Voice 30: Hello, everyone. Thank you, Stephen. Thank you for the invitation today. My name is Matthew

[4:14:35] Voice 30: Jackson. As you just mentioned, I'm a policy analyst at the Tribunal's Transformation and

[4:14:42] Voice 30: Independent Officers Division of the Justice Services Branch of the Attorney General's Office.

[4:14:47] Voice 30: It's quite the mouthful. So today I've come to present a brief presentation on the By-law Notice

[4:14:56] Voice 30: Program as requested. It'll be about 15 minutes. I'll take you through a general overview and get

[4:15:04] Voice 30: into a few details and then leave any further details to the question and answer section.

[4:15:12] Voice 30: I'm just going to try to share my screen to get the PowerPoint working with

[4:15:15] Voice 30: perhaps some help from Lori. We'll see how it goes.

[4:15:50] Voice 29: All right. I believe it's working. Is

[4:15:54] Voice 29: someone able to confirm that for me?

[4:15:58] Voice 23: You're in presenter mode, is it?

[4:16:02] Voice 29: Okay.

[4:16:15] Voice 23: This one?

[4:16:17] Voice 23: Just click on that.

[4:16:28] Voice 23: Just a moment, we'll get it sorted.

[4:16:31] Voice 23: Okay.

[4:16:32] Voice 23: From

[4:16:41] Voice 7: the left on the bottom.

[4:16:42] Voice 24: Go to that split screen with the dot dash.

[4:16:45] Voice 24: Keep going.

[4:16:47] Voice 24: Nope.

[4:16:50] Voice 24: This one?

[4:16:51] Voice 22: There you go.

[4:16:54] Voice 22: No.

[4:16:56] Voice 22: Goodbye.

[4:16:57] Voice 22: Bye.

[4:16:57] Voice 22: No, we're on the way.

[4:16:59] Voice 22: Can you ask for?

[4:17:08] Voice 23: No, I'm sure.

[4:17:10] Voice 30: All right.

[4:17:11] Voice 29: Is that working?

[4:17:13] Voice 31: No.

[4:17:15] Voice 29: No.

[4:17:17] Voice 29: I'm sorry, I'm not familiar with Zoom.

[4:17:19] Voice 29: Perhaps Laurie, you could help.

[4:17:21] Voice 29: Okay,

[4:17:38] Voice 23: let's do this.

[4:17:44] Voice 23: Okay, great.

[4:17:49] Voice 23: So if we could go to the next slide, please.

[4:18:00] Voice 23: Okay, thank you, Laurie, and sorry for the delay.

[4:18:03] Voice 30: So as a general background,

[4:18:04] Voice 30: prior to the bylaw notice program for a municipality or local government like

[4:18:12] Voice 30: Islands Trust to enforce tickets for bylaw offenses the municipality would

[4:18:19] Voice 30: have to go to court and do a regular court proceedings in response to local

[4:18:25] Voice 30: government requests the provincial government brought in in 2003 the local

[4:18:32] Voice 30: government bylaw notice enforcement act creating the current system which islands trust is currently

[4:18:38] Voice 30: using which is um essentially for what is called bylaw notice enforcement um and this is uh within

[4:18:48] Voice 30: a a greater system where at the lowest level for fines for for minor bylaw offenses with fines of

[4:18:56] Voice 30: of maximum $500, municipalities can issue a bylaw notice

[4:19:01] Voice 30: for those offenses, which are then processed

[4:19:04] Voice 30: through the bylaw notice program.

[4:19:07] Voice 30: Above that there's additional two layers

[4:19:10] Voice 30: of enforcement mechanisms available

[4:19:12] Voice 30: that go through the provincial court

[4:19:15] Voice 30: and those are for offenses with fines above $500.

[4:19:20] Voice 30: So in designing the program, the attorney general's office

[4:19:23] Voice 30: try to create a system tailored for local governments that would be operated by local

[4:19:29] Voice 30: governments with the goal of it being efficient, flexible, cost-effective, and fair. Now,

[4:19:39] Voice 30: as I mentioned, the program is designed for simple bylaw offenses, maximum fines of $500 per offense.

[4:19:47] Voice 30: Part of the reason for this is that the hearing system is designed when there is a dispute

[4:19:53] Voice 30: to be a short hearing, typically about a half an hour, but it can be longer depending on the type

[4:20:01] Voice 30: of offense. And in accordance with that, the offense needs to be relatively simple for an

[4:20:10] Voice 30: adjudicator to deal with it in that time period.

[4:20:13] Voice 23: Next slide, please. So how does the bylaw notice

[4:20:25] Voice 23: program

[4:20:26] Voice 30: operate from the local government perspective the local government will sign

[4:20:33] Voice 30: up to the program through a regulation passed by the government and as part of that process

[4:20:41] Voice 30: the local government establishes its own bylaw setting up the program and including a list of

[4:20:47] Voice 30: the offenses that the local government wishes to prosecute within the program at a basic level

[4:20:56] Voice 30: On the ground, bylaw officers will issue bylaw notices for the bylaw notice of fences to property owners, for example.

[4:21:06] Voice 30: The local government then has an initial screening process where if a citizen decides to dispute the notice,

[4:21:15] Voice 30: notice, it will be screened by an officer at the local government, who will then either

[4:21:20] Voice 30: decide to uphold the notice or to agree with the disputant that the notice should be turned

[4:21:27] Voice 30: down.

[4:21:30] Voice 30: If the dispute notice is upheld, the local government has the option to pursue a compliance

[4:21:36] Voice 30: agreement with the disputant, and this would involve, for example, the disputant agreeing

[4:21:42] Voice 30: agreeing to stop doing the offensive behavior that was subject to the notice,

[4:21:48] Voice 30: typically in exchange for the fine being waived in whole or in part.

[4:21:56] Voice 30: If a compliance agreement cannot be reached,

[4:21:59] Voice 30: then the disputant can continue on with the disputed notice

[4:22:03] Voice 30: by seeking a hearing before an adjudicator.

[4:22:09] Voice 30: The local government will then schedule a hearing for the adjudication,

[4:22:13] Voice 30: typically a few months or a few weeks later.

[4:22:17] Voice 30: Local governments cover the cost and operate the system, as I've just discussed,

[4:22:25] Voice 30: so the issuing of by-law offenses, the screening process, the scheduling of dates, and et cetera.

[4:22:32] Voice 30: But the adjudicators and the fees in relation to that, excuse me,

[4:22:40] Voice 30: not, but they also, the local government also covers the costs of the adjudicator and the

[4:22:45] Voice 30: hearings. Next slide, please. The adjudicators are selected and appointed by the attorney general's

[4:22:56] Voice 30: office. There's a competitive merit-based process that's used to select adjudicators with the

[4:23:04] Voice 30: appropriate experience. They're required to have a year of adjudication experience. They're also

[4:23:11] Voice 30: required to have education in dispute resolution. Often the adjudicators are

[4:23:18] Voice 30: current or former lawyers but not always. The adjudicators are trained in the

[4:23:25] Voice 30: process involved with these hearings. They are required to be independent and

[4:23:30] Voice 30: impartial in the same way that a judge would be in a regular court. The

[4:23:36] Voice 30: adjudicators conduct the hearings. They make decisions as to procedure and

[4:23:41] Voice 30: evidence and when the hearing is over they are required to issue written reasons for their

[4:23:46] Voice 30: decision and the decisions either uphold the notice and issue the fine as being upheld or the

[4:23:55] Voice 30: the offense is bound not to have happened and the notice is cancelled. Next slide please.

[4:24:05] Voice 30: As I mentioned the Attorney General's Office appoints and trains the adjudicators.

[4:24:09] Voice 30: the attorney general's office through my office tribe general's transformation independent offices

[4:24:17] Voice 30: division assigns adjudicators to hearings this is done in a way that is quite random in the sense

[4:24:25] Voice 30: that adjudicators are placed on a list what we call a roster and if their name comes up on the

[4:24:32] Voice 30: list at the head of the list then the adjudicator has the option to be assigned to the hearing date

[4:24:40] Voice 30: at issue so the way that works as i mentioned municipalities or local governments request

[4:24:47] Voice 30: an adjudicator for a hearing date so typically or often at least there would be a full day of

[4:24:54] Voice 30: hearings and a local government request an adjudicator for that full day of hearings

[4:24:58] Voice 30: hearings and the Attorney General would assign the adjudicator accordingly.

[4:25:05] Voice 30: The Ministry also handles complaints against adjudicators.

[4:25:08] Voice 30: This would be complaints about some sort of some form of misconduct.

[4:25:13] Voice 30: It's not about appeals of decisions or judicial review.

[4:25:19] Voice 23: Next slide, please.

[4:25:26] Voice 23: So,

[4:25:27] Voice 30: as I mentioned before, the notice

[4:25:28] Voice 30: program, the bylaw notice program is approved by a provincial regulation

[4:25:33] Voice 30: pass by cabinet um and in this current context of the islands trust um which is an quite an

[4:25:43] Voice 30: unusual local government and in fact i believe it's unique in the province um and within the

[4:25:49] Voice 30: islands trust a number of islands but not all of them have adopted the bylaw and for a notice

[4:25:55] Voice 30: program and that is done through individual bylaws for the the respective islands so the

[4:26:03] Voice 30: The current islands who are a part of the program are Daman, Gabriola, Galeano, Gambier, Hornby, Maine, North Pender, Salt Spring, South Pender, and Thetis Island.

[4:26:15] Voice 23: Next slide, please.

[4:26:22] Voice 23: So as I mentioned, the

[4:26:24] Voice 30: bylaw offenses that are meant to be used in the program or part of the program are typically simple offenses.

[4:26:31] Voice 30: In the case of Islands Trust and the limited jurisdiction of Islands Trust, we are typically dealing with offenses relating to short-term vacation rentals, non-permitted structures, or non-permitted land use.

[4:26:48] Voice 30: The maximum fine as noted before is $500, and the local government is required to list every single offense for which a fine is applied.

[4:27:00] Voice 30: slide. I've given as an example here, Gabriela Island has a bylaw, the Gabriela Island Bylaw

[4:27:07] Voice 30: Enforcement Notification Bylaw, which has an appendix that lists 350 different bylaw offenses

[4:27:14] Voice 30: with the associated fine.

[4:27:17] Voice 23: Next slide, please. Here I

[4:27:24] Voice 30: provided just an image of the first page

[4:27:27] Voice 30: of the appendix to the bylaw I just mentioned to show you what it looks like. So here you can

[4:27:35] Voice 30: can see that on the left side, there is a list of the by-law sections where the offense is found,

[4:27:42] Voice 30: the description of the offense, the penalty amount, the first one being $300, and then a series of

[4:27:48] Voice 30: other discounts or late penalties, compliance agreement, etc.

[4:27:55] Voice 23: Next slide, please. So in terms

[4:28:01] Voice 23: of the screening officer and

[4:28:02] Voice 30: compliance agreements, as I noted, the screening officer reviews the

[4:28:07] Voice 30: evidence of the offense. If a dispute is filed, the screening officer can uphold the notice and

[4:28:14] Voice 30: explore compliance agreement. And if the compliance agreement process does not result in an agreement,

[4:28:24] Voice 30: then the disputant can pursue an adjudication hearing, and Islands Trust then schedules a

[4:28:29] Voice 30: hearing usually

[4:28:30] Voice 23: a few months later. Next slide, please. So in the event that the

[4:28:40] Voice 30: dispute actually

[4:28:41] Voice 30: reaches an adjudication hearing. The disputant has the option to choose whether the hearing is

[4:28:46] Voice 30: in person, by phone, by televideo, Zoom, for example, or in writing. For Islands Trust Offences,

[4:28:55] Voice 30: which are typically or only about land use issues, they're typically about an hour,

[4:29:02] Voice 30: depending on the issue involved. The adjudicator hears the evidence brought by the disputant and

[4:29:10] Voice 30: by the local government and then considers the evidence and acts impartially like a judge in

[4:29:17] Voice 30: court to determine whether the evidence meets the standard at issue and whether to uphold the

[4:29:24] Voice 30: offense, the bylaw notice or not. The hearing itself is more informal than a court hearing.

[4:29:32] Voice 30: The adjudicator has a great deal of latitude in terms of the rules of evidence and the procedure

[4:29:38] Voice 30: to be followed and by that I mean the the strict rules of evidence that you would see in court

[4:29:45] Voice 30: like swearing on a bible these sorts of formalities are not required however the

[4:29:52] Voice 30: evidence still needs to be compelling and convincing for the adjudicator to

[4:30:00] Voice 30: hold a notice if the adjudicator determines the offense has occurred then the fine is upheld and

[4:30:08] Voice 30: there's a 25 hearing fee also charged to the disputant and the adjudicator will issue written

[4:30:15] Voice 30: decisions after the hearing usually a few days later these decisions especially in the case of

[4:30:21] Voice 30: islands trust can be several pages long providing the disputant with the reasons for why the notice

[4:30:28] Voice 30: was upheld or providing islands trust with the reasons for why it was not next slide please

[4:30:37] Voice 30: and that brings me to the end of the presentation i look forward to any questions that you may have

[4:30:45] Voice 10: all right um thank you very much uh matthew for that uh presentation and um the the relevant

[4:30:52] Voice 10: content to the island's trust that's appreciated so i'm just going to turn to trustees after the

[4:30:57] Voice 10: presentation if there's any questions you have oh david graham has his hand up thank you very

[4:31:05] Voice 10: much for pointing david out david graham um yes

[4:31:09] Voice 8: thank you chair luck coming thank you matthew for

[4:31:12] Voice 8: that presentation very clear just just a question on the maximum fine to 500 can that be levied

[4:31:18] Voice 8: daily um yes

[4:31:23] Voice 30: it depends on the offense um typically an offense will have a provision

[4:31:28] Voice 30: or section in it just saying whether or not the offense if it occurs uh daily whether there can

[4:31:36] Voice 30: that can be an offense notice issued by day.

[4:31:40] Voice 30: So typically that would be the case.

[4:31:43] Voice 30: So if someone had, for example,

[4:31:45] Voice 30: an illegal Airbnb operating,

[4:31:47] Voice 30: and there was evidence of that happening over 10 days,

[4:31:50] Voice 30: then in theory, 10 by-law notices could be issued.

[4:31:55] Voice 10: Thank you.

[4:31:56] Voice 10: Thank you.

[4:31:57] Voice 10: Deb Morrison, North Kendra Island.

[4:32:00] Voice 35: Thank you so much, Matthew, for your presentation.

[4:32:03] Voice 35: When you were describing the Venn by-law process,

[4:32:06] Voice 35: process, you talked about establishing bylaw, issuing a fence, local government conducts

[4:32:13] Voice 35: initial screening, and then a couple other steps. Can you just expand a little bit on when the local

[4:32:18] Voice 35: government conducts the initial screening, who do you mean by that when you mean local government?

[4:32:24] Voice 35: Is that staff? Is that elected officials? Is that like, what has that historically or like in a

[4:32:29] Voice 35: variety of examples been done as?

[4:32:34] Voice 30: Well, typically, and I believe this is the case for Island Trust

[4:32:37] Voice 30: us as well although i'll let warren correct me if i'm wrong typically it is a local government

[4:32:43] Voice 30: staff member who has that position assigned as a screening officer okay

[4:32:50] Voice 9: thank you council any

[4:32:52] Voice 9: more questions on

[4:32:53] Voice 9: bylaw notification system uh

[4:32:59] Voice 10: aaron campbell

[4:33:01] Voice 14: in in this case who who is the

[4:33:04] Voice 14: screening officer like who is a screening officer for you'll

[4:33:07] Voice 10: have to speak closer to the microphone

[4:33:09] Voice 10: form to be sure everybody hears in

[4:33:11] Voice 14: this case who who do we use as a screening officer when right

[4:33:16] Voice 14: stefan thank

[4:33:18] Voice 17: you pardon me through the chair the uh if a if a bylaw compliance and enforcement

[4:33:23] Voice 17: officer writes a ticket and it's disputed then it's the man bylaw compliance enforcement manager

[4:33:28] Voice 17: who's the screening officer and then if it's the bylaw compliance enforcement manager who screens

[4:33:33] Voice 17: means that it's the director of planning services.

[4:33:37] Voice 17: So that'd be myself.

[4:33:39] Voice 33: Pardon me, the RPM?

[4:33:42] Voice 33: So the manager writes the ticket,

[4:33:44] Voice 33: it's the regional planning manager

[4:33:45] Voice 33: who calls the screening officer.

[4:33:47] Voice 33: And that is set out in your ban by law in Pulse.

[4:33:50] Voice 17: My apologies, I'm still stuck with my RPM hat on.

[4:33:52] Voice 17: Okay, can you release

[4:33:54] Voice 10: your mic back to Aaron?

[4:33:56] Voice 14: But that happens before it's disputed.

[4:34:01] Voice 14: I get staying in the process that this is that,

[4:34:05] Voice 14: If a bylaw of violation notice is written, that it's screened before it's disputed.

[4:34:11] Voice 14: So we've decided in that series of events that it goes to the local government before, and then if it's disputed, it goes to a screening officer.

[4:34:32] Voice 30: I believe I can address that.

[4:34:34] Voice 30: that. So the way it works is that the bylaw officer who issues the ticket gives the ticket

[4:34:43] Voice 30: to the disputant or the person who's been given the ticket at that point. It's not the disputant

[4:34:49] Voice 30: but just the potential offender. It's up to them to dispute the ticket. If they do that

[4:34:54] Voice 30: they send the ticket in or the notice excuse me to Islands Trust saying they dispute it and at

[4:35:03] Voice 30: At that point, the screening officer reviews it.

[4:35:06] Voice 30: And if the screening officer decides

[4:35:09] Voice 30: that to uphold the ticket,

[4:35:11] Voice 30: then the next step is for the disputant

[4:35:13] Voice 30: to continue with the dispute and request a hearing

[4:35:17] Voice 30: before an adjudicator.

[4:35:22] Voice 9: I've got multiple questions coming up.

[4:35:24] Voice 10: I'm going to go to Joe Bernardo first,

[4:35:26] Voice 10: and then Deb Morrison.

[4:35:31] Voice 16: Thank you for participating with us today, Mr. Jackson.

[4:35:35] Voice 16: Jackson. This practice that we've adopted whereby the bylaw infraction goes into your system

[4:35:44] Voice 16: and then your system sends it back to the Islands Trust to be reviewed by a screening officer.

[4:35:53] Voice 16: Is that the process? I just want to be sure I've got that right.

[4:36:01] Voice 30: No, I'm sorry if I've created some confusion here. The process is entirely run by Islands Trust.

[4:36:08] Voice 30: It's not run by the Attorney General's office.

[4:36:11] Voice 30: The only role the Attorney General has is in assigning the adjudicator to the hearings.

[4:36:17] Voice 30: The hearings are held by Islands Trust.

[4:36:20] Voice 30: The screening officer is part of Islands Trust.

[4:36:23] Voice 30: The file officer is part of Islands Trust, the whole process.

[4:36:28] Voice 16: All right.

[4:36:28] Voice 16: That means actually, Mike, thank you for that.

[4:36:31] Voice 16: It looks like my question should have been directed to Director Cermak.

[4:36:34] Voice 16: just to be clear about this process does the screening officer review the ticket before it

[4:36:40] Voice 16: goes out or after it goes out the

[4:36:47] Voice 17: screening officer reviews the ticket after it goes out

[4:36:51] Voice 17: and when it's disputed by the person who's received the ticket

[4:36:57] Voice 16: just to be really clear about

[4:36:59] Voice 16: this a ticket can go out and if a person who receives the ticket for whatever reason decides

[4:37:07] Voice 16: sides, they don't want to dispute it. Nobody in management has had a review of the allegation in

[4:37:15] Voice 16: the bylaw notice. That only happens if somebody pushes back.

[4:37:20] Voice 23: Is that right? Thank you.

[4:37:27] Voice 17: That is correct.

[4:37:30] Voice 10: All right. So I actually have David Graham, and I'm not sure how much

[4:37:33] Voice 10: long his hand has been up for. And I've now got a better screen reading here for you, David. So

[4:37:37] Voice 10: I'm going to go. I'm going to pause on David because you spoke one time. And I'm going to

[4:37:42] Voice 10: to go to Deb Morrison who hasn't asked a question yet and I'll come back to you pardon I asked a

[4:37:49] Voice 35: question I'm happy to wait for others to weigh in

[4:37:51] Voice 10: okay then uh Judith Judith Geddes um

[4:37:56] Voice 36: the process

[4:37:57] Voice 36: that Joe just described in terms of um or Trustee Bernardo um in terms of the screening officer

[4:38:05] Voice 36: um I understood the um representative from the AG to say that if the screening officer

[4:38:11] Voice 36: officer upholds the notice, then they can explore compliance or set up a hearing date.

[4:38:18] Voice 36: So the final officer issues the notice. There's a screening officer, either the manager or

[4:38:24] Voice 36: somebody from head office looks at that and decides that it's a proper notice.

[4:38:29] Voice 36: And then you can figure out whether or not there's going to be compliance or dispute.

[4:38:32] Voice 36: If there's a dispute, it goes to hearing. Have I got that right?

[4:38:39] Voice 9: Either one of you.

[4:38:40] Voice 9: did you get the question um

[4:38:44] Voice 30: if you're talking to me yes um yes that is my understanding yes that is

[4:38:50] Voice 30: how it works okay

[4:38:54] Voice 36: and stephan is that how it works from your end yeah sorry yes

[4:39:01] Voice 17: i think you

[4:39:02] Voice 17: have the basic gist of it i think the main point to remember you know that the person receiving

[4:39:07] Voice 17: the tickets receives the tickets when they dispute is when the screening officer then

[4:39:11] Voice 17: then we get involved in explorations

[4:39:13] Voice 17: of the compliance agreement.

[4:39:17] Voice 10: Okay, so I'm now gonna go back to David Graham

[4:39:20] Voice 10: and then I'll come to Deb Morrison.

[4:39:22] Voice 8: Thank you, Chair.

[4:39:24] Voice 8: Just a question.

[4:39:26] Voice 8: So once the adjudicator has made that decision

[4:39:30] Voice 8: and that perhaps it goes against the landowner,

[4:39:33] Voice 8: there's no appeal provided to that landowner,

[4:39:35] Voice 8: is that correct?

[4:39:38] Voice 30: I can address that.

[4:39:40] Voice 30: So the process at that point is that the disputant

[4:39:44] Voice 30: can file what's called a judicial review in the bc supreme court and that's not a typical appeal

[4:39:53] Voice 30: it's in the sense that the decision of the adjudicator on the merits is essentially final

[4:40:00] Voice 30: so that they can only be appealed in the sense that the disputant would be saying that there

[4:40:05] Voice 30: was something unfair in the process or the adjudicator made an error of law but in terms

[4:40:13] Voice 30: of the factual determination of the dispute,

[4:40:17] Voice 30: the adjudicator's decision is final.

[4:40:22] Voice 23: Thank you.

[4:40:26] Voice 23: Mr.

[4:40:26] Voice 16: Jackson, are you able to say anything

[4:40:28] Voice 16: about the determination on the fairness question

[4:40:34] Voice 16: when the adjudication officer,

[4:40:37] Voice 16: what's the threshold for deciding whether a matter

[4:40:40] Voice 16: is fair or unfair?

[4:40:41] Voice 16: And I know that's a very general question

[4:40:43] Voice 16: because there's always going to be case specific.

[4:40:45] Voice 16: So what I'm trying to get at is at least some sort of sense

[4:40:49] Voice 16: of when the adjudication officer is just seeing one ticket after another

[4:40:54] Voice 16: and they're all kind of routine.

[4:40:56] Voice 16: What are the sorts of things that flag an issue for that person

[4:41:03] Voice 16: that, hang on, maybe this process didn't work the way it should?

[4:41:07] Voice 16: If you could just give us some examples, perhaps.

[4:41:09] Voice 30: Sure.

[4:41:12] Voice 30: So there's a whole area of administrative law that deals with this very issue

[4:41:18] Voice 30: on what is procedural fairness what is natural justice you might have also heard of it as being

[4:41:24] Voice 30: called due process so essential features of that would include the right to be heard

[4:41:31] Voice 30: so both sides must have an opportunity to explain their case to present their evidence and their

[4:41:38] Voice 30: arguments in a fulsome way so that's one aspect there are many there are many others but

[4:41:50] Voice 30: But another example would be tied to that would be, for example, if a disputant said

[4:42:00] Voice 30: that they had some evidence that they forgot to bring that day or there was a witness who

[4:42:06] Voice 30: was ill and couldn't attend and an adjudicator said, no, we're just going ahead and I'm

[4:42:12] Voice 30: making a decision anyways, that might be an instance where it could be unfair or the

[4:42:18] Voice 30: the adjudicator should instead grant an adjournment so that that witness could attend.

[4:42:27] Voice 23: I hope that somewhat answers your question.

[4:42:34] Voice 9: Okay. Deb Morrison now.

[4:42:36] Voice 35: Thank you. I find this super interesting because this is definitely where the,

[4:42:40] Voice 35: you know, if we're going to do all this work in bylaws, this is where it hits the ground. So it's

[4:42:44] Voice 35: really important. Thank you for this time. Okay. So I, and I think this question is both for you,

[4:42:49] Voice 35: Matthew, and also for Mr. Dingman over there in the corner, because I think it's important to

[4:42:55] Voice 35: just name this into the space. So the question is about why is it important or normal for staff

[4:43:03] Voice 35: to be doing those local government conducting of initial screening versus locally elected

[4:43:10] Voice 35: officials? And are there times when a locally elected official overrides and how does that

[4:43:15] Voice 35: happen because I think it's important like we have half of councils new so I think we need to

[4:43:21] Voice 35: be really clear on why staff are doing that initial screening and where there are moments where

[4:43:27] Voice 35: trustees might step into that process for some reason.

[4:43:36] Voice 33: So I would say that it's in legislation

[4:43:39] Voice 33: that it establishes the screening officer position and what the screening officer can do.

[4:43:45] Voice 33: Now, I don't know that that excludes elected officials from being the screening officer, but when the system was established for each island, the screening officer positions are established in that bylaw.

[4:44:00] Voice 33: The bylaw and policies are adopted by each local trust committee, and it sets out who the screening officers are and what their duties are.

[4:44:08] Voice 33: So currently it's staff and each staff member mentioned

[4:44:12] Voice 33: in that screening officer policy has a role

[4:44:15] Voice 33: or a limited role.

[4:44:16] Voice 33: So the admin assistant that can be a screening officer

[4:44:19] Voice 33: for a certain screening of the ticket,

[4:44:23] Voice 33: then it goes to the manager.

[4:44:24] Voice 33: And if the manager wrote the ticket,

[4:44:26] Voice 33: it goes to the regional planning manager

[4:44:28] Voice 33: to screen the ticket and say it's valid or it's not,

[4:44:32] Voice 33: it's upheld or it's canceled.

[4:44:34] Voice 33: okay

[4:44:39] Voice 9: um joe bernardo in

[4:44:43] Voice 16: the screening exercise what are the criteria is that uh the screening

[4:44:47] Voice 16: officer applies uh when they're uh presented with the bylaw infraction ticket so again that

[4:44:56] Voice 33: is set out in policy when each bylaw enforcement notice bylaw is adopted those policies are put

[4:45:01] Voice 33: before the local trust committee and they're adopted and there's a criteria in it uh there

[4:45:06] Voice 33: was an attachment that should have been in your agenda package with the example from north pender

[4:45:11] Voice 33: and so that has the policy on what the screening officer is to do and what criteria he is to follow

[4:45:18] Voice 33: he or she follow on canceling it or offering a compliance agreement or letting it go to

[4:45:24] Voice 33: adjudication and it's a very limited set of criteria that's in there so

[4:45:30] Voice 16: that aspect of

[4:45:31] Voice 16: it varies from ltc to ltc in terms is that right right

[4:45:37] Voice 33: now i'd say no

[4:45:37] Voice 23: they're all fairly consistent

[4:45:39] Voice 23: any further questions okay

[4:45:50] Voice 10: i think did you have something else deb sorry

[4:45:54] Voice 35: i don't think i got the

[4:45:55] Voice 35: answer to the second half of my question which was about like where do trustees uh weigh into

[4:46:00] Voice 35: this situation if ever or should they so

[4:46:04] Voice 33: my response would be is that once an investigation

[4:46:06] Voice 33: of a bylaw file has been completed and we've made a determination that there's a contravention

[4:46:11] Voice 33: at that stage it is entirely up to the ltc if they so wish whether or not they want to pursue

[4:46:17] Voice 33: sue some form of legal action so at that point you know whatever they want how they would do it in

[4:46:23] Voice 33: camera out of camera they request a list of files that they want to review and they're going to make

[4:46:28] Voice 33: a decision on legal action or they're going to say okay the investigation is done it's minor we want

[4:46:32] Voice 33: it closed that that would happen before a ticket is written the bylaw issue of a bylaw notice should

[4:46:39] Voice 33: be considered a legal action that the ltc is going to take and

[4:46:43] Voice 35: i just want to kind of emphasize that

[4:46:45] Voice 35: particular issue because i think we don't hear about that side of the problem or that side of

[4:46:49] Voice 35: the issue that ltcs have trustees have a lot of control locally about what gets enforced on and

[4:46:56] Voice 35: what doesn't and i think we're not really holding ourselves accountable about that so

[4:47:00] Voice 9: okay thank you

[4:47:05] Voice 9: and okay toby elliott um

[4:47:08] Voice 21: thank you yeah and following up um i was just reading through

[4:47:13] Voice 21: here page 411 the background and the bylaw enforcement authority page 419 so it it just

[4:47:22] Voice 21: presents a little bit of a confusion and so maybe that's just because i'm new so the decision on

[4:47:28] Voice 21: whether to enforce a bylaw or not is up to the local government including the local trust

[4:47:32] Voice 21: committee so we have the authority to enforce our bylaws the decision the point at which

[4:47:42] Voice 21: we can use that authority is before or after a ticket has been issued i'm still having a problem

[4:47:51] Voice 21: with the sequencing here so

[4:47:55] Voice 33: sir you've got 13 local trust areas you only have 10 local trust

[4:47:59] Voice 33: areas who have adopted a violent enforcement pilot so once you've adopted that bylaw notice

[4:48:05] Voice 33: enforcement bylaw you've authorized by law officers to issue bylaw violation notices

[4:48:10] Voice 33: You've authorized, penalties can be issued,

[4:48:13] Voice 33: and you've set down a process,

[4:48:15] Voice 33: you've set down a screening officer,

[4:48:16] Voice 33: you've set down the criteria

[4:48:17] Voice 33: of which tickets can be canceled,

[4:48:19] Voice 33: you've set down a criteria on which it is

[4:48:21] Voice 33: in the public interest for it to proceed to adjudication.

[4:48:25] Voice 33: And so all of that is set down.

[4:48:27] Voice 33: For those local trust committees

[4:48:28] Voice 33: who have not adopted the Bend By-law,

[4:48:29] Voice 33: the process is, if we feel that the enforcement

[4:48:34] Voice 33: needs to take place, we need to do a report

[4:48:36] Voice 33: to the local trust committee, such as Laskiti, Saturna,

[4:48:39] Voice 33: How do you wish to proceed, council, committee?

[4:48:43] Voice 33: Do you want to do a demand letter?

[4:48:45] Voice 33: Do you want to proceed with a legal opinion and getting the legal action request in process?

[4:48:53] Voice 33: That's a different process for those committees that have adopted the ban or not adopted.

[4:48:59] Voice 33: Thank

[4:48:59] Voice 10: you.

[4:49:02] Voice 10: Marie Boland.

[4:49:06] Voice 26: So just following up on Toby's question.

[4:49:09] Voice 26: So you're saying that the trustees or the local trust council, if the BEN process has not been adopted, then you go to local trust council and say, here's the deal.

[4:49:24] Voice 26: What do we do? Can you not mix them both?

[4:49:27] Voice 26: Because if you don't have the BEN, you have this, you have to go to the provincial courts.

[4:49:33] Voice 26: courts could you not actually have a step where you go to the local trust committee and say do i

[4:49:39] Voice 26: proceed with the ben notification and mix you know have that as a key step regardless of which

[4:49:47] Voice 26: process has been adopted so

[4:49:52] Voice 33: the answer to that is yes we it actually is a hybrid system for those 10

[4:49:56] Voice 33: commit local trust committees that have adopted the ben bible so there are certain like that

[4:50:01] Voice 33: these are supposed to be for simple straightforward contraventions the complicated

[4:50:05] Voice 33: allocated stuff we you know we do the request for legal action to the local trust and so it becomes

[4:50:11] Voice 33: a hybrid and if there are certain files that come to attention to local trust committees they ask

[4:50:16] Voice 33: for a meeting with myself we go in camera and they say okay do you want to proceed on this matter you

[4:50:21] Voice 33: want to close the file some local trust committees say okay we're not going to proceed with legal

[4:50:25] Voice 33: action please issue a by-law violation notice because that's our lowest cost option to proceed

[4:50:31] Voice 33: Just

[4:50:32] Voice 26: a quick follow up question. So if you have the simple low hanging fruit, then notifications, how do you provide information to local trust committee? Like a summary of last week, we did X, you know, we issued so many of these simple ones that you don't need to prescreen. Does that happen? Or? Yeah, thanks.

[4:50:56] Voice 26: So

[4:50:57] Voice 33: that happens with the semi-annual reports that I'm providing for Trust Council.

[4:51:02] Voice 33: I'm reporting actually to Trust Council how many have been issued.

[4:51:06] Voice 33: Right now, there's no local trust committees that ask, you know, please report on how many violation notices that you're issuing.

[4:51:14] Voice 10: Thank you. Any other questions?

[4:51:16] Voice 10: Trustee Evans.

[4:51:20] Voice 25: So, Trustee Bowen touched on my question.

[4:51:23] Voice 25: if a local trust committee wants to get reporting

[4:51:26] Voice 25: on the activities regarding bed notices on their Island,

[4:51:30] Voice 25: can we receive those?

[4:51:33] Voice 33: Yes, absolutely, we can request it.

[4:51:37] Voice 10: Any other questions, Joe Bernardo again?

[4:51:39] Voice 33: I'm sorry, the trustee had a question about how,

[4:51:43] Voice 33: how they would just need to request it.

[4:51:44] Voice 33: They said, you know, it could be emotional at a open meeting

[4:51:47] Voice 33: to request that the bylaw manager provide the reporting

[4:51:50] Voice 33: in camera or whatever they wish.

[4:51:53] Voice 10: okay thank you again joe bernardo uh

[4:51:56] Voice 16: mr dingman what i've heard here is that the ltcs have

[4:52:00] Voice 16: uh considerable discretion over the outcome of any investigation but that depends on the ltc

[4:52:07] Voice 16: becoming informed of it that appears to depend very much on the approach the ltc itself has taken

[4:52:15] Voice 16: and that there is no actual uniform process to notify LTCs about a bylaw ticket having been issued

[4:52:25] Voice 16: or the substance of it, either before or afterwards, it sounds like it's idiosyncratic.

[4:52:34] Voice 16: It just depends on what each LTC has decided how it wants to deal with it. Is that right?

[4:52:41] Voice 22: Yes.

[4:52:41] Voice 22: Now,

[4:52:43] Voice 16: we've been talking about the discretion of the LTCs here, but before any of that happens, you and your team have work to do.

[4:52:53] Voice 16: You encounter infractions. You've got to deal with them.

[4:52:56] Voice 16: Do you, in your management of the operation, do you believe you have any discretion with respect to whether or not you ought to either issue a determination letter or issue a bylaw ticket?

[4:53:08] Voice 16: Whether you have the freedom to say, you know, this is a trivial case, forget it.

[4:53:12] Voice 16: do you have that discretion or do you believe you have that discretion so

[4:53:18] Voice 33: i would say our

[4:53:18] Voice 33: discretion comes down to time to comply that's our real discretion and there's also within trust

[4:53:24] Voice 33: council policy if there's minor issues then the manager and the regional planning manager can say

[4:53:30] Voice 33: i'm sorry the director of planning can say okay that's minor and we won't proceed on that

[4:53:37] Voice 33: as far as the other having greater discretion on that if they're not one-time discrete events

[4:53:44] Voice 33: and they're ongoing contraventions as in the discussed earlier each day this is happening

[4:53:51] Voice 33: i don't think the bile officers have the discretion to say okay this has been going on a

[4:53:56] Voice 33: year and i'm going to let it go on for another year to say i'm not going to enforce that needs

[4:54:02] Voice 33: needs to happen uh either the matter needs to go to the ltc say okay do you want to put a stop to

[4:54:08] Voice 33: this or you do not or rewrite the ticket we try and get a compliance agreement through the managers

[4:54:13] Voice 33: and the screening officer to get some type of compliance okay i've

[4:54:18] Voice 16: got a follow-up question

[4:54:18] Voice 16: on that i just want to clarify something which is that um i mean you give you a hypothetical here

[4:54:24] Voice 16: you've got somebody on some island uh who's built a tool shed within the setback from the foreshore

[4:54:30] Voice 16: uh it turns out he's got a neighbor who kind of doesn't like the guy very much

[4:54:38] Voice 16: so the neighbor calls up you and says hey there is an inappropriate structure that hasn't been

[4:54:46] Voice 16: permitted that's within a development permit area what i'm hearing you say is first of all you're

[4:54:54] Voice 16: obligated to go over there and have a look so you do that then you discover that this shed's been

[4:55:01] Voice 16: in there for 10 years what i've heard you say is you can't give this guy a pass that's just not

[4:55:08] Voice 16: within your authority so

[4:55:12] Voice 33: in that circumstance we can because we actually can't issue any fines for

[4:55:17] Voice 33: development permit areas so if that's the issue we put something in a development permit area

[4:55:21] Voice 33: we have to go to the ldc and seek legal action so in those cases uh our well we can't pursue it

[4:55:29] Voice 33: ourselves we've got to go to the local trust committee and say okay do you want to pursue this

[4:55:33] Voice 33: and some of them yeah absolutely we're not we're not going to send that to an ltc because it's too

[4:55:38] Voice 33: minor and plus the limitation act may have come into play and it's been two years since the

[4:55:43] Voice 33: the work happened and so we can't proceed anyway either in court or with a bylaw notice

[4:55:52] Voice 9: okay have

[4:55:53] Voice 10: we exhausted our questions we can go on to our next speaker

[4:55:57] Voice 10: okay oh jamie harris last question thank

[4:56:00] Voice 5: you just a quick one so do ltcs have the authority to ask

[4:56:05] Voice 5: by law enforcement to bring an infraction to the LTC prior to issuing a ticket or

[4:56:14] Voice 5: going, you know, making contact with the offender?

[4:56:21] Voice 33: Once the investigation is completed,

[4:56:23] Voice 33: then the LTC and go to the LTC and they can make a decision on how they need to proceed

[4:56:27] Voice 33: with any type of legal action or that they want to close the file.

[4:56:31] Voice 33: uh

[4:56:35] Voice 5: so i think i i was asking would we have the authority to ask bylaw enforcement to come to us

[4:56:43] Voice 5: first prior to investigating um an infraction and then giving us the chance to say whether to

[4:56:53] Voice 5: leave it or not so

[4:56:57] Voice 33: the current trust council policy is that uh trustees and all the trust

[4:57:00] Voice 33: committees are not involved in investigations so the policy is set down that we receive a

[4:57:05] Voice 33: a written complaint, we will pursue it. And once the investigation is completed,

[4:57:09] Voice 33: then the matter can go before the LTC for decision.

[4:57:14] Voice 10: Okay. Now, Stefan, do you want to add to that or should we go on to the next speaker?

[4:57:17] Voice 17: Yeah, with respect, I think these are great questions. You've got a lot of time after the

[4:57:22] Voice 17: actual report about law enforcement is presented. I think we'd love to get

[4:57:26] Voice 17: to the ombuds person who's patiently been waiting online for an hour.

[4:57:29] Voice 10: Let's do that. I'll let you do

[4:57:30] Voice 10: the introductions. Thank you, Matthew, for joining us today.

[4:57:34] Voice 10: and certainly feel free to listen into the rest of the conversation might be informative

[4:57:40] Voice 29: thank you for

[4:57:41] Voice 29: having me okay

[4:57:44] Voice 17: well thank you very much and thank you uh matthew um so next up is

[4:57:47] Voice 17: the ombudsperson's office uh i'm going to steal some of their thunder and i apologize that the

[4:57:52] Voice 17: ombudsperson's office engages in voluntary consultation and i emphasize voluntary

[4:57:57] Voice 17: consultation with public sector organizations to provide feedback and assistance in developing new

[4:58:03] Voice 17: processes and enhancing their ability to respond to complaints they are also available to consult

[4:58:09] Voice 17: on policy and program development complaints handling and emerging issues identifying complaint

[4:58:14] Voice 17: trends they have made themselves available today to present on best practices in fair service

[4:58:19] Voice 17: delivery and complaint handling related to file enforcement and today we have sarah darling and

[4:58:24] Voice 17: jennifer jones presenting from the ombudsperson officer and a little bit about them sarah darling

[4:58:29] Voice 17: has been the Communications and Outreach Lead

[4:58:32] Voice 17: for the office for the past five years.

[4:58:34] Voice 17: She joined the office following three years

[4:58:36] Voice 17: with the Provincial Seniors Advocate

[4:58:38] Voice 17: as the Director of Communications.

[4:58:40] Voice 17: She has a background in journalism,

[4:58:41] Voice 17: having worked for the CBC for 25 years

[4:58:45] Voice 17: in radio and television in various capacities,

[4:58:47] Voice 17: including daily news, documentaries,

[4:58:49] Voice 17: and throughout multiple locations.

[4:58:51] Voice 17: Jennifer Jones has joined the office of the Ombudsperson.

[4:58:55] Voice 17: She's been with them for six years.

[4:58:57] Voice 17: First, as an investigator on the health

[4:58:59] Voice 17: and local services team and then as a member of the public authority consultation and training team

[4:59:04] Voice 17: and her background is primarily in law and social work and she's who might be primarily working with

[4:59:10] Voice 17: to bring this team to you today. So with that thank you Jennifer and Sarah.

[4:59:16] Voice 1: Well thank you

[4:59:18] Voice 1: for that lovely introduction. I'm Sarah, Jennifer's in the background advancing our slides for us.

[4:59:26] Voice 1: she'll come to you a little bit later to talk more specifically about bylaw enforcement.

[4:59:31] Voice 1: I just wanted to say that we're joining you from Lekwungen speaking territory,

[4:59:36] Voice 1: now the Songhees and Esquimalt Nations and it's a beautiful day here over in Victoria

[4:59:42] Voice 1: and our work extends to many different nations around the province. So glad to be here.

[4:59:51] Voice 1: Let's just go on to the next slide. So we just thought we would give you a really brief

[4:59:56] Voice 1: overview of the role of our office and then

[5:00:00] Voice 1: get right into admin fairness in the local government context um and finally we'll talk

[5:00:06] Voice 1: uh in a little more detail Jen will share with you bylaw enforcement best practices uh some of

[5:00:13] Voice 1: you may have already seen our our best practice guide our bylaw enforcement best practice guide

[5:00:19] Voice 1: it is on our website so we encourage you to have a look at it if you haven't seen it already

[5:00:23] Voice 1: ready. Jen is going to talk about it more in a little bit

[5:00:26] Voice 1: here. But some of you might still be wondering what is an

[5:00:31] Voice 1: ombudsperson? It's a strange word we know. The word

[5:00:35] Voice 1: ombudsperson actually is a Swedish word. It was developed

[5:00:40] Voice 1: in Sweden in the early 1800s. When the King of Sweden was

[5:00:46] Voice 1: abdicated, the Swedish people decided they need to put a

[5:00:49] Voice 1: person in place an official that would make sure that people were being treated fairly and so this

[5:00:57] Voice 1: many years later we have ombuds roles in over 100 countries around the world including in Canada we

[5:01:05] Voice 1: have every province and territory has an ombuds type role so our job is to make sure provincial

[5:01:12] Voice 1: and local organizations and public services are following their own rules and treating people

[5:01:19] Voice 1: both fairly. When they don't do that, it's our job to make sure that we are making principled

[5:01:26] Voice 1: and practical recommendations that are trying to take mistakes or problems in public administration

[5:01:33] Voice 1: that we identify and to make them right. So how do we do that? We are independent. That means that

[5:01:42] Voice 1: we don't report to a ministry we're not part of a core government we report to the legislature and

[5:01:51] Voice 1: the ombudsperson is actually appointed by the legislature so that's important to note that we

[5:01:56] Voice 1: are not part of core government we do our work impartially so similar to what Matthew was saying

[5:02:03] Voice 1: we listen to both sides of the issue we're trying to be fair to the public body and to

[5:02:09] Voice 1: and to members of the public, but we are really clear that we don't advocate for people.

[5:02:15] Voice 1: We are advocates for fairness. So that's important for the public to understand.

[5:02:23] Voice 1: Our investigations are all conducted confidentially, that we follow a statute in our

[5:02:30] Voice 1: work, the Ombudsperson Act, and that demands that we do do our work privately and in confidence.

[5:02:37] Voice 1: evidence and our services are free. And just to know as Matthew, just to go back, he was talking

[5:02:44] Voice 1: about some of the staffing at his office. A lot of our staff are actually trained lawyers, not all of

[5:02:52] Voice 1: them, but we do have quite a few staff from that background as well as a range of other backgrounds

[5:02:59] Voice 1: as well. We have about a hundred people working here at the Ombudsperson's office. So Jen, let's

[5:03:05] Voice 1: see the next slide um yeah as i said we do operate under uh under statutes uh on the complaint side

[5:03:14] Voice 1: for the public we operate under the ombudsperson act but we also operate under another act called

[5:03:20] Voice 1: the public interest disclosure act and this is um relatively new here in bc it's been around for

[5:03:26] Voice 1: just a couple of years and as for public sector employees and former employees who believe that

[5:03:33] Voice 1: they have seen serious wrongdoing in the workplace they can bring those disclosures to our office

[5:03:39] Voice 1: and we now have the legal mandate to investigate those. So let's move on to the next slide.

[5:03:47] Voice 1: We just wanted to tell you a little bit about a new initiative we have. We are trying to,

[5:03:54] Voice 1: we're recognizing that the complaints that we actually receive from Indigenous people

[5:03:58] Voice 1: people in the province are quite low. We're trying to make our services a little better

[5:04:05] Voice 1: known among the Indigenous population in BC. So right now we have five engagement specialists

[5:04:13] Voice 1: working in different parts of the province, trying to work with Indigenous communities

[5:04:18] Voice 1: to help members of the Indigenous public bring complaints to us.

[5:04:25] Voice 1: So that is operating, and you can see there are all of the different health regions of the province,

[5:04:31] Voice 1: including in the Vancouver Island Health Region, which obviously covers the Islands Trust area.

[5:04:39] Voice 1: So our jurisdiction is very broad.

[5:04:42] Voice 1: We, as a watchdog or oversight office, we oversee over 1,000 public bodies in the province.

[5:04:52] Voice 1: You can see here, I won't read them all out, but lots of provincial government ministries, including the Attorney General, who we just heard from that ministry, and all of the others, universities and colleges, crown corporations, obviously Islands Trust, professional associations, etc.

[5:05:10] Voice 1: Just moving on to the next slide. There's some public bodies that we don't investigate, notably First Nations governments, the federal government, lawyers, court decisions, the Legislative Assembly and the police.

[5:05:28] Voice 1: So those are just some things that we can't help with.

[5:05:31] Voice 1: We just thought we'd tell you about sort of how many complaints we typically get a year.

[5:05:36] Voice 1: sort of hovers between uh seven to nine thousand last year was uh just over eight thousand you'll

[5:05:43] Voice 1: see there um not all of them we investigate that's important to know just you can just see down there

[5:05:49] Voice 1: that about sixteen percent are actually assigned to our one of our investigative teams um a lot of

[5:05:56] Voice 1: times uh what we're doing is we're trying to make sure when people come uh to our office we want to

[5:06:03] Voice 1: make sure that they've tried to raise their complaint with the organization involved so in

[5:06:07] Voice 1: in the municipal government context it would be with the cao if they haven't done that uh we

[5:06:14] Voice 1: we try to you know encourage people to go that route we know that that's often the most effective

[5:06:19] Voice 1: and efficient way to um to resolve complaints uh so you'll see there that we do uh we do do that

[5:06:27] Voice 1: We also want to make sure when people are coming to us that these matters are in our jurisdiction, so sometimes we're referring people out to other complaint pathways where their complaints can get resolved.

[5:06:43] Voice 1: So here we just wanted to take a look at what kinds of complaints numbers we're seeing for Islands Trust specifically.

[5:06:51] Voice 1: And you can see from 2021, 22, 15 complaints. So not high numbers there, a little bit higher, but given the actual volume there, there's not a high number of complaints that we're seeing from Islands Trust.

[5:07:15] Voice 1: trust. And then I just wanted to tell you really briefly a little bit about the investigative

[5:07:24] Voice 1: process. When Matthew was talking a minute ago about the types of administrative unfairness that

[5:07:32] Voice 1: the office is looking at, we are looking at things that are laid out in the Ombudsperson Act pretty

[5:07:41] Voice 1: pretty clearly. So we're looking at these kinds of questions. So were the rules and decision-making

[5:07:47] Voice 1: processes explained properly? Were the rules actually followed? So in terms of bylaw,

[5:07:53] Voice 1: you know, was the bylaw actually applied as it was intended to be? Was the person listened to

[5:07:59] Voice 1: and heard? Matthew made reference to that one. Was the decision explained? This is a big one for

[5:08:08] Voice 1: us, you know, were proper reasons for decisions communicated to the complainant.

[5:08:14] Voice 1: Another thing that we do look at quite often in relation to bylaw enforcement is notice,

[5:08:20] Voice 1: was proper notice given. These are the types of administrative fairness issues that we look at

[5:08:27] Voice 1: in our investigations. And then how do we investigate those? Well, as I said, the complaint

[5:08:35] Voice 1: an inquiry will come into our office.

[5:08:38] Voice 1: We have multiple ways people can file complaints.

[5:08:41] Voice 1: Our intake team does that jurisdictional assessment.

[5:08:45] Voice 1: And as I said, if people haven't raised their concerns

[5:08:48] Voice 1: in this case with a CAO or with the municipality

[5:08:52] Voice 1: or Islands Trust directly, we'll ask them to do that.

[5:08:56] Voice 1: If they have, then we'll be able to take that complaint in.

[5:09:00] Voice 1: in. Sometimes our complaint is fairly straightforward and our early resolution program is able

[5:09:10] Voice 1: to do a brief investigation and to settle that matter. Sometimes we do need to refer

[5:09:18] Voice 1: one complaint to our full investigative process. We do have a specific team that deals with

[5:09:29] Voice 1: with bylaw complaints, so they have a lot of expertise

[5:09:31] Voice 1: in that particular area.

[5:09:33] Voice 1: So when they're doing their investigations,

[5:09:37] Voice 1: they're sort of doing all the normal things

[5:09:39] Voice 1: you would expect.

[5:09:40] Voice 1: They're looking at a very broad range of evidence

[5:09:43] Voice 1: under the Ombudsperson Act.

[5:09:45] Voice 1: We have a lot of power to get a lot of evidence,

[5:09:48] Voice 1: documents that the public wouldn't necessarily

[5:09:51] Voice 1: normally have access to.

[5:09:54] Voice 1: We can issue summons and interview people under oath

[5:09:58] Voice 1: if need be. So there's quite a lot of investigative power there. And we're going to be doing a full

[5:10:07] Voice 1: investigation of the matter. And sometimes coming out of that, we might do a public report.

[5:10:15] Voice 1: If it's an issue that impacts lots of people, we might do a systemic investigation.

[5:10:21] Voice 1: investigation. So those are some of the things that may happen as a result of an investigation.

[5:10:29] Voice 1: And then people always want to know, you know, at the end of an investigation, what kinds of things

[5:10:34] Voice 1: happen. So just to go back to that slide, people might get an apology, a better explanation of a

[5:10:42] Voice 1: decision. There may be an improved policy or procedure. People might get a reimbursement of

[5:10:49] Voice 1: funds there might be a new hearing or a reassessment of a decision so those are all

[5:10:55] Voice 1: common outcomes of our investigations and then we'll just move on to the next slide

[5:11:03] Voice 1: and then here Jen is just going to take it from here and she's just going to give you an example

[5:11:08] Voice 1: of a bylaw investigation that we conducted and she'll tell you a little bit more

[5:11:14] Voice 1: about the by-law enforcement best practices.

[5:11:19] Voice 2: Great. Thank you, Sarah. And thank you to Stefan

[5:11:22] Voice 2: for having us here today. It's a pleasure to present this information to you on behalf of

[5:11:26] Voice 2: our office. And I apologize for the slides. My mouse seems to be very sensitive today. So it's

[5:11:31] Voice 2: apparently jumping ahead when I don't mean it to. So I'm going to give you an example of what we do

[5:11:36] Voice 2: in the local government context. And I'll provide you with a key summary that was previously in one

[5:11:40] Voice 2: of our annual reports. All of our annual reports, if you're interested, they're all available on our

[5:11:45] Voice 2: website. So it's an example of a complaint regarding bylaw enforcement. In brief, the

[5:11:50] Voice 2: individual who complained to us, they lived in the United States and owned an income property in the

[5:11:55] Voice 2: city that she rented. The city had concerns about the unsightliness of the property and so they

[5:12:01] Voice 2: issued a bylaw compliance order directing that she clean it up. The city's notice was sent by

[5:12:06] Voice 2: registered mail to the individual's U.S. address where she lived and it set a 10-day deadline for

[5:12:12] Voice 2: the property the cleanup work on the property to be completed. The property owner however they

[5:12:18] Voice 2: didn't receive the notice until the deadline day and then when she called the city that same day

[5:12:22] Voice 2: she learned that the cleanup work had already been done by the city and that she would in fact

[5:12:26] Voice 2: be billed for the costs plus penalties. Shortly after this she traveled to the city and spoke

[5:12:32] Voice 2: spoke directly with bylaw enforcement officials about her situation, she asked the city to

[5:12:37] Voice 2: contact her by email if there were any similar problems in the future and to ensure that they

[5:12:42] Voice 2: allow her enough time to arrange for the cleanup work herself. About six months later, unfortunately

[5:12:48] Voice 2: it happened again, the city inspected the property and as before they sent her another bylaw compliance

[5:12:54] Voice 2: order by registered mail to her U.S. address. The second order was very similar to the first except

[5:13:00] Voice 2: except it did provide her with a slightly longer deadline.

[5:13:03] Voice 2: Here again, though, the property owner,

[5:13:05] Voice 2: they didn't receive that order until the deadline.

[5:13:08] Voice 2: And when she contacted the city,

[5:13:10] Voice 2: she again learned that the city

[5:13:11] Voice 2: had already carried out the work

[5:13:13] Voice 2: and they were billing her for the costs

[5:13:14] Voice 2: of that work plus penalties.

[5:13:16] Voice 2: So she came to our office

[5:13:18] Voice 2: because she felt that the city had not treated her fairly.

[5:13:21] Voice 2: And our investigation focused on

[5:13:22] Voice 2: whether the city had followed a reasonable process

[5:13:25] Voice 2: in issuing the two orders

[5:13:26] Voice 2: and whether she was provided

[5:13:27] Voice 2: with an adequate opportunity to respond.

[5:13:30] Voice 2: We looked at the city's files, along with its policies around bylaw enforcement, and we also reviewed the relevant legislation in place, and we discussed with the city their bylaw enforcement processes with them directly.

[5:13:42] Voice 2: So as part of our investigation, we consulted with the city, and we made a number of proposals to both resolve the property owner's individual concerns, and also to aim to improve the city's bylaw enforcement process overall.

[5:13:54] Voice 2: all. The city ultimately agreed to refund the individual the money that she had paid the city

[5:14:00] Voice 2: to clean up her property and the city agreed to review its bylaw enforcement process for unsightly

[5:14:05] Voice 2: premises and to also look at developing policies concerning compliance orders. So this is just one

[5:14:11] Voice 2: example of a complaint related to bylaw enforcement that came to our office and was investigated and

[5:14:15] Voice 2: came to a good outcome as well. So Sarah gave you a brief very brief overview of what our office does

[5:14:23] Voice 2: and the role of the ombudsperson, I'm going to talk next about administrative fairness

[5:14:27] Voice 2: and administrative fairness specifically in the context of local governments.

[5:14:33] Voice 2: Before we get right into talking about admin fairness, I do want to mention that we're

[5:14:38] Voice 2: drawing a good portion of our material for today's presentation from our office's bylaw

[5:14:42] Voice 2: enforcement best practices guide. It's a little bit of an older guide, but it was developed

[5:14:48] Voice 2: following a systemic review of complaints that we received and investigated about bylaw

[5:14:52] Voice 2: enforcement across the entire province we find it's a really useful guide for local governments

[5:14:57] Voice 2: that we deal with so as Sarah mentioned we have about 400 local governments under our jurisdiction

[5:15:04] Voice 2: and this includes all municipalities improvement districts regional districts and of course the

[5:15:08] Voice 2: islands trust and as you can see on the slide there during our last fiscal year that we publicly

[5:15:13] Voice 2: reported on so 2021-2022 local governments made up about 13 percent of all the complaints and

[5:15:20] Voice 2: and inquiries we received as an office.

[5:15:23] Voice 2: So 13% of that approximately,

[5:15:25] Voice 2: I think it was 8,200 on one of the previous slides.

[5:15:28] Voice 2: And I will say that consistently

[5:15:30] Voice 2: one of the most commonly reported issues

[5:15:32] Voice 2: in local government complaints across the province

[5:15:34] Voice 2: to our office continues to be about bylaw enforcement.

[5:15:38] Voice 2: And that can be about a number of different things.

[5:15:40] Voice 2: It could relate to concerns about noise, animal control,

[5:15:43] Voice 2: unsightly premises, such as in the case summary

[5:15:45] Voice 2: and also zoning.

[5:15:47] Voice 2: And this is really one of the reasons

[5:15:48] Voice 2: that our office chose to publish the best practice guide on bylaw enforcement and we published it

[5:15:53] Voice 2: back in 2016. I do also want to acknowledge that our office has actually only had the jurisdiction

[5:15:59] Voice 2: to investigate local governments in BC since 1995 but since that time we've noticed that many

[5:16:06] Voice 2: complaints were coming to us that related to how local governments were enforcing bylaws and we saw

[5:16:11] Voice 2: a lot of discrepancy. We continue to see a lot of discrepancy across the province in bylaw

[5:16:15] Voice 2: law enforcement practices. So as a result, we conducted that systemic review and published

[5:16:21] Voice 2: this guide in order to share what we've learned for the benefit of all local governments. And

[5:16:26] Voice 2: our hope is really that this guide, it enables and empowers local governments to fairly address

[5:16:31] Voice 2: bylaw complaints, and also that it will minimize the need for members of the public to escalate

[5:16:36] Voice 2: their complaints to our office. That's our hope. So what is administrative fairness? What did we

[5:16:42] Voice 2: talk about when we say admin fairness generally very broadly administrative fairness is the

[5:16:47] Voice 2: standard of conduct people can expect from public authorities in a democratic society

[5:16:53] Voice 2: so the standard of conduct people can expect from public authorities in a democratic society

[5:16:57] Voice 2: and there's a duty of administrative fairness expected of all public service providers

[5:17:02] Voice 2: that's because the decisions that we make can have a really profound impact on people

[5:17:06] Voice 2: so there are a number of different aspects of administrative fairness and i'll highlight a

[5:17:12] Voice 2: few of them on this slide so admin fairness includes things like consistent and transparent

[5:17:17] Voice 2: decision making fair and respectful treatment of all staff of all people sorry not staff people

[5:17:24] Voice 2: it includes an even-handed and reasonable application of the rules it includes policies

[5:17:31] Voice 2: and practices that are supportive of the program goals so what is the intent of your program what's

[5:17:35] Voice 2: the intent of bylaw enforcement admin fairness also means that people who are impacted by decisions

[5:17:41] Voice 2: decisions have an opportunity to be heard. And that was something that Matthew and Sarah have

[5:17:45] Voice 2: both touched on, but we'll talk a bit more about today. It also includes providing understandable

[5:17:52] Voice 2: reasons for decisions. And last, but certainly not least, administrative fairness includes

[5:17:58] Voice 2: following the legislation, the bylaws, the policies, and the procedures in place.

[5:18:04] Voice 2: So I'll just draw your attention now to what we call or what we have, the fairness triangle.

[5:18:10] Voice 2: As you saw from the previous slide, administrative fairness is a number of things, and it can be

[5:18:14] Voice 2: really quite broad. So if you go to our website or if you review any of our materials, the fairness

[5:18:20] Voice 2: triangle features prominently. And really we created this fairness triangle as a way in which

[5:18:24] Voice 2: to explain and help explore the different aspects of administrative fairness to make it a little bit

[5:18:30] Voice 2: more user-friendly and concrete. And we think that the fairness triangle, it helps to explain what

[5:18:35] Voice 2: administrative fairness is all about. Really it's about making sure people are treated fairly in the

[5:18:40] Voice 2: receipt of public services. So I'll just quickly go through this now. The first dimension of the

[5:18:45] Voice 2: fairness triangle is fair process, what's sometimes known as procedural fairness, or sometimes referred

[5:18:50] Voice 2: to rather as procedural fairness. And this side of the triangle, it's really about following a

[5:18:55] Voice 2: fair process when making a decision that impacts a person, a group of people, or an organization.

[5:19:01] Voice 2: Procedural fairness, it includes the steps that a decision maker takes before, during, and also

[5:19:05] Voice 2: after making their decision. The next dimension of the triangle is a fair decision, sometimes

[5:19:12] Voice 2: referred to as substantive fairness. And this is about making a fair decision itself. It looks at

[5:19:17] Voice 2: what was decided, whether the relevant rules were followed, and whether it was reasonable,

[5:19:21] Voice 2: whether the decision was reasonable within the circumstances. Finally, the triangle also looks

[5:19:27] Voice 2: at fair service. Sometimes we refer to it as relational service. It's really the people

[5:19:32] Voice 2: people's side of the fairness triangle we're looking here at how the person was treated

[5:19:36] Voice 2: and it's it's a really important aspect of fairness because we find in our office that

[5:19:40] Voice 2: even if a decision was fair and the process followed by the decision maker was fair if the

[5:19:45] Voice 2: person felt as though they were not treated fairly they may still make a complaint with us

[5:19:50] Voice 2: service fairness is truly often at the core of a complaint to our office

[5:19:57] Voice 2: so looking specifically at administrative fairness in bylaw enforcement now what does

[5:20:02] Voice 2: admin fairness mean in the context of local governments and by law enforcement? Well despite

[5:20:08] Voice 2: the many differences amongst local governments there are some key principles that apply to all

[5:20:13] Voice 2: of them regardless of the size, location, population or any other factors. These include all of the

[5:20:19] Voice 2: things that you see on this slide here. So administrative fairness and bylaw, it includes

[5:20:23] Voice 2: having bylaws that are authorized by and consistent with the governing legislation. It includes having

[5:20:28] Voice 2: a written policy for fairly and reasonably exercising discretion when enforcing bylaws?

[5:20:33] Voice 2: And I'm going to talk about that more in a couple of minutes and hopefully it answers some of the

[5:20:37] Voice 2: questions that were brought up after Matthew's presentation a little while ago. Administrative

[5:20:43] Voice 2: fairness and bylaw enforcement, it also includes things like written standards and expectations of

[5:20:48] Voice 2: conduct by bylaw enforcement staff when they interact with the public. It also includes things

[5:20:53] Voice 2: like a clear role and clearly defined role for counsel. It also includes clear consistent and

[5:21:00] Voice 2: and available public information about bylaws

[5:21:02] Voice 2: and enforcement practices,

[5:21:03] Voice 2: as well as how to make complaints and then appeal them.

[5:21:08] Voice 2: Admin fairness and bylaw enforcement

[5:21:09] Voice 2: also includes a process for receiving, assessing,

[5:21:12] Voice 2: and responding to complaints in a timely manner.

[5:21:15] Voice 2: It should also include a consistently applied

[5:21:17] Voice 2: and well-documented investigative process.

[5:21:21] Voice 2: One that establishes a really clear factual basis

[5:21:23] Voice 2: for enforcement decisions is key.

[5:21:26] Voice 2: Advance adequate notice to affected persons

[5:21:29] Voice 2: before enforcement action is taken

[5:21:30] Voice 2: in is a part of this as well. And enforcement decisions should be consistent with policy

[5:21:35] Voice 2: and with other similar decisions. They should be equitable and also proportionate to the problem

[5:21:40] Voice 2: being addressed. Reasons are an integral aspect of administrative fairness and certainly within

[5:21:47] Voice 2: the context of bylaw enforcement. Reasons should be provided that set out the basis for the

[5:21:51] Voice 2: enforcement and which provide information about how to appeal decisions. So our bylaw enforcement

[5:21:58] Voice 2: enforcement guide best practices guide does go into all of these bullet points in some detail

[5:22:04] Voice 2: but we're just going to go through a few of them over the next few minutes that we have with you

[5:22:08] Voice 2: today. Before I do get into the details of best practices in bylaw enforcement I just want to

[5:22:16] Voice 2: stop and highlight for you the benefits of ensuring administrative fairness is present

[5:22:21] Voice 2: in the bylaw enforcement processes of the Islands Trust. So there are many different benefits that

[5:22:27] Voice 2: local governments can realize by building fairness into their bylaw enforcement practices.

[5:22:33] Voice 2: Number one, we find it reduces conflict. So quite frankly, you know, abiding by principles

[5:22:38] Voice 2: of administrative fairness, it can help the staff of local governments reduce conflict in matters

[5:22:44] Voice 2: of bylaw and compliance and enforcement. So when enforcing bylaws, local government staff,

[5:22:49] Voice 2: of course they interact with the public and sometimes in really high conflict situations.

[5:22:53] Voice 2: Enforcement decisions often affect people on their property or in their home. It's a,

[5:22:58] Voice 2: it's really a fairly or it can be a fairly intrusive form of government intervention.

[5:23:02] Voice 2: So when enforcement decisions are seen to be fair, reasonable, and appropriate,

[5:23:07] Voice 2: conflict can most likely be reduced. Having admin fairness present within by-law enforcement

[5:23:14] Voice 2: processes, it also helps to promote the efficient use of staff time and resources,

[5:23:18] Voice 2: and of course we all want that. Establishing and promoting fair by-law enforcement processes,

[5:23:23] Voice 2: it can help governments, local governments, sorry, both reduce the number of complaints received

[5:23:28] Voice 2: and also help to resolve those issues more quickly and effectively, thus

[5:23:32] Voice 13: saving time and money.

[5:23:33] Voice 13: It also helps to build really strong

[5:23:40] Voice 2: community relationships.

[5:23:41] Voice 2: So a local government that clearly demonstrates a commitment to administrative fairness,

[5:23:46] Voice 2: it can increase its public perception of being responsive, transparent, and accountable,

[5:23:50] Voice 2: which are all really integral aspects of administrative fairness generally.

[5:23:54] Voice 2: I do want to acknowledge, though, that there is really a significant diversity in terms of local governments across BC,

[5:24:01] Voice 2: see and we see that a lot whether it's dealing with the city of Vancouver or a very small little

[5:24:06] Voice 2: village you know the geography population and financial resources of each local government is

[5:24:12] Voice 2: very varied so this of course this leads to variations and how bylaw enforcement practices

[5:24:17] Voice 2: are developed and also administered in different regions and of course local governments have

[5:24:23] Voice 2: different community standards and values and the bylaws reflect those values as and as they evolve

[5:24:28] Voice 2: involve community standards and values change. So the Islands Trust is obviously a very unique

[5:24:36] Voice 2: special purpose government within the province, but of course you have that power to regulate

[5:24:41] Voice 2: land use, which includes developing, administering, and enforcing those land use bylaws. So let's

[5:24:48] Voice 2: talk now more specifically about bylaw enforcement best practices. And again, I'm just touching,

[5:24:54] Voice 2: just scratching the surface today, but there's quite a lot of information in our bylaw enforcement

[5:24:57] Voice 2: guide. So in terms of best practices, I want to start with the role of council in fair bylaw

[5:25:04] Voice 2: enforcement. Council plays a very important role in setting up a real framework for bylaw

[5:25:09] Voice 2: enforcement within their community. In addition to ensuring that your bylaws are enforceable,

[5:25:15] Voice 2: it's really important that council develop a clear and well-drafted bylaw enforcement policy

[5:25:20] Voice 2: that's going to help guide their staff in exercising their discretion in bylaw enforcement.

[5:25:26] Voice 2: We're aware that the Islands Trust has a bylaw compliance and enforcement policy, and it actually refers to our bylaw enforcement guide which is great. Our guide speaks about this in detail but just a few things to highlight for you today.

[5:25:40] Voice 2: As I'm sure you're all aware, and it was mentioned a few minutes ago in the question period, bylaw enforcement is really about discretionary decision making and in most cases, unless the bylaw requires enforcement of a specific thing.

[5:25:52] Voice 2: it is up to the local government to decide whether and how to enforce it and this really broad

[5:25:58] Voice 2: discretion is supported by a number of court decisions the courts have given wide discretion

[5:26:03] Voice 2: to local governments to decide when and whether to enforce bylaws so of course it's really important

[5:26:09] Voice 2: that staff exercise their discretion fairly and having a clear bylaw enforcement policy can

[5:26:14] Voice 2: certainly help with this because policy framework is a vehicle that provides information and notice

[5:26:21] Voice 2: to residents it's also really important and helpful to set reasonable expectations about

[5:26:26] Voice 2: bylaw enforcement services and also a policy such as a bylaw enforcement policy it clarifies the

[5:26:31] Voice 2: local government's priorities and procedures with respect to bylaw enforcement in their community

[5:26:36] Voice 2: so when written policy provides staff with guidance and also limits in terms of exercising

[5:26:42] Voice 2: this discretion that they have it can help to protect against inconsistent arbitrary or unfair

[5:26:48] Voice 2: fair decision making, and it also helps to ensure that similar cases are treated in similar ways.

[5:26:54] Voice 2: Ultimately, as you can see on the slide there, the goal is for local governments to use their

[5:26:58] Voice 2: discretion in a manner that is and is seen to be administratively fair. So digging a little bit

[5:27:07] Voice 2: deeper in terms of what should be within a bylaw enforcement policy, a good bylaw enforcement

[5:27:13] Voice 2: policy that can help guide staff in exercising their discretion is going to include these

[5:27:17] Voice 2: elements that you see on the screen. First, it should set out what the policy is intended to

[5:27:22] Voice 2: achieve, and it should clarify the roles of both staff and council. It should also include the

[5:27:28] Voice 2: local government's approach to bylaw enforcement. So, for instance, a local government, their

[5:27:34] Voice 2: approach may be to always seek voluntary compliance first, or another local government, their approach

[5:27:39] Voice 2: may be simply to make enforcement decisions that are resource-driven. Do they have enough staff to

[5:27:44] Voice 2: do the work. That should be within the policy. It's also really important that the policy is

[5:27:50] Voice 2: written in plain language, easily understood and applied for all stakeholders really, staff,

[5:27:56] Voice 2: council, and the public. And it should explain how complaints are handled in some detail. So

[5:28:02] Voice 2: how they're recorded, acknowledged, prioritized, and also how results of bylaw enforcement

[5:28:09] Voice 2: investigations are communicated. It should also have standard timelines for responding

[5:28:15] Voice 2: to complaints and enforcement activities and it should be flexible enough to cover a variety of

[5:28:20] Voice 2: circumstances where staff must exercise their discretion policies of course they can't cover

[5:28:25] Voice 2: every single scenario no one could write a policy that long so having your policy drafted with this

[5:28:30] Voice 2: in mind is going to allow staff to exercise their full discretion without having it limited or

[5:28:35] Voice 2: fettered it's also really best practice that your bylaw enforcement policy sets out some of

[5:28:43] Voice 2: the considerations that staff should take into account when making those discretionary decisions

[5:28:47] Voice 2: decisions about bylaw enforcement. So these can include things like the nature of the infraction,

[5:28:52] Voice 2: how serious is it, the impact on the individual and the community. Those are all the things that

[5:28:57] Voice 2: they should consider in terms of whether to enforce the bylaw. It can include the number

[5:29:02] Voice 2: of times an infraction has occurred, been reported or investigated, and of course whether there are

[5:29:07] Voice 2: public safety concerns. Your policy should address how the confidentiality of members of the public

[5:29:13] Voice 2: is protected both those raising complaints with the local government as well as those who are

[5:29:19] Voice 2: subject to the to the complaint process. It's really important we find from our perspective

[5:29:25] Voice 2: that bylaw enforcement policies refer back to the applicable legislation and rules in place

[5:29:30] Voice 2: so everything from the local government act and community charter right down to freedom of

[5:29:35] Voice 2: information and protection of privacy legislation and any other relevant bylaws that apply to the

[5:29:40] Voice 2: the work that they do. It should set out the review and appeal procedures for enforcement

[5:29:45] Voice 2: action taken and it should set out some guidance to staff about how repeat or frivolous complaints

[5:29:50] Voice 2: are going to be identified and managed. It's also really integral from our perspective that

[5:29:57] Voice 2: your policy is made available to the public on your website.

[5:30:00] Voice 2: is easily accessible. This helps members of your community to see what your process is for

[5:30:05] Voice 2: receiving and responding to bylaw complaints. And make sure it's accessible in terms of the process

[5:30:11] Voice 2: generally as well. So individuals from the public should be able to access your bylaw complaints

[5:30:16] Voice 2: process, whether in person, over the phone, in writing, or online. Finally, it's really important

[5:30:22] Voice 2: to keep your policies updated by regularly reviewing it to ensure that it continues to meet

[5:30:27] Voice 2: any changing circumstances within the community.

[5:30:33] Voice 2: And I'll speak really briefly now to the role,

[5:30:36] Voice 2: the separate roles, separate and distinct roles

[5:30:38] Voice 2: for by-law enforcement officers, managers, senior staff,

[5:30:41] Voice 2: and also council.

[5:30:43] Voice 2: Defining separate roles is really important.

[5:30:46] Voice 2: When our office in the process of making

[5:30:48] Voice 2: the by-law enforcement guide,

[5:30:50] Voice 2: when we spoke with by-law enforcement staff,

[5:30:52] Voice 2: we heard concerns about council members

[5:30:54] Voice 2: becoming personally involved in,

[5:30:56] Voice 2: or even interfering with by-law enforcement investigations

[5:30:59] Voice 2: on behalf of residents and really our concern with that is is the um the importance of impartiality

[5:31:05] Voice 2: in terms of decision making with regards to bylaw enforcement decision makers must be impartial and

[5:31:11] Voice 2: so if council members become involved that questions the impartiality of of that process

[5:31:16] Voice 2: so it's clear that there should be policy which helps define the role of council

[5:31:19] Voice 2: and council members in that bylaw enforcement process um best practices is to have a written

[5:31:29] Voice 2: bylaw enforcement policy that clearly defines those separate roles of council and also states

[5:31:33] Voice 2: that council members are not involved in the daily enforcement decision making. What it is important

[5:31:39] Voice 2: to recognize is that the role council certainly does have a role and the role of council is that

[5:31:44] Voice 2: what you see on the screen so it's appropriate for council as a whole to establish those overall

[5:31:49] Voice 2: priorities for enforcement to enact the bylaws that are going to be enforced to adopt bylaw

[5:31:54] Voice 2: enforcement policies that provide those guidance that those guidance points to staff and also to

[5:32:00] Voice 2: establish standards of conduct for bylaw enforcement staff. So I just want to provide

[5:32:09] Voice 2: one more case summary. I'll stop here and provide you with this. It's an example of why you should

[5:32:16] Voice 2: have a very thorough and clear bylaw enforcement process and policy and again all of our case

[5:32:20] Voice 2: summaries come from our annual reports which are available on our website. So this case involved

[5:32:25] Voice 2: the enforcement of a bylaw in the city of Surrey so obviously a very much larger local government

[5:32:30] Voice 2: but the same general principles apply to bylaw enforcement generally and so what happened here

[5:32:36] Voice 2: well after paving the driveway in front of his home Jesse was surprised to receive a letter from

[5:32:41] Voice 2: the city which said that the driveway was larger than a local bylaw had allowed the city told him

[5:32:46] Voice 2: that it had to be removed and that failure to comply with this request could result in legal

[5:32:51] Voice 2: action by the city in order to enforce its bylaw.

[5:32:54] Voice 2: Unhappy with the possibility of having to tear up his new driveway,

[5:32:57] Voice 2: Jesse came to our office because he didn't understand the decision

[5:33:00] Voice 2: on the part of the city.

[5:33:02] Voice 2: We investigated and the city said that it had told Jesse that he needed

[5:33:06] Voice 2: a building permit for his driveway.

[5:33:07] Voice 2: Because they viewed the driveway as unpermitted, it could be subject

[5:33:11] Voice 2: to enforcement action by the city.

[5:33:13] Voice 2: However, in response to our investigation, the city noticed an error.

[5:33:17] Voice 2: Jesse's driveway did not exceed the paving area permitted by its bylaw

[5:33:21] Voice 2: as Jesse had originally been told. Jesse actually required a city road and right-of-way permit under

[5:33:26] Voice 2: a different bylaw which he didn't have. We were concerned though because the letter that Jesse

[5:33:31] Voice 2: had received from the city had threatened enforcement action based on the wrong bylaw

[5:33:36] Voice 2: and so as a result of our investigation the city agreed to review and clarify its bylaw enforcement

[5:33:41] Voice 2: process for driveways to ensure that before they threatened the enforcement action they correctly

[5:33:47] Voice 2: identified the bylaw that authorized it to request a property owner to modify, reconstruct, or remove

[5:33:52] Voice 2: a driveway. So the city also agreed to ensure that any letters that threatened to commence bylaw

[5:33:57] Voice 2: enforcement action, they contain precise information about the specific applicable bylaw that the

[5:34:01] Voice 2: property owner is alleged by the city to be in contravention of. And this is a good example to

[5:34:07] Voice 2: share with you today because when our office receives a complaint about bylaw enforcement,

[5:34:11] Voice 2: one of the first things we do is look to the rules. And so in this case, the rules and then

[5:34:16] Voice 2: the process followed to enforce them needed to be properly followed. Just want to tie the role of

[5:34:25] Voice 2: council and bylaw enforcement back to our fairness triangle for simplicity. So the role of council

[5:34:31] Voice 2: relates to all three sides. With the process side of the fairness triangle, the trust council is

[5:34:37] Voice 2: there to ensure that the process followed for bylaw enforcement by the Islands Trust generally

[5:34:42] Voice 2: is carried out in a way that is fair. And this includes ensuring that decision makers have a

[5:34:47] Voice 2: fair process to follow that provides individuals with notice of by-law enforcement decisions.

[5:34:52] Voice 2: It gives them the opportunity to be heard and participate within that process and also to

[5:34:57] Voice 2: receive adequate fulsome reasons for decisions. Looking at the decision side of the Fairness

[5:35:03] Voice 2: Triangle, Council's role in creating and adopting by-laws as well as a by-law enforcement policy,

[5:35:08] Voice 2: it ensures that the rules that by-law enforcement staff follow are also fair.

[5:35:12] Voice 2: And if the rules themselves are fair, then it's much more likely that a fair decision

[5:35:16] Voice 2: regarding bylaw enforcement is going to be made.

[5:35:20] Voice 2: It's also important that these policies provide guidance

[5:35:22] Voice 2: to staff on how to exercise their discretion fairly.

[5:35:25] Voice 2: And finally, looking at fair service can be tied back

[5:35:29] Voice 2: to how the Islands Trust as a whole interacts

[5:35:31] Voice 2: with those who are subject to its bylaws.

[5:35:33] Voice 2: So this includes things like having accessible information

[5:35:36] Voice 2: about bylaw enforcement and really looking at how complaints

[5:35:40] Voice 2: are handled regarding bylaw enforcement

[5:35:42] Voice 2: by the Islands Trust.

[5:35:43] Voice 2: Just a few more slides before we turn it over to questions. So I'm going to talk a little bit about investigations, another important aspect of bylaw enforcement, and again, much more detailed information available in our guide.

[5:35:59] Voice 2: But one of the key takeaways here in terms of conducting bylaw investigations is that it's really important for local governments to maintain a consistent approach to investigations.

[5:36:08] Voice 2: investigations oftentimes the very first decision that needs to be made in relation to bylaw

[5:36:13] Voice 2: complaints is whether to investigate and this is where we do see a wide range of approaches

[5:36:17] Voice 2: from local governments so there are many local governments who simply lack the resources to

[5:36:22] Voice 2: investigate all complaints so they may prioritize the complaints that require immediate action

[5:36:26] Voice 2: they may recommend that complainants take additional steps before making a complaint

[5:36:29] Voice 2: or they might even decline to investigate some complaints entirely but the practice should be

[5:36:35] Voice 2: consistent for the local government. A local government can reasonably exercise its discretion

[5:36:40] Voice 2: not to investigate bylaw complaints by considering the circumstances of the complaint and reviewing

[5:36:44] Voice 2: previous decisions for similar complaints. So as I just highlighted a few minutes ago policy can

[5:36:50] Voice 2: help guide staff on whether on making those decisions about whether or not to investigate

[5:36:55] Voice 2: and then if there is a decision made to investigate the complaint especially with more complex matters

[5:37:01] Voice 2: it's a really good idea for the investigator to develop,

[5:37:04] Voice 2: create and develop an investigation plan.

[5:37:08] Voice 2: And the next question that's going to be asked

[5:37:10] Voice 2: is whether or not to inspect,

[5:37:13] Voice 2: whether an inspection is required.

[5:37:14] Voice 2: So staff should be clearly and specifically authorized

[5:37:16] Voice 2: by council to enter private property

[5:37:18] Voice 2: for the purposes of conducting inspections.

[5:37:21] Voice 2: And it should be outlined in policy

[5:37:23] Voice 2: how inspections are conducted.

[5:37:25] Voice 2: Local government staff should also consider

[5:37:27] Voice 2: whether an inspection is necessary

[5:37:29] Voice 2: in order to investigate the alleged bylaw,

[5:37:31] Voice 2: violation sorry by the violation and wherever possible they should allow the resident time

[5:37:37] Voice 2: to comply with the bylaw without the need for inspection it's a best practice when inspections

[5:37:42] Voice 2: are required staff should consider doing such inspections reasonably with minimal intrusion

[5:37:48] Voice 2: and should ensure that the inspection doesn't infringe on the property owner's charter rights

[5:37:52] Voice 2: and finally this is really important from our perspective as an oversight body

[5:37:56] Voice 2: an investigator should thoroughly document the investigation documentation is obviously going

[5:38:02] Voice 2: to be important if you're going to end up in court or an appeal process in in an appeal process sorry

[5:38:07] Voice 2: but it's really equally important when no enforcement action is likely to occur because

[5:38:11] Voice 2: it helps those later reviewers whether it's staff at the island stress or an oversight body such as

[5:38:15] Voice 2: us understand how the decision was made and why we find too that good documentation also helps by

[5:38:24] Voice 2: bylaw enforcement staff follow an administratively fair process. So it can highlight whether there

[5:38:29] Voice 2: are any gaps in the investigation, whether the process has been fair, and whether those main

[5:38:34] Voice 2: aspects of procedural fairness were followed. So it's really important. Another integral aspect

[5:38:43] Voice 2: of fairness in bylaw enforcement is the enforcement aspect itself. So fairness should,

[5:38:49] Voice 2: of course, be present within the enforcement of bylaws. And a couple of points to mention here

[5:38:55] Voice 2: with respect to this and again all of it is in our guide is that it's best practice that bylaw

[5:39:01] Voice 2: enforcement action should be proportional to the nature of the infraction and consistent with the

[5:39:06] Voice 2: local government's past practices so enforcement measures enforcement measures sorry should

[5:39:12] Voice 2: appropriately address the harm caused by the violation and should also be applied in a way

[5:39:16] Voice 2: that considers the person's individual circumstances so this includes you know taking

[5:39:22] Voice 2: Taking into account the person's ability to comply with the bylaw, to be more equitable in the process of enforcement.

[5:39:29] Voice 2: To illustrate this a little bit further, when dealing with a complaint, perhaps of unsightly premises, like the case summary I shared at the beginning of this presentation,

[5:39:38] Voice 2: if the person appears to be dealing with mental illness, it's appropriate for bylaw enforcement to consider whether enforcement action would be unjust and unlikely to result in compliance.

[5:39:48] Voice 2: So some local governments have started teaming up with mental health professionals. They have community safety officers or work with health authorities to deal with these kinds of concerns. And this coordinated approach we're finding it really addresses the problem and helps them to maintain an equitable approach to bylaw enforcement.

[5:40:06] Voice 2: In addition, reasonable advance warning of enforcement action should be provided to the person who's affected or impacted by it.

[5:40:15] Voice 2: In most cases, providing a warning before enforcement action is a key part of a fair enforcement process.

[5:40:21] Voice 2: This is because it gives the local government a chance to let the resident know about the concerns,

[5:40:27] Voice 2: and it also allows the person to try to come into compliance without the need to resort to enforcement action.

[5:40:32] Voice 2: so sometimes a really simple phone call at this stage can save a local government a lot of money,

[5:40:36] Voice 2: a lot of time and resources. Final best practice for taking enforcement action I want to speak

[5:40:42] Voice 2: to today is to provide a really clear explanation of enforcement decisions as well as information

[5:40:48] Voice 2: about how to appeal. So written decisions are always, sorry, written reasons for decisions

[5:40:52] Voice 2: are always best we find. Even if a person may not agree with the decision, if they have a good

[5:40:57] Voice 2: explanation and they can understand how the decision was made, that may be enough to satisfy

[5:41:02] Voice 2: them. So one more case summary for you today, just to give you an example of the type of complaints

[5:41:11] Voice 2: we receive in relation to inspections for bylaw enforcement. And again, these summaries are all

[5:41:17] Voice 2: from our annual reports available on our website. So in this case, Chris contacted our office

[5:41:23] Voice 2: because they were concerned that the district inspected their property and house without their

[5:41:27] Voice 2: permission, following complaints from neighbors that they were using their property as a campground.

[5:41:32] Voice 2: our office investigated and we noted that the district's records were silent regarding the

[5:41:38] Voice 2: lack of consent that Chris had described and so although the district had the authority to enter

[5:41:43] Voice 2: the home we would expect that a local government do so in the fairest way possible and in Chris's

[5:41:49] Voice 2: case the inspection of his property had included inspection of closets in the house that did not

[5:41:54] Voice 2: appear to be in any way connected to the potential operation of a campground so our investigation

[5:42:01] Voice 2: The investigation confirmed that consent for entry had not been obtained by the homeowner prior to the search, and also adequate reasons for the inspection hadn't been provided to him.

[5:42:12] Voice 2: As a result of our investigation the district actually committed to amending their bylaw to obtain and document consent before entering a private dwelling, and also to conduct inspections that were as minimally intrusive as possible, and connected to the

[5:42:25] Voice 2: alleged bylaw contravention. So we think it's a really good example to share with you. It highlights

[5:42:30] Voice 2: some aspects of a fair process in the context of bylaw inspections completed by bylaw enforcement

[5:42:36] Voice 2: staff in the course

[5:42:38] Voice 13: of their investigation.

[5:42:43] Voice 2: So that completes the primary content of our

[5:42:46] Voice 2: presentation in terms of local government, administrative fairness for local governments,

[5:42:50] Voice 2: in particular the context of bylaw enforcement. I just want to briefly acknowledge though that we

[5:42:56] Voice 2: We have a number of different resources that are available on our website and we would encourage you to take a look at.

[5:43:01] Voice 2: We have a Fairness 101 course. It's a really basic but useful online course on administrative fairness.

[5:43:10] Voice 2: It provides a really great overview and it teaches participants how to recognize and apply the key elements of fairness in their everyday role.

[5:43:17] Voice 2: A number of organizations across the province are actually starting to use it as part of their onboarding.

[5:43:22] Voice 2: so we're quite proud of it. We also have a number of guides available on our website including of

[5:43:27] Voice 2: course our bylaw enforcement guide but also our complaint handling guide. It's focused on helping

[5:43:33] Voice 2: all public sector organizations deal with complaints fairly efficiently and effectively

[5:43:38] Voice 2: and then we do have a number of different quick tip fact sheets. These are all one to three page

[5:43:44] Voice 2: documents that can be used as a quick reference guide. They cover specific topics such as

[5:43:49] Voice 2: effective communication the essential steps to making a fair decision we also have one on bias

[5:43:55] Voice 2: etc we do have these three specific resources that are tailored to the local government sector

[5:44:02] Voice 2: we have the bylaw enforcement guide we have a quick tip on complaint handling for local

[5:44:08] Voice 2: governments this is a resource that's meant as a supplement to our main complaint handling guide

[5:44:12] Voice 2: but it highlights some of the things that are unique to local governments in terms of complaint

[5:44:16] Voice 2: complaint handling and we have a guide called open meetings best practices for local governments

[5:44:21] Voice 2: that you might find useful so again all of our resources are available on our website

[5:44:26] Voice 2: okay sarah did i miss anything or should we turn it over to questions

[5:44:35] Voice 10: that's a great question did i miss anything you certainly provided us with a very comprehensive

[5:44:41] Voice 10: review of uh your work and very much appreciate that sarah and jennifer i think it is and so i'm

[5:44:48] Voice 10: to go to council and ask are there any questions did they miss anything that you'd like to know

[5:44:52] Voice 10: more about and so council do you have any questions i see alex allen from hornby island

[5:44:59] Voice 6: yeah thanks it was a great presentation i'm just wondering can you explain the concept of minimal

[5:45:03] Voice 6: intrusion

[5:45:04] Voice 2: oh that's a good question um i mean i think it's proportionate i mean it's always

[5:45:09] Voice 2: context dependent fairness generally is always context dependent so in the case summary that

[5:45:16] Voice 2: that we provided about the inspection of closets.

[5:45:19] Voice 2: That was not certainly connected to an inspection

[5:45:23] Voice 2: to see if there was a campground on the property.

[5:45:26] Voice 2: So it's gonna depend on the proportionate harm of,

[5:45:32] Voice 2: it's gonna depend on the specific alleged bylaw infraction

[5:45:34] Voice 2: and then what's necessary in terms of the evidence

[5:45:37] Voice 2: of the bylaw inspection folks to satisfy themselves

[5:45:40] Voice 2: that there was an infraction that occurred.

[5:45:41] Voice 2: So, I mean, I think if you can call a person

[5:45:46] Voice 2: instead of inspecting their property in person and that's going to satisfy a bylaw enforcement

[5:45:51] Voice 2: officer then do that one of the things we would ask is you know why the inspection uh what were

[5:45:57] Voice 2: the what were the decision making processes that led to the bylaw enforcement officer deciding to

[5:46:02] Voice 2: make deciding to to inspect a property things like that and it's always going to be context dependent

[5:46:09] Voice 10: okay thank you and i'll

[5:46:11] Voice 6: let you have

[5:46:11] Voice 10: a follow-up

[5:46:11] Voice 6: yeah i just um you know i have heard sometimes

[5:46:15] Voice 6: Sometimes when a bylaw officer goes to a property for a specific offense or misdemeanor or whatever you want to call it, and then they see something else.

[5:46:25] Voice 6: And that seems to happen a lot.

[5:46:27] Voice 6: And I just wonder, it's, you know, I'm just trying to think, is that fair?

[5:46:32] Voice 6: In terms of, you know, they go for one specific thing and then say, oh, you got chickens, you're not allowed to have chickens because your property is too small or something like that.

[5:46:40] Voice 6: Yeah,

[5:46:42] Voice 2: I mean, I think that speaks to the importance of having a really clear and comprehensive bylaw enforcement policy that sets out the priorities of which enforcement staff are to follow in terms of bylaw enforcement.

[5:46:55] Voice 2: So if they're on a property for one alleged bylaw inspection and they see chickens, is that different than if they see an oil tank that's leaking or something like that?

[5:47:04] Voice 2: i'm just i'm just using an example so i think it depends it depends on the priorities as set out in

[5:47:09] Voice 2: the policy the trust council's policy and also on the on the um significance of the potential

[5:47:17] Voice 2: infraction okay

[5:47:20] Voice 10: thank you and david graham i see you online there go ahead

[5:47:24] Voice 8: thank you chair and a

[5:47:26] Voice 8: very good presentation thank you of the of the many thousands of complaints you have i'm curious

[5:47:31] Voice 8: to know if you have a category for people who have been removed from illegal dwellings. I know

[5:47:38] Voice 8: on the Gulf Islands and the Islands Trust, that is the most contentious bylaw infraction issue for us.

[5:47:47] Voice 8: Inanimate problems, the fence too high, the fence too close, blah, blah, blah. When it doesn't

[5:47:52] Voice 8: involve people, it seems pretty easy to deal with. But when you're dealing with someone who's living

[5:47:55] Voice 8: in an illegal dwelling and there's no other place for them to go, that's got to be one of the

[5:48:02] Voice 8: toughest areas of complaint and violent enforcement that we deal with and probably for municipalities

[5:48:07] Voice 8: also. If you could just comment on that, I appreciate it. Thank you.

[5:48:11] Voice 2: Yeah, I think, well,

[5:48:13] Voice 2: we've certainly noticed a trend for local governments to have what I had referred to as

[5:48:19] Voice 2: the CSOs, community safety officers. So I know a number of different local governments are starting

[5:48:24] Voice 2: to have those and they're not they still have an aim to enforcement in terms of the bylaws

[5:48:30] Voice 2: but they're also they almost take on a social worker role as well on behalf of the of the local

[5:48:36] Voice 2: government and so they kind of fill that void between a tough stance on enforcement um versus

[5:48:42] Voice 2: you know trying to at least where they're able to connect individuals with services that may

[5:48:47] Voice 2: be appropriate that actually lead them to being able to comply with the bylaw um so if they if

[5:48:52] Voice 2: If they can refer them to some housing organizations or shelters, that helps kind of, it helps both parties, right?

[5:48:59] Voice 2: It helps them to comply and it helps get that person out of an illegal dwelling.

[5:49:07] Voice 10: Okay, thank you.

[5:49:08] Voice 10: Any other questions at the table?

[5:49:12] Voice 10: Doug Flack and Joe Bernardo.

[5:49:16] Voice 37: Yeah, thank you.

[5:49:17] Voice 37: Thank you both for a great presentation.

[5:49:19] Voice 37: I just wondered, have any groups adopted your guide as a policy or taken your work and just basically adopted it?

[5:49:32] Voice 2: I think so. It's hard to say because, of course, when they adopt all the principles as laid out in our guide, then we don't get as many complaints.

[5:49:40] Voice 2: But yes, and I should add that I think Stéphane had mentioned at the beginning, we also provide consultation services.

[5:49:49] Voice 2: And so if organizations are in the process of revising or creating new policies in relation to bylaw enforcement, we can review those policies and give them some pointers or highlight certain things within our best practices guide that they may want to take into consideration.

[5:50:05] Voice 2: So the short answer is yes, I believe that organizations are taking our best practices, or at least I hope organizations are taking our best practices into consideration.

[5:50:15] Voice 2: Does that answer your question?

[5:50:18] Voice 37: Yes, it does. Yeah, thank you.

[5:50:19] Voice 37: Thank you. So, Joe Bernardo.

[5:50:22] Voice 16: Thank you. Happily, Doug's question just leads up to mine. This process where the ombudsman's

[5:50:33] Voice 16: person's office will engage in essentially a third party review of a local government's

[5:50:38] Voice 16: enforcement component. How does that happen? How do we get that started if that's something

[5:50:45] Voice 16: we're interested in doing?

[5:50:46] Voice 16: Yeah,

[5:50:47] Voice 2: quite simply. So I'm part of our office's public authority consultation and training team. And we work quite separately and distinctly. We are a separate team and we work differently than our investigative teams in the office. So we're not tied to investigations and we do things with authorities rather than complainants.

[5:51:07] Voice 2: so individuals from public authorities just contact us um and can connect with us around

[5:51:13] Voice 2: certain policies that they want reviewed or certain questions that they may have and then

[5:51:18] Voice 2: depending on our capacity at the time we take those into consideration and work with the authority in

[5:51:23] Voice 2: terms of producing some sort of a product whether it be just comments on a policy or or a larger

[5:51:29] Voice 2: more formal type of memo or report so it's quite informal our services um but yep you can just

[5:51:36] Voice 2: just email us. I know Stephen has my email. He can reach out at any point and we can get that

[5:51:40] Voice 2: ball rolling.

[5:51:43] Voice 1: Just one quick thing to add to that too, just going back to the illegal dwelling

[5:51:47] Voice 1: question. You know, I guess from our perspective, just on our investigative side, the other side of

[5:51:54] Voice 1: the office that Jen was talking about is encouraging people who may be in those situations

[5:52:00] Voice 1: to contact our office. It's difficult for us to address these issues if we're not receiving

[5:52:06] Voice 1: individual complaints about them so you know when in doubt we always tell people to give us a call

[5:52:12] Voice 1: um if it's not something we can look at we can certainly refer people to um a process that can

[5:52:18] Voice 1: help them more nimbly but um those kinds of issues we definitely would want to take a look at

[5:52:24] Voice 1: but we need those individual complaints to be able to do that so just just to reinforce that

[5:52:31] Voice 17: uh

[5:52:31] Voice 16: i've got a question for miss jones uh i take it you heard the back and forth we had a little

[5:52:38] Voice 16: bit before about our screening process yes

[5:52:41] Voice 13: do

[5:52:43] Voice 16: you have any comments about that i

[5:52:46] Voice 2: think um i mean i

[5:52:49] Voice 2: think that that would be a fabulous aspect of a consultation with our team um i yeah i would love

[5:52:54] Voice 2: to sit down and kind of be able to map that out

[5:52:56] Voice 2: a little bit more i wasn't entirely clear on on

[5:52:59] Voice 2: on the process followed by the Islands Trust.

[5:53:01] Voice 2: So I'd be happy, our team would be happy to sit down

[5:53:04] Voice 2: and kind of look at that a little bit closer

[5:53:05] Voice 2: and in more detail and then see if we had any comments

[5:53:08] Voice 2: from our perspective on administrative fairness.

[5:53:10] Voice 2: That's really what we comment on.

[5:53:12] Voice 16: Well, you might get your chance.

[5:53:14] Voice 16: We'll see, thank you.

[5:53:15] Voice 16: Thank you, Deb Morrison.

[5:53:17] Voice 35: Yeah, and maybe just to follow up on that.

[5:53:21] Voice 35: One of the things that you named was the idea

[5:53:24] Voice 35: that elected officials need to stay out

[5:53:27] Voice 35: in terms of a fair net stay out of like decision making until it comes down to sort of um like

[5:53:36] Voice 35: enter into the decision making process at the appropriate moment i guess is the way that you

[5:53:40] Voice 35: framed it and you had some kind of like four bullets related to what we should be doing as

[5:53:46] Voice 35: elected officials kind of in that area so um the one area i think that we get a little bit gray on

[5:53:52] Voice 35: here is um where in that process of screening elected officials have a say or don't or shouldn't

[5:54:02] Voice 35: because they they have to weigh in later on in terms of whether to take things further in terms

[5:54:07] Voice 35: of uh court actions or other things if you have any comments on that um

[5:54:14] Voice 2: yeah i think well two

[5:54:16] Voice 2: things to refer you to is we we do have that really great quick tip on on bias in decision

[5:54:20] Voice 2: decision making and the importance of impartiality in terms of having a fair process and a fair

[5:54:24] Voice 2: decision maker. And we also

[5:54:26] Voice 2: have a great quick tip on leading practices in appeals. And one aspect,

[5:54:31] Voice 2: one really important aspect of administrative fairness is that the decision maker on appeal

[5:54:35] Voice 2: shouldn't be aware of, shouldn't have been involved in the original decision. And so I

[5:54:42] Voice 2: think that that probably ties into what you're speaking about. Because council, if they're going

[5:54:47] Voice 2: going to be the the appeal kind of aspect of a bylaw enforcement decision they shouldn't have

[5:54:53] Voice 2: any prior knowledge of the original decision made and and if they did that would question

[5:54:57] Voice 2: their impartiality thank

[5:55:01] Voice 23: you any other questions council no looks

[5:55:08] Voice 10: like we're good here you've uh

[5:55:10] Voice 10: obviously helped and um uh maybe i'll just ask a brief question and in preparing for your uh

[5:55:16] Voice 10: meeting with us today have you had a look at any of our policies to sort of get a feel for where

[5:55:23] Voice 10: we're at yeah

[5:55:24] Voice 2: i have your bylaw compliance and enforcement policy here and i know you

[5:55:28] Voice 2: have a administrative fairness principles i think policy that's a blanket policy for the islands

[5:55:32] Voice 2: trust um yeah i have taken a look yeah i think the bylaw enforcement policy um is brief it has

[5:55:40] Voice 2: some good aspects but it's only three pages long so i do think that there could be some improvements

[5:55:45] Voice 2: made um if you wanted to engage with our consultation processes we could look at that

[5:55:49] Voice 2: further yet right

[5:55:50] Voice 10: okay well that sounds worthwhile and i want to just thank you for the work that you

[5:55:53] Voice 10: have done on behalf of the honest trust because i know you've seen files from us and thank you for

[5:55:58] Voice 10: that work so thank you for joining us today and we'll go about about the rest of our business now

[5:56:03] Voice 10: thank

[5:56:04] Voice 2: you for having us so

[5:56:07] Voice 10: council this might seem like a novel concept although it's a little

[5:56:11] Voice 10: bit on the lame side i'm going to suggest we go for coffee early and and come back uh in 15 minutes

[5:56:17] Voice 10: which would be about 10 minutes after three,

[5:56:21] Voice 10: and we'll continue with the remainder of the session.

[5:56:24] Voice 10: All right?

[5:56:25] Voice 10: So let's just recess for 15 minutes and come back.

[5:56:28] Voice 10: Stretch your legs,

[5:56:29] Voice 10: because we're going to run right through to the end today.

[5:56:33] Voice 23: Peter.

[6:12:07] Voice 23: Okay, trustees, let's return to our seats.

[6:12:51] Voice 10: So you're doing okay, David Graham?

[6:12:55] Voice 10: Awesome.

[6:12:55] Voice 10: Nice to see you.

[6:12:56] Voice 10: Sorry you couldn't be with us.

[6:12:58] Voice 10: All right.

[6:13:02] Voice 10: So we have, trustees, we have the CAO waiting to share with us his thoughts.

[6:13:22] Voice 10: Okay, everybody, thank you.

[6:13:32] Voice 10: So I'm going to thank you in advance.

[6:13:34] Voice 10: I'm going to need some help to get through the rest of this agenda.

[6:13:36] Voice 10: Brenda. I think I told you we've delayed dinner until six o'clock. And of course, Grant Scott

[6:13:42] Voice 10: is reminding me that there's a video. He really wants you to see this 10 minutes.

[6:13:47] Voice 10: And so we'll squeeze that in where we can. And we're going to push through this. So

[6:13:54] Voice 10: with your permission, I'm asking the CAO to do a brief summary on where we're at as far as bylaw

[6:14:01] Voice 10: policies go and then it might be simpler just to move to a Q&A rather than having a lot more

[6:14:08] Voice 10: talking about stuff and in that Q&A I'd ask you to keep it to things we can talk about in public

[6:14:17] Voice 10: and so if it's about individuals staff or complainants or individual cases on islands

[6:14:24] Voice 10: that that would be in camera so just keep it to process and policy that would be terrific

[6:14:30] Voice 10: And then if we can shorten this section up from the over an hour that's scheduled for it, then that'll give us the opportunity to go back to the budget.

[6:14:39] Voice 10: And again, if you have any amendments that you want to make to the budget, do make sure that you've got them over to Laurie so that she can bring them up, because I'm going to want to pretty much walk through that in a reasonable pace.

[6:14:51] Voice 10: So thank you very much for returning.

[6:14:53] Voice 10: And CAO Hudson-Piller, over to you on bylaw enforcement.

[6:14:57] Voice 10: Thanks, Mr. Chair.

[6:14:58] Voice 10: How's the sound?

[6:15:00] Voice 10: uh

[6:15:00] Voice 7: i'm missing a

[6:15:01] Voice 23: little a little stand

[6:15:09] Voice 7: so um oh god that's better that's better yeah so thank you very much uh just want to acknowledge

[6:15:17] Voice 7: that that you just gotten a lot over the last hour and a half uh two hours with the guards

[6:15:23] Voice 7: by law enforcement and this follows you know your your request for you know a global session

[6:15:29] Voice 7: on this function and i'm under no illusions that this is the the end of this discussion this is

[6:15:35] Voice 7: probably the start of this discussion we so we've done three things one we

[6:15:42] Voice 7: provided the session at hand we brought some outside speakers in to give you

[6:15:47] Voice 7: some context the next is we've just written a report that you'll find on

[6:15:52] Voice 7: page 419 which is a you know your direction to us was quite general we've

[6:15:57] Voice 7: come back with sort of an overview report for you I can walk through some

[6:16:01] Voice 7: pieces of that if you wish and respond to some questions um i don't know how much detail you

[6:16:06] Voice 7: want to go into right now or you want to sit on the information and um refer some of this perhaps

[6:16:12] Voice 7: to the next trust council or or task us with something else um i will say that the report

[6:16:18] Voice 7: you've got in front of you for the most part is a factual or process overview um that it would

[6:16:24] Voice 7: have felt disingenuous to not include some bit of analysis um and so on the back half of it there is

[6:16:30] Voice 7: some analysis that provides for the some of the strengths and weaknesses of our current system

[6:16:36] Voice 7: uh there are very many areas to focus on however there's issues of concern being made with regards

[6:16:42] Voice 7: to uh you know uh the discretion uh the strictness of the enforcement practice um conduct and the

[6:16:48] Voice 7: appeal process uh you know and also acknowledging right off the bat that uh we've we're going to

[6:16:55] Voice 7: to report to you to the best of our ability um as clearly as we can but uh sometimes you know you

[6:17:01] Voice 7: don't know what you look like in the mirror and we might not be the best people to provide an

[6:17:07] Voice 7: analysis that takes you to the next uh decision making place though we are the people that will

[6:17:11] Voice 7: ultimately deliver on whatever that is so i offer that um consideration um so key elements of the

[6:17:19] Voice 7: report uh you know we start uh with uh our authorities i think that's fairly well explained

[6:17:25] Voice 7: around section 28 um of local government act and that there's indeed different functions of the

[6:17:30] Voice 7: islands trust the global one um that's expressed by trust council itself and then the local trust

[6:17:36] Voice 7: committees which who really have who bear the brunt of the enforcement process and set out

[6:17:40] Voice 7: those rules um many of which you have in common but i'm hoping you're taking the point that each

[6:17:45] Voice 7: of you have some variation in emphasis or priority um and you've also adopted um different means the

[6:17:53] Voice 7: BVN process or not in how you deal with bylaw enforcement. Just a minor reflection. Four years

[6:18:01] Voice 7: ago, I sat in front of this body, and the message from you, and I guess I'll point to the trustees

[6:18:07] Voice 7: who were in the room at the time, was we need more bylaw enforcement. We need to close more files.

[6:18:14] Voice 7: And you hired another bylaw enforcement officer, which we did, and said go out there and get

[6:18:20] Voice 7: get things done so um always a process of reconsideration of course you'll note that

[6:18:27] Voice 7: and even the ombuds people they noted that uh well i think this policy has the germ of some

[6:18:32] Voice 7: good things in it and it has inside it some of the things that were referenced it's short

[6:18:37] Voice 7: and it's not explicit and it's been amended you know created in 95 it's functioned reasonably

[6:18:44] Voice 7: reasonably well, last amended in 2021.

[6:18:48] Voice 7: So I've preferred the by-law,

[6:18:49] Voice 7: enforcement by-laws that you should have your own.

[6:18:52] Voice 7: We have a by-law compliance and enforcement policy.

[6:18:56] Voice 7: We are, you know, I heard the question,

[6:18:59] Voice 7: are any jurisdictions harmonized

[6:19:01] Voice 7: with the Ombudsman's best practices?

[6:19:02] Voice 7: We would contend that we do.

[6:19:05] Voice 7: We refer to that document and it has been, you know,

[6:19:09] Voice 7: the guiding document for our practices.

[6:19:14] Voice 7: And the question is, how does that land at the end of the day out on the street?

[6:19:20] Voice 7: A bit of history around the last time there was a significant analysis of the bylaw function in 2007, the Roycroft report.

[6:19:29] Voice 7: And then we went through a current day-to-day practices, because keeping in mind that some of you might not have gone through what would be a typical investigation or process when a complaint is filed.

[6:19:38] Voice 7: filed. Keeping in mind that the main engine for bylaw enforcement is complaints. So it's a 75%

[6:19:48] Voice 7: complaint driven process. And each of you or not have then made specific motions to say,

[6:19:58] Voice 7: for these particular things, these are standing activities that bylaw enforcement would occur

[6:20:03] Voice 7: associated with. So some of those standing resolutions. So that's part of the network

[6:20:08] Voice 7: of what's going on the reporting process um we're not a deep organization obviously we have the

[6:20:15] Voice 7: bylaw enforcement manager who has his reportees um reporting on um daily bylaw violations would

[6:20:25] Voice 7: go to him he would then have regular meetings with the director of planning and then traditionally

[6:20:31] Voice 7: my role has been um i deal with citizens who feel that they have not been dealt with fairly

[6:20:35] Voice 7: and i will speak with them and um i'll of course go over the overview or the general statistics

[6:20:41] Voice 7: associated with the function and report out to executive committee and trust council there's

[6:20:46] Voice 7: some discussion around the investigative process and then appeals i know appeals has been something

[6:20:51] Voice 7: that's come up is there an appeal process here and um if we separate appeals into two

[6:20:58] Voice 7: i think it's reasonably complicated and not um completely um intellectually accessible to

[6:21:04] Voice 7: to everybody. If there's a BVN process, there's a built-in appeal process that's outside of the

[6:21:09] Voice 7: trust through the education process. So you heard that described, right? For those that do not have

[6:21:16] Voice 7: that, the appeal process is essentially is working through the levels of the organization until you

[6:21:22] Voice 7: get to the local trust committee for a decision. But by then, it's decisions made and investigations

[6:21:27] Voice 7: being opened and actions are being undertaken. When we get to staff conduct or trustee conduct

[6:21:34] Voice 7: or any of those matters we have a separate administrative fairness policy and that's

[6:21:39] Voice 7: policy you know in my time has been exercised four or five times a year um not always associated

[6:21:47] Voice 7: with bylaw enforcement fairly rarely but that would be a means that a citizen would so there

[6:21:51] Voice 7: is something in place to address that it's that policy and that would flow through if it was staff

[6:21:57] Voice 7: conduct it would go to initially myself for initial reading and if that was unsatisfactory

[6:22:03] Voice 7: there could be an appeal process to the executive committee so i know that you'll look to that and

[6:22:08] Voice 7: go is that robust enough is that working um i am unaware in my experience which is not

[6:22:18] Voice 7: insignificant but it's somewhat significant i'm not aware of an agency that has an appeal process

[6:22:24] Voice 7: other than described outside of the jurisdiction itself does that make sense so um that's something

[6:22:36] Voice 7: need to be thought through i'm not aware of it generally if you have like a land use authority

[6:22:41] Voice 7: the appeal process exists within it the question might be how is that worked out within the

[6:22:46] Voice 7: organization itself um we've had some discussion around the screening officer the screening

[6:22:52] Voice 7: officer staff positions um they're graduated as has been described um and um we had a series of

[6:23:00] Voice 7: questions associated with it um of course the appeal process and the ombudsperson i speak with

[6:23:06] Voice 7: them on a fairly regular basis maybe three or four times a year we've had to my mind no no

[6:23:13] Voice 7: determinations that have gone against the islands trust um in the last number of years that i've

[6:23:17] Voice 7: been here or previously we did some digging around that and asked the honest person for that for some

[6:23:23] Voice 7: of those results which we just briefly summarized here in this in this report the question of

[6:23:30] Voice 7: discretion and proportionality um i would suggest that that that it is exercised somewhat in the

[6:23:39] Voice 7: field but we haven't described that specifically um throughout the organization we've tended to

[6:23:46] Voice 7: have the ltcs be the holders of discretion but by the time it gets there the process is in place

[6:23:54] Voice 7: um as warren has described i think his belief is that discretion is relatively limited and it's

[6:24:01] Voice 7: associated with the time allowed for someone to comply that's a different type of discretion as

[6:24:08] Voice 7: opposed to whether something should be moving forward in the first place uh the mediation

[6:24:13] Voice 7: process i think is a bit understood as is applies to the islands trust it's been one between

[6:24:18] Voice 7: neighbors not mediation between the organization and the citizen and not used a tremendous amount

[6:24:27] Voice 7: amount? No, hasn't been used a tremendous amount. We provide you some relevant statistics. We have

[6:24:34] Voice 7: about 600 files open right now. We close about 180 a year. We open about 250. We've got, of course,

[6:24:43] Voice 7: standing resolutions of about 115 and then by written complaint 455. Complaints about conduct

[6:24:52] Voice 7: over the last 10 years, we've had six that we've gone through around specifically around how the

[6:24:58] Voice 7: how the we've had a complaint from the citizen around how they've been dealt with um and uh i

[6:25:04] Voice 7: think three of those went to the ombudsperson oh just one in this case and the complaint resulted

[6:25:11] Voice 7: in no action so then in section five analysis and issue identification um you know i would say that

[6:25:20] Voice 7: 80 to 90 percent of all of the files that are considered are closed and you really don't know

[6:25:25] Voice 7: about it um so there's some version of compliance achievement is occurring um and the the challenging

[6:25:35] Voice 7: files exist and move forward and do we have a a vibrant enough process to to deal with those

[6:25:42] Voice 7: questions of equity and fairness so um heard and take very seriously some of the concerns

[6:25:47] Voice 7: that were expressed at the last trust council at least an individual expressed those and you

[6:25:51] Voice 7: re-express them and ask for some some questions uh ask some questions um we've looked at this

[6:25:58] Voice 7: has been other than the budget the preeminent thing that we've been taking a look at over the

[6:26:01] Voice 7: last couple of months um you know the question of is there a disproportionality around targeting

[6:26:07] Voice 7: certain individuals um or not um and i can't find it so you need to have somebody else come and find

[6:26:16] Voice 7: that i can't find data that supports a certain type of landowner is proportionally targeted

[6:26:21] Voice 7: more than others we're a response agency um for the most part and we reply based on those

[6:26:28] Voice 7: complaints uh the appeal process um there's um you know the the speaking of is there an adequate

[6:26:35] Voice 7: appeal process at the allen's trust i've described it to you it's going to be for you to determine

[6:26:40] Voice 7: whether that is meet the bar.

[6:26:45] Voice 7: Predetermined guilt.

[6:26:46] Voice 7: Is guilt presumed through the complaint

[6:26:47] Voice 7: and bylaw enforcement process?

[6:26:51] Voice 7: Well, we investigate all complaints

[6:26:54] Voice 7: before any determination or a contra...

[6:26:57] Voice 7: not an operating principle

[6:27:00] Voice 7: that I can say standing here

[6:27:02] Voice 7: that people are guilty,

[6:27:04] Voice 7: but if someone phones in with a complaint,

[6:27:06] Voice 7: we investigate that complaint.

[6:27:07] Voice 7: So if that turns on the notion

[6:27:10] Voice 7: that someone can complain on somebody and then someone will come and and investigate you that

[6:27:16] Voice 7: that that definitely does occur and then of course uh most concerningly are citizens bullied by you

[6:27:22] Voice 7: the violent enforcement staff or the process itself i've described to you the number of um

[6:27:28] Voice 7: complaints we've had over the last number of years um it it can occur i guess but i'm not seeing

[6:27:35] Voice 7: significant evidence associated that when we go through our files we go through the ombuds

[6:27:39] Voice 7: person's reports. Staff are required to abide by a code of conduct, but that code of conduct is

[6:27:47] Voice 7: the one that covers your conduct and ours. It's the provincial standard. There's not an explicit

[6:27:53] Voice 7: separate code of conduct for either myself or anyone else who's in a particular function at

[6:27:59] Voice 7: the Allens Trust. So that's a consideration. What can be done differently? Initially,

[6:28:06] Voice 7: the Trust Council may wish to undertake an independent analysis of the function and seek

[6:28:09] Voice 7: some recommendations. We'll follow your lead there as you contemplate this. There may be a

[6:28:16] Voice 7: consideration of a more robust definition of practice associated with proportionality and

[6:28:20] Voice 7: discretion. It has tended to be at the LTC level. Do we want to describe that more clearly and

[6:28:28] Voice 7: provide more discretion at the officer level? That's a consideration for the future. A more

[6:28:35] Voice 7: formal appeal process for determinations as well um a review of the administrative fairness process

[6:28:41] Voice 7: does that to my mind it's it's worked um does it work well enough uh the previous council had a

[6:28:49] Voice 7: policy of giving respondents 90 days before any legal action should be initiated um that was

[6:28:55] Voice 7: removed um warren would have all the details associated with why that happened um that might

[6:28:59] Voice 7: be um it might be some value in reinstating that um the primary goal of the policy is is of the

[6:29:07] Voice 7: compliance enforcement policy is to seek voluntary compliance and time tends to be one of the critical

[6:29:13] Voice 7: elements associated with that uh ltcs could adopt their own policies for time to comply

[6:29:19] Voice 7: and you may want to reconsider or consider the use of standing resolutions and how they're applied

[6:29:27] Voice 7: throughout the region certainly if an ltc says this really matters to us and they pass a standing

[6:29:33] Voice 7: resolution quite often what where you will see someone going to close a file and they're on

[6:29:40] Voice 7: property and they see some other violation that is associated with the standing resolution of the

[6:29:46] Voice 7: local trust committee to address that second like whether it's a derelict you're there for one

[6:29:51] Voice 7: reason and there's a derelict vehicle there because there's a standing resolution there

[6:29:56] Voice 7: there isn't that discretion provided to the officer in the field.

[6:30:00] Voice 7: Um, and ultimately council could consider a more specifically, uh, or investigate the concept of how does bylaw enforcement reinforce planning, which is reinforcing the mandate and object of the Allen's trust over some sustained period of time, which obviously has an environmental mandate.

[6:30:21] Voice 7: And that could be it is, but it could be more explicitly discussed around how those criteria go from enforcement planning and to the object of the trust itself.

[6:30:32] Voice 7: So that's this initial report. Hopefully it's to your satisfaction.

[6:30:36] Voice 7: And I turn it back to you. I know you have lots of other things to consider, but you take any questions, of course.

[6:30:42] Voice 10: OK, thank you very much, CEO, for that summary.

[6:30:45] Voice 10: summary. And so, indeed, let's go to questions. And I see Joe Bernardo's hand up. And I see Tim

[6:30:50] Voice 10: Peterson. Anybody else? Get your hand up now.

[6:30:59] Voice 16: CAO, thank you for the presentation. That's

[6:31:00] Voice 16: helpful. I've read it. It covers the basis. And I think it's fair enough in terms of it's

[6:31:06] Voice 16: representing where we are today. But of course, the reason we're even having this discussion is

[6:31:13] Voice 16: there are currents flowing around that people are less than satisfied with how things are

[6:31:18] Voice 16: working today but we also which was revealed in the questions that came out uh none of us seems

[6:31:25] Voice 16: to have a really clear uh sense of the structure and uh that's i think that you know i think that's

[6:31:37] Voice 16: takes us back to this federal structure of ours it's once again it's creating both operational

[6:31:43] Voice 16: and conceptual problems to figure things out this is not a structure that's designed for

[6:31:48] Voice 16: or consistency in enforcement.

[6:31:53] Voice 16: And that's in enforcement for it to have credibility

[6:31:56] Voice 16: really has to have a fair bit of consistency in application.

[6:32:02] Voice 16: But you know, we've got the LTCs who trust council

[6:32:05] Voice 16: and there's this kind of dialogue

[6:32:08] Voice 16: that isn't always coherent between the two of them.

[6:32:10] Voice 16: So we don't get this consistency

[6:32:12] Voice 16: in either in the outcomes that we seek

[6:32:15] Voice 16: or the exercise of judgment.

[6:32:16] Voice 16: uh i think our size is a big issue here like you mentioned that in passing in your presentation

[6:32:23] Voice 16: that there's a you know we don't have a certain amount of depth and that's actually understandable

[6:32:29] Voice 16: given the scale of this organization formally i think we can be satisfied that we're delivering

[6:32:35] Voice 16: administrative fairness in the legal sense but that's not the same as meeting best practices

[6:32:41] Voice 16: in terms of how um it's actually delivered at the end of the day in terms of equitable delivery

[6:32:46] Voice 16: and how people react to it.

[6:32:48] Voice 16: Among other things, best practices means

[6:32:51] Voice 16: that it's scrupulously oriented towards regulatory outcomes.

[6:32:57] Voice 16: It's not enforcement for its own sake.

[6:32:59] Voice 16: It's enforcement because you're going to spend resources

[6:33:02] Voice 16: on seeking compliance in those areas

[6:33:04] Voice 16: in those specific cases where you actually

[6:33:06] Voice 16: are going to advance a trust object.

[6:33:10] Voice 16: To do that, you need to have a detailed policy

[6:33:13] Voice 16: that's designed to deliver it

[6:33:14] Voice 16: and to also explain our approach to the public, and we don't have that.

[6:33:19] Voice 16: So I have actually sent Laurie Foster a resolution I'd like TrustTalents to consider.

[6:33:27] Voice 23: If we could have that on the screen, please.

[6:33:36] Voice 23: Thank you. A little bigger.

[6:33:48] Voice 23: Sure,

[6:33:49] Voice 7: go ahead. You read it.

[6:33:52] Voice 7: That the Director of Planning Services requests the Office of the Ombudsperson

[6:33:55] Voice 7: to undertake a comprehensive review of the enforcement-related policies and practices of the Allens Trust

[6:34:00] Voice 7: trust and recommend such improvements and changes to them as may be required to bring

[6:34:04] Voice 7: picture of me

[6:34:05] Voice 31: into

[6:34:09] Voice 7: established norms, no, to improvements and changes to them as may

[6:34:14] Voice 7: be required to bring the policies and practices into conformity with best practices for local

[6:34:19] Voice 7: government bylaw enforcement.

[6:34:22] Voice 10: Very good.

[6:34:22] Voice 10: Are you moving that to CAO?

[6:34:24] Voice 7: No, I'm just speaking it for the listening audience.

[6:34:28] Voice 7: Joe Bernardo, are you moving that?

[6:34:30] Voice 16: Yes, I am, and I'm looking for a seconder, and then we can speak to that.

[6:34:33] Voice 10: I see Sam Borswick has got his hand up quickly there, so let's have Sam.

[6:34:38] Voice 10: Do you wish to speak to the motion, sir?

[6:34:39] Voice 16: Very briefly, you've already heard my intro to it.

[6:34:45] Voice 16: Fact of the matter is there's subject matter expertise by a third credible third-party government agency

[6:34:52] Voice 16: that's prepared to help us in these issues, and it won't cost us any money.

[6:34:59] Voice 16: so we all know there's just a lot of unhappiness over this enforcement business we also don't have

[6:35:05] Voice 16: a tremendous amount of internal resources and this has not meant any disrespect um limited

[6:35:12] Voice 16: relevant expertise so let's bring in the pros let's see what they've got to say and then they'll

[6:35:18] Voice 16: give us something to work with it may not be complete it may not be the whole thing but it's

[6:35:22] Voice 16: to start so uh open to the floor and other people to think about it thank you thank you any

[6:35:28] Voice 10: discussion so i've got a speaker's list and i'll pick that up after this motion and i got tim

[6:35:33] Voice 10: peterson judith getty sam borswick sam borswick as the secondary why don't you speak first yeah

[6:35:42] Voice 14: uh yeah i'm overwhelmingly in favor of this especially because it's free um that's a

[6:35:49] Voice 14: wonderful flavor um yeah i mean i think for all the reasons that that joe bernardo uh outlined

[6:35:54] Voice 23: and oh okay

[6:36:57] Voice 10: that's fine we'll leave you in charge it's all good uh judith getty uh and then deb

[6:37:03] Voice 10: morrison do we have another

[6:37:04] Voice 36: session tomorrow morning that is um at all related to um this

[6:37:10] Voice 36: subject matter it's

[6:37:18] Voice 7: somewhat related because your general direction to me at the last meeting was

[6:37:22] Voice 7: you know give us some information so we can begin to formulate some of that is um full trust council

[6:37:30] Voice 7: a public discussion and some there we've got some in-camera things that may or may not be germane to

[6:37:37] Voice 7: this conversation or not but it generally describes some of the specific complaints

[6:37:41] Voice 7: um associated with the organization you've got that you're in cameras agenda so

[6:37:48] Voice 10: sorry i'm i

[6:37:49] Voice 10: missed the question but we're on is that on the motion or that's not necessarily on the motion

[6:37:54] Voice 10: well

[6:37:54] Voice 36: um if this is part of the conversation tomorrow in the closed meeting then i think

[6:37:58] Voice 36: that it would be better to defer a decision on this motion until after we've had all the

[6:38:04] Voice 36: discussions oh

[6:38:05] Voice 10: i see um okay so that would require another motion i guess but i'm not sure that we

[6:38:13] Voice 10: need to do that this is fairly straightforward and there may be something else lingering yeah

[6:38:18] Voice 10: so um deb morrison and then doug falk thank

[6:38:24] Voice 35: you um i am in favor of this motion and i think

[6:38:28] Voice 35: I think even when we hear more detail about the specific sort of bylaw issues in the in-camera session, I think this is good practice just to have an occasional review of the policies and by an external entity.

[6:38:40] Voice 35: So I don't think anything I could possibly hear about individual cases would change the idea that this would be helpful.

[6:38:46] Voice 35: I do want to name that I don't think it's 100% free because our staff will need to spend some time in conversation.

[6:38:55] Voice 35: potentially it's hard to know exactly but they'll have to provide some documents and

[6:38:59] Voice 35: so i just think we need to be aware of that um regardless i'm actually in favor of this

[6:39:04] Voice 35: thank

[6:39:05] Voice 10: you uh dog tag falcon yeah

[6:39:08] Voice 37: um i'm in favor of this motion and i'm wondering if we

[6:39:13] Voice 37: want to add something around um you know when we make this request um that they don't not just

[6:39:20] Voice 37: review our bylaws and policies but that we also provide them a relevant background because our

[6:39:28] Voice 37: situation is very unique with the ltcs and all of that and that we should i don't know exactly

[6:39:34] Voice 37: where to put that in but provide trust relevant background if that can be woven in there somewhere

[6:39:40] Voice 37: if if there's an appetite for that i mean if

[6:39:45] Voice 16: i can just jump in please thank you uh no appetite

[6:39:47] Voice 16: tight for me thanks uh the uh it's implicit in this that the ombudsman person's office is going

[6:39:56] Voice 16: to be working with chef and staff and that staff is going you know it's implicit in this that staff

[6:40:01] Voice 16: is going to provide whatever support and cooperation is necessary for the office the

[6:40:06] Voice 16: ombuds person to do the work so i don't think we have to be that prescriptive i think we can trust

[6:40:10] Voice 16: staff to to answer the phone calls so i'm not too worried about yeah

[6:40:15] Voice 10: and i think we got a clear

[6:40:17] Voice 10: message from the ombuds person office they do this they can do this and they've done it before

[6:40:22] Voice 10: so we're in good hands ceo

[6:40:24] Voice 7: just uh to give you an insight to how my mind works this is an area

[6:40:28] Voice 7: of investigation that you will get information and at that point you will then make decisions

[6:40:34] Voice 7: and then that becomes bigger smaller or medium and we go through the process of here's resource

[6:40:40] Voice 7: allocation here's funding for whatever outcome would be the case whatever it might be so um as

[6:40:47] Voice 7: as described, we can provide the resources

[6:40:49] Voice 7: to assist this function right now.

[6:40:51] Voice 7: Thank you.

[6:40:51] Voice 10: Any further speakers on the motion?

[6:40:55] Voice 23: I'm going to call the vote then.

[6:40:57] Voice 10: All those in favor?

[6:41:00] Voice 10: Hands down, online, David.

[6:41:04] Voice 10: And any opposed in the room?

[6:41:06] Voice 10: None opposed in the room, none opposed online.

[6:41:09] Voice 10: So that carries unanimously.

[6:41:12] Voice 10: Thank you very much, Trustee Bernardo

[6:41:14] Voice 10: for bringing that motion to us

[6:41:15] Voice 10: and thank you council for the support.

[6:41:18] Voice 10: support. Any other questions at this time, respect to bylaw enforcement, Mairead Boland?

[6:41:29] Voice 26: I was just thinking, it is with respect to bylaw enforcement, if we don't do it now,

[6:41:36] Voice 26: that's fine, but Mielle's letter on the language and her suggestion that we use the words conforming

[6:41:45] Voice 26: and non-conforming as a best practice when addressing

[6:41:48] Voice 26: issues of bylaw enforcement. I'm prepared to make a motion that we do that

[6:41:53] Voice 26: but I don't know if this is the time to do that.

[6:41:59] Voice 10: Respectfully, I would suggest that when we hear

[6:42:01] Voice 10: back from the ombudsperson, that would be the opportunity to consider

[6:42:05] Voice 10: that direction. Otherwise we get two parallel processes going on

[6:42:09] Voice 10: that might compete with each other.

[6:42:10] Voice 26: Well, yes, but she did say

[6:42:13] Voice 26: that it's used as a standard by municipalities.

[6:42:18] Voice 10: Okay, I think the Ombudsperson could tell us that.

[6:42:24] Voice 10: I think we can inquire about that, let's just say.

[6:42:26] Voice 26: Okay, well, let's say that we'll put Mielle's letter

[6:42:30] Voice 26: together with the package that goes.

[6:42:32] Voice 26: Do you want to add that

[6:42:33] Trustee Fast: part of the agenda?

[6:42:34] Voice 10: Yeah.

[6:42:34] Voice 10: Sure.

[6:42:38] Voice 10: Okay, I have a speaker's list that I momentarily forgot

[6:42:41] Voice 10: because I saw the CEO.

[6:42:42] Voice 10: Point of

[6:42:43] Voice 35: order, point of order.

[6:42:45] Voice 35: I'm sorry, but I think we need to break in with points of order and be a little bit more cordial with our colleagues.

[6:42:54] Voice 10: You're right. Thank you. And duly noted, right, Council? Thank you for that reminder.

[6:43:03] Voice 10: So are we OK to continue, Marae Boland, that you're satisfied that that's a parallel process we can pick up?

[6:43:12] Voice 26: Sure. I did offer that at the beginning.

[6:43:14] Voice 26: I said I didn't know whether this was the right time or not.

[6:43:17] Voice 26: Right.

[6:43:17] Voice 26: So I'm happy with

[6:43:19] Voice 10: whatever you choose.

[6:43:21] Voice 10: Okay. Thank you.

[6:43:22] Voice 10: So Tim Peterson and then David Graham online.

[6:43:25] Voice 10: And hopefully we're connected.

[6:43:28] Voice 15: Thank you, Cherry.

[6:43:29] Voice 15: I'm looking through the possible actions.

[6:43:31] Voice 15: I was sort of looking for some of the low-hanging fruit,

[6:43:34] Voice 15: and Joe Bernardo beat me to the punch in the first one there.

[6:43:37] Voice 15: However, I have a motion that I'd like to advance, which is about the reinstating policy to give respondents 90 days before any legal action is initiated.

[6:43:51] Voice 15: And I'm thinking that perhaps we could do this on an interim basis until we get a response from the Ombudsperson's office.

[6:44:04] Voice 15: So if

[6:44:05] Voice 10: I'm not quite sure which policy you're speaking of, and I'm not sure that the council would be familiar with it.

[6:44:12] Voice 15: Well, it's listed in the report item number five.

[6:44:17] Voice 15: Yeah, there's a previous trust council policy that's listed right here on page.

[6:44:23] Voice 15: I

[6:44:23] Voice 10: don't have that in front of me.

[6:44:24] Voice 10: Page

[6:44:24] Voice 15: 429, item

[6:44:27] Voice 10: five of council on as Trustee Peterson.

[6:44:31] Voice 10: and is indicated um i would like to seek staff advice on the advisability of this

[6:44:38] Voice 10: if that's all right yeah so

[6:44:44] Voice 33: chair the the policy was changed in 2019 and the 90 days uh pretty

[6:44:50] Voice 33: before any legal action was taken was removed and then in 2020 there were a number of complaints

[6:44:56] Voice 33: that came in uh and really i thought they reflected back to and were caused by the fact

[6:45:01] Voice 33: that that 90 days was removed so that's why you have one of the suggestions that it should be

[6:45:07] Voice 33: reinstated with trust council policy starting back in 2020 when i realized there was a problem

[6:45:12] Voice 33: and people weren't being given enough time to comply i just reverted back as the manager

[6:45:17] Voice 33: and said give everyone at least 90 days as a manager's policy so that policy is in place now

[6:45:23] Voice 33: in fact the preference is to give everyone 90 days and then if they don't comply with that first day

[6:45:29] Voice 33: deadline give another 45 days before they're issued a bylaw violation notice so that's what's

[6:45:35] Voice 33: in place now from the manager uh but i think if the ombudsperson comes back and says reinstate it

[6:45:42] Voice 33: i think it'd be a good idea to reinstate it as a as part of the larger policies that they may

[6:45:47] Voice 33: suggest that you adopt and

[6:45:50] Voice 10: tim back

[6:45:50] Voice 15: to you so just for clarity that's um that's not current

[6:45:55] Voice 15: and actual policy that's just your uh practice at this point yeah okay so

[6:46:04] Voice 15: and so your recommendation would be to before we actually go back and change that policy to

[6:46:09] Voice 15: hear back from the office person office okay thank you uh oh i won't make the motion okay

[6:46:15] Voice 10: thank you thank you tim appreciate that good thinking um david graham on the line are you there

[6:46:21] Voice 8: i am can you hear me

[6:46:23] Voice 10: yes sir

[6:46:24] Voice 8: thank you i'm not sure if this is the place to bring this

[6:46:27] Voice 8: up so please tell me if i'm out of order um it re it relates to one of the delegates that talked

[6:46:31] Voice 8: specifically about a bylaw um issue so am i am i free to ask my question with that background

[6:46:42] Voice 10: well not knowing what your question is i think you just have to try it um but let's not try to

[6:46:46] Voice 10: speak to individuals or individuals about process and policy yeah

[6:46:53] Voice 8: i understand that so that the the

[6:46:55] Voice 8: The topic was the UN Declaration on Right to Housing.

[6:46:59] Voice 8: And I was very confused as to the delegate suggested this was law and which I really couldn't wrap my head around.

[6:47:07] Voice 8: And I would like to get some some legal opinion.

[6:47:10] Voice 8: I don't know if we need to go. Perhaps that's already been done at some level.

[6:47:14] Voice 8: But if not, I think this is something that we need to.

[6:47:17] Voice 10: Again,

[6:47:18] Voice 23: I seek some. Sorry,

[6:47:25] Voice 10: David, you're kind of breaking up there.

[6:47:27] Voice 10: but maybe I'll just seek some staff advice on what a motion like that might look like in order to

[6:47:32] Voice 10: inform us it's a good question point of order this position of

[6:47:37] Voice 23: delegations is tomorrow

[6:47:41] Voice 9: that is correct thank

[6:47:44] Voice 8: you for that which is why I asked if this was a question that was out of

[6:47:48] Voice 8: order I shall bring it up tomorrow thank you

[6:47:50] Voice 10: awesome who said that was that Laura excellent

[6:47:54] Voice 10: Excellent. Gold star. Any other, did I run out of my speaker's list here? Anybody else have any

[6:48:03] Voice 10: questions with respect to bylaw enforcement? Okay, that's good. So we're obviously moving

[6:48:10] Voice 10: in the right direction and look forward to the recording and look forward to further

[6:48:15] Voice 10: motions and dispositions of delegations later. So I would like to move back into the financial,

[6:48:26] Voice 10: financial, our budget session. We left off with having, let me, where am I right here? We left

[6:48:36] Voice 10: off with summarizing the business cases, the strategic plan projects, local trust committee

[6:48:42] Voice 10: projects, operational projects, and we're in the midst of advancing motions for amendments

[6:48:48] Voice 10: to the budget. And we started off with one from Deb Morrison, and I believe you have

[6:48:53] Voice 10: have another one um and so i think there are also there's also at least one more maybe others

[6:48:58] Voice 10: and maybe i'll get uh laurie just to give me a heads up on how many motions she has

[6:49:03] Voice 10: to do with the budget and i'll begin with deb morrison on hers thank

[6:49:11] Voice 35: you um laurie just so

[6:49:13] Voice 35: you know i had sent over two but i'm going to only advance one i'll talk to why i'm not going

[6:49:17] Voice 35: to do the second one so uh so i'm going to do the one that says um all right i can't see anything

[6:49:23] Voice 35: anything anymore um i'm

[6:49:25] Voice 10: presuming your screen is working up there yeah

[6:49:27] Voice 35: yeah so i'm going to go for

[6:49:28] Voice 35: the one that says um that the trust council directs staff to specify that the administration

[6:49:33] Voice 35: administration coordinator position be named as temporary for one year oh sorry that was the one

[6:49:39] Voice 35: i advanced before no no that's right we haven't done that one yet so administration administrative

[6:49:45] Voice 35: coordinator position be named as temporary for one year

[6:49:48] Voice 10: so can we get that up there thank you

[6:49:53] Voice 35: It's very similar, but it's the second position.

[6:49:56] Voice 35: It's the second staffing position.

[6:49:58] Voice 35: It's the same motion, but it's the second staffing position.

[6:50:01] Voice 35: Great.

[6:50:01] Voice 9: Understood.

[6:50:07] Voice 35: Thank you.

[6:50:08] Voice 31: Same logic.

[6:50:10] Voice 35: But I'll go ahead and, oh, no, I need

[6:50:16] Voice 10: to get a seconded.

[6:50:17] Voice 10: I want to see it up on the screen and then ask for a seconder.

[6:50:20] Voice 10: Yeah.

[6:50:20] Voice 10: Just want to make sure we're on the right track here.

[6:50:25] Voice 10: It's one of these video game moments.

[6:50:29] Voice 23: You got it.

[6:50:30] Voice 23: Awesome.

[6:50:36] Voice 23: Perfect.

[6:50:36] Voice 9: Okay. So there we go. So that's the motion, Devin?

[6:50:45] Voice 23: Yes. Thank you.

[6:50:46] Voice 9: Okay. Do I have a seconder for the motion?

[6:50:51] Voice 10: Mariette Boland, thank you. And yours to speak to your motion.

[6:50:56] Voice 35: Yeah. So again, I really, really hope that folks are speaking to the motion.

[6:51:02] Voice 35: I'm not arguing the role of the administrative coordinator position.

[6:51:07] Voice 35: I actually think that there are a number of positions we'd need deeply, probably beyond what we have here.

[6:51:13] Voice 35: What I'm arguing is that we, because this is the first budget process of the new council, that we need to be cautious about adding FTEs, especially in a moment when we have the governance report and just our financial practices are kind of getting revised, that we don't entrench new FTE positions,

[6:51:37] Voice 35: positions both from the point of view of ourselves being responsible for public funding and in terms

[6:51:45] Voice 35: of promising more than we can deliver to staff in a long-term role. I will totally agree with

[6:51:52] Voice 35: every one of you that starts to argue that we need this position and that we you know we should have

[6:51:58] Voice 35: like longer-term positions and it's great to have those things but in this moment in this time I

[6:52:04] Voice 35: I want us to be a little bit careful about overcommitting.

[6:52:06] Voice 35: Thank you.

[6:52:08] Voice 10: Thank you very much, Deb.

[6:52:10] Voice 10: Does the seconder wish to speak to the motion,

[6:52:13] Voice 10: or does anybody else wish to speak to the motion?

[6:52:18] Voice 10: Nobody wishes to speak to the motion.

[6:52:20] Voice 10: Oh, Toby Elliott, go ahead.

[6:52:23] Voice 21: Again, I'd just like to ask staff,

[6:52:25] Voice 21: how difficult is it to fill a position like this

[6:52:28] Voice 21: on a temporary one-year basis versus permanent full-time?

[6:52:32] Voice 21: Thank you.

[6:52:39] Voice 7: That's the answer.

[6:52:39] Voice 7: um you'll you'll miss your ascent and that's march 31st and it takes two or three months to

[6:52:46] Voice 7: go through a vetting process to get the person so they would be live for nine months and um

[6:52:56] Voice 7: you know i want to answer accurately there's a lot of employment opportunity in the provincial

[6:53:02] Voice 7: government do you know what i mean so we're we're in a competitive environment so it will be

[6:53:12] Voice 7: a challenge it will be i'm not saying we couldn't fill this position or the one previous um it will

[6:53:20] Voice 7: be more of a challenge okay

[6:53:21] Voice 10: thank you any other questions or comments and we'll go to the vote

[6:53:26] Voice 10: otherwise so grants call given

[6:53:31] Voice 11: what russ just said and given an some understanding of what

[6:53:36] Voice 11: the employment world is like out there i'm wondering if it would be better to have it two

[6:53:42] Voice 11: years rather than one i mean that's not that's less temporary but one year who are you going to

[6:53:49] Voice 11: get it's going to come for nine months and then they don't know where they're going after that

[6:53:54] Voice 11: it doesn't seem realistic to me um thank

[6:54:01] Voice 10: you um somebody's got okay there we go deb morrison wishes

[6:54:05] Voice 10: to speak again yeah

[6:54:07] Voice 35: i'll just respond to that so i respectfully disagree with the cao about that

[6:54:12] Voice 35: that i understand the challenge in filling it and i agree with that i just think that we're not

[6:54:17] Voice 35: talking in minutes we're talking a year because this position would would be a position that we

[6:54:23] Voice 35: we would advance for a year.

[6:54:24] Voice 35: And so, like, budgetarily, if that needs to flow into surplus

[6:54:29] Voice 35: or, like, add into the next, like, couple months,

[6:54:32] Voice 35: however that works, and financially,

[6:54:34] Voice 35: what we're talking about is a position for a year here.

[6:54:36] Voice 35: That's what I'm talking about.

[6:54:38] Voice 35: And so, however that gets budgeted across our fiscal boundary,

[6:54:42] Voice 35: that's a different question, I think.

[6:54:44] Voice 35: But I'm talking about a year of having this person

[6:54:48] Voice 35: because we still have to have a budget, just to be clear.

[6:54:50] Voice 35: we still have to approve a budget next year and that person needs to flow past the budget for

[6:54:57] Voice 35: next year like the budget boundary for next year because yeah so i it's a little bit technical

[6:55:04] Voice 35: confusing but it's not helpful for us with a one-year position for that position to go from

[6:55:09] Voice 35: march to march per se so if you want to get clarity on that that would be helpful because

[6:55:15] Voice 35: Because that's part of the problem we're having with strategic planning, frankly, is that we can't plan across our budget boundaries very easily.

[6:55:23] Voice 35: And so it gets really tricky.

[6:55:26] Voice 10: Indeed. Let's hear from staff about that question, budget boundaries.

[6:55:38] Voice 27: So the position right now is budgeted for 10 or 11 months.

[6:55:41] Voice 27: So it's not a full year because the budgets are approved by council on an annual basis for the next 12 months.

[6:55:47] Voice 27: We do have a five-year financial plan, but the second year of the financial plan, you know, it's not actually adopted because we revise it every single year.

[6:55:54] Voice 27: So to approve this position for a year would cross that boundary, which we don't typically do.

[6:56:03] Voice 27: You know, I'll offer some supplementary comments to what our CAO has said around hiring for temporary positions.

[6:56:10] Voice 27: We do, we are still able to fill for temporary positions.

[6:56:14] Voice 27: Usually we'll see fewer applicants who might apply.

[6:56:17] Voice 27: Within the broader public service provincially, there is opportunities for staff to move around within different ministries without losing their base position.

[6:56:26] Voice 27: So very likely we would end up with a provincial staff who comes to us for a temporary nine-month term and then returns.

[6:56:33] Voice 27: turns um if we do bring on someone who is good there's opportunity for them to then compete on

[6:56:39] Voice 27: the permanent position and they will have an advantage to gain it because they would have

[6:56:43] Voice 27: been in the role for nine months okay

[6:56:47] Voice 10: so i answer the question then i'm gonna go to sam

[6:56:51] Voice 10: borswick and then joe bernardo

[6:56:52] Voice 14: yeah and my point sort of ties into what julia just said um the the

[6:56:58] Voice 14: other thing that's really important to to recognize about this motion is that it does not preclude

[6:57:02] Voice 14: keeping a hold of that person. I think it's assumed, and I believe I'm not speaking out of

[6:57:08] Voice 14: turn when I say that Trustee Morrison fully anticipates and supports these roles going

[6:57:13] Voice 14: forward. What this motion does is gives us some flexibility about how we choose to, whether we

[6:57:19] Voice 14: choose to adopt it, especially given the flexibility of our strategic planning financially over the

[6:57:24] Voice 14: next while. And I think it's very true to say that, yes, while it may be difficult to hire someone

[6:57:29] Voice 14: one and say you only get this job for 11 months it's it may be there is probably a relative

[6:57:35] Voice 14: difference there between you only get it for 11 months or you get it for on a trial basis for 11

[6:57:41] Voice 14: months because we're working some stuff out but there's a very good chance that we'll go forward

[6:57:45] Voice 14: and i think all of these roles that we've talked about so far trustee morrison is absolutely in

[6:57:50] Voice 14: favor of keeping in the long run it's just about creating some flexibility while we figure stuff

[6:57:55] Voice 14: stuff out i

[6:57:57] Voice 27: may mr chair joe

[6:57:59] Voice 10: bernardo oh sorry uh go ahead julia uh

[6:58:03] Voice 27: just to supplement that

[6:58:04] Voice 27: comment when we do have a hiring for a temporary position that has the potential to become

[6:58:08] Voice 27: permanent we do make that known in the posting so that any applicants can see that thank you

[6:58:17] Voice 16: joe bernardo thank you i just want to very briefly point out that um this is a really weird

[6:58:23] Voice 16: discussion because the logic behind this motion is exactly the same it's the logic of the motion

[6:58:31] Voice 16: trust council has just passed what you're doing here is revisiting the debate that we had before

[6:58:40] Voice 16: we've already crossed this bridge in terms of the whole temporary permanent stuff so i would

[6:58:46] Voice 16: respectfully suggest that we there's really no substantive difference between this motion and

[6:58:52] Voice 16: in the last one.

[6:58:53] Voice 16: My suggestion is let's put it up for a vote

[6:58:56] Voice 16: and just move on.

[6:59:00] Voice 10: Okay, Lee Middleton did have his hand up.

[6:59:03] Voice 12: Thank you, I'm pleased to know I've recovered

[6:59:06] Voice 12: from my near death experience during the presentation,

[6:59:09] Voice 12: but during that I've had an epiphany.

[6:59:13] Voice 12: I disagree with Trustee Bernardo

[6:59:14] Voice 12: that this is the exact same process.

[6:59:16] Voice 12: And I'll ask a clarifying question if I may of the mover.

[6:59:20] Voice 12: you are not going to propose that the manager of finance and accounting position

[6:59:25] Voice 12: be hired on a temporary one-year basis are you yes or no yeah

[6:59:32] Voice 31: yeah

[6:59:34] Voice 35: so i covered that in my prior

[6:59:36] Voice 35: to conversation and the so my answer is no to that because the manager of finance to me is at the core

[6:59:44] Voice 35: of all of the things that we're talking about and it's fundamentally a different type of role in the

[6:59:50] Voice 35: the area again i think it's more because there's um yeah so i think that's my logic and i know it's

[6:59:58] Voice 35: a slightly there's a

[7:00:00] Voice 35: subtle difference in what I'm arguing for that one position, which is actually the same as I

[7:00:05] Voice 35: would argue for the incremental one, the case about incrementing. I actually think staff who

[7:00:10] Voice 35: are in place need to be incremented if they're doing great work in their position, so I wouldn't

[7:00:17] Voice 35: argue for that.

[7:00:19] Voice 12: May I continue, Chair? Sure. So I would argue the subtlety of your argument is

[7:00:25] Voice 12: is indeed, as you suggest, but I take the reverse subtlety that I think if you're talking about the

[7:00:33] Voice 12: core functionality of the manager of finance and accounting, we cannot undermine the importance

[7:00:38] Voice 12: of the argument, the strategic, no, please let me continue. You kind of undermine the argument

[7:00:44] Voice 12: that the importance of a corporate plan and a potential shifting of resources may affect

[7:00:51] Voice 12: affect a position like the meeting administrator. I don't think you can argue that with the

[7:00:57] Voice 12: administrative coordinator. I think you have to use the same logic that's being applied

[7:01:00] Voice 12: to the manager of finance accounting and basically should not hire on an interim basis. It seems it's

[7:01:09] Voice 12: the same kind of core functionality. And I would say to do otherwise, it's sort of playing favorites

[7:01:13] Voice 12: with the role in some way. And I fully supported the idea that the meeting administrator may

[7:01:21] Voice 12: May, during the process of us looking at the details of the corporate plan, there might be

[7:01:27] Voice 12: shift of resources. I don't see that with an administrative coordinator who could also move

[7:01:32] Voice 12: around. And I think the case has been made fairly compelling that that's a bit of a lack right now.

[7:01:36] Voice 12: So it's not a critique. I'm just saying like I'm taking a different tack in terms of the argument.

[7:01:42] Voice 12: And that's why I'm arguing that this position not be, I guess I'm arguing against your motion,

[7:01:46] Voice 12: that it not be temporary so thank you thank you lee um

[7:01:51] Voice 10: i'm going to recognize trustee evans and

[7:01:53] Voice 10: then trustee elliott i would like to put myself on the speaker's list into that thank you chair

[7:02:00] Voice 25: um just to make a rebuttal to the previous comments when it comes to the director position

[7:02:07] Voice 25: that is a very specific knowledge base and you have to have certain

[7:02:16] Voice 25: qualifications that are highly specific and that role is not something that you can migrate other

[7:02:22] Voice 25: people into or have other people do that work. Whereas the administrative positions, the two

[7:02:28] Voice 25: that are on the table, those are items where the work can be spread out or it could have other

[7:02:33] Voice 25: people move into quite readily. So that would be, I believe, a good distinction between why

[7:02:41] Voice 25: these two positions are up for a temporary one year while we get our house in order versus the

[7:02:48] Voice 25: absolute must-have work to help support the financial department because there is a hole

[7:02:56] Voice 25: that there's been a hole for many years that must be filled in order to have a fully functioning

[7:03:02] Voice 25: department.

[7:03:05] Voice 9: Toby Elliott.

[7:03:07] Voice 21: I'm just going to say that I'm very uncomfortable with this whole

[7:03:12] Voice 21: conversation because we're talking about supporting staff and and making sure that

[7:03:20] Voice 21: frankly that they don't burn out and nobody's asking what support do you need and what is

[7:03:29] Voice 21: critical and not critical and long-term and the impacts of that i frankly do not feel that i'm in

[7:03:36] Voice 21: a position to be able to decide for staff what kind of administrative support they need when i

[7:03:41] Voice 21: I first saw the business case for this administrative mid-level coordinator position, there was

[7:03:46] Voice 21: a high risk that staff turnover would be increased and burnout would happen if we don't have

[7:03:54] Voice 21: this fill.

[7:03:55] Voice 21: So that was a long time ago, and I've sort of carried this conversation forward.

[7:03:59] Voice 21: I just, I actually want to recuse myself from this vote because I don't feel I'm in a position

[7:04:06] Voice 21: to make this decision.

[7:04:08] Voice 21: Sorry.

[7:04:12] Voice 23: Thank you, Toby.

[7:04:16] Voice 10: I recognize Judith Getty just put her hand up.

[7:04:19] Voice 10: I did ask, I suggested I was going to put myself on the speaker's list and I would normally

[7:04:23] Voice 10: go to Judy, but I think I want to address something because it ties into what Toby has

[7:04:28] Voice 10: just said.

[7:04:29] Voice 10: I want us to reflect on that.

[7:04:34] Voice 10: I think that this particular role has a different skill set than the previous job, which may

[7:04:39] Voice 10: or may not be more difficult to acquire.

[7:04:42] Voice 10: But the fundamental thing I want to say is we're actually talking about human beings

[7:04:46] Voice 10: here.

[7:04:47] Voice 10: We're not talking about a commodity.

[7:04:50] Voice 10: And the truth is, if it was me, I was applying for a job that was 11 months or nine months, whatever it is.

[7:04:58] Voice 10: In month six, guess what I'm doing?

[7:05:00] Voice 10: I'm looking for another job because at the whim of the council, that job may be gone.

[7:05:08] Voice 10: And I have a family to support.

[7:05:10] Voice 10: and then on the other human level is we're talking about another group of human beings

[7:05:16] Voice 10: that are in the office every day doing the work of the preserve and protect mandate

[7:05:20] Voice 10: and they're hoping for some relief because they see that and i'm not arguing for the position

[7:05:27] Voice 10: i'm arguing for giving it some permanency to the individual wants to take on that role

[7:05:32] Voice 10: and do the preserve and protect mandate and for all the individuals that already are that are

[7:05:37] Voice 10: begging for help and that permanency is just something that cheers you up we're not just a

[7:05:46] Voice 10: stop gap

[7:05:46] Voice 23: things

[7:05:47] Voice 10: are going to happen so i want to say that i'm going to go to judas getty i can

[7:05:53] Voice 36: imagine that scenario happening but um it and people could apply for the job that um you know

[7:06:00] Voice 36: they're coming out here i mean there's any number of individual kinds of situations where they may

[7:06:04] Voice 36: be looking for something that's more temporary. So it's hard to know whether or not there'd be

[7:06:09] Voice 36: more or less people that would apply for it. That would be the worst case scenario in terms

[7:06:13] Voice 36: of having somebody good that we change our minds and and they're leaving after six months. My

[7:06:20] Voice 36: question is in this seems to me that somebody comes along and fills the position whether it's

[7:06:26] Voice 36: temporary or full-time and they help with all of the description of what needs to be done but

[7:06:33] Voice 36: But it seems to me the workload for this extra workload for the staff in this process is going through the to the microphone process.

[7:06:42] Voice 36: Sorry. So it would be two potentially two sets of hiring processes.

[7:06:48] Voice 36: So that is a little bit more work in that department. I'm not sure how much of a load that is.

[7:06:56] Voice 10: OK, Christina Evans. And then and then I think we should take Joe Bernardo's hint to go to the vote.

[7:07:04] Voice 10: I'm sorry what are you pointing at

[7:07:07] Voice 22: okay

[7:07:09] Voice 10: I'm I'm going to go with the the um the trustees

[7:07:14] Voice 10: and so Christina Evans and then I'll go to Julia if there's no other speakers

[7:07:20] Voice 25: Joe

[7:07:20] Voice 10: Bernardo has his hand up too go ahead Christina thank

[7:07:23] Voice 25: you um so again I just to

[7:07:26] Voice 25: bring back the point that we are undergoing a strategic corporate planning process in order

[7:07:32] Voice 25: to help alleviate the stress on staff now should we go through that process and come out at the

[7:07:38] Voice 25: other end and we've got another full-time position that now becomes redundant that person is still in

[7:07:44] Voice 25: the same place so to those points what we're trying to do here is that if that position is

[7:07:51] Voice 25: temporary with the option of becoming full-time then we're clear up front versus hiring somebody

[7:07:57] Voice 25: up full-time and at the end of the year saying well now that we've done a corporate strategy

[7:08:01] Voice 25: that we knew we were doing when we hired you,

[7:08:04] Voice 25: your position has now become redundant.

[7:08:06] Voice 25: Thank you for your service.

[7:08:09] Voice 25: So it goes both ways.

[7:08:11] Voice 25: So this way, there is the option to become full-time

[7:08:13] Voice 25: should it pan out that this is absolutely needed

[7:08:16] Voice 25: and we get to go through this process.

[7:08:18] Voice 25: And I think that may be the kind of thing to do.

[7:08:22] Voice 25: My personal opinion.

[7:08:23] Voice 10: Thank you.

[7:08:25] Voice 10: Now, Julie, did you have something to offer for us?

[7:08:28] Voice 10: No. Okay.

[7:08:29] Voice 10: Are there any other speakers?

[7:08:30] Voice 10: Joe Bernardo.

[7:08:31] Voice 10: who

[7:08:33] Voice 16: i have to uh even though i want to have this vote desperately so we can move on um

[7:08:39] Voice 16: i do have to address this uh chair luckham's remarks from before as far as i understand it

[7:08:50] Voice 16: we're not in the business of feeling sorry for imaginary people if we're going to speak to this

[7:08:56] Voice 16: motion by imagining things i can imagine there's someone out there who desperately wants to work

[7:09:03] Voice 16: at the islands trust because it fulfills all that person's values and they're going to jump at the

[7:09:07] Voice 16: opportunity for that temporary position because they're hoping it'll turn out to be a permanent

[7:09:12] Voice 16: one now some of you are thinking well okay that's just been made up just like yes i just made it up

[7:09:19] Voice 16: who knows so all this other talk we're having about all this could happen or that can happen

[7:09:25] Voice 16: we might not be able to hire them that is not relevant to the logic of the motion which is

[7:09:30] Voice 16: is we don't know whether or not this position in the long run is going to work out to be one that

[7:09:36] Voice 16: should be permanent again i'm repeating myself that's the same logic that led to the last motion

[7:09:42] Voice 16: being approved so i i don't know why we're revisiting the same uh the same way of thinking

[7:09:48] Voice 16: thank you sue allen fast no should

[7:09:52] Voice 9: we go to the vote

[7:09:53] Voice 23: all right on the motion on the screen

[7:09:58] Voice 23: all those in favor? Yeah. Okay.

[7:10:15] Voice 9: Nobody online or no vote online? No votes online. Okay. Thank you.

[7:10:19] Voice 10: So

[7:10:19] Voice 9: all your hands down, please.

[7:10:25] Voice 23: What are

[7:10:27] Voice 35: you trying to say, Deb? Sorry, Laura's hand was low.

[7:10:29] Voice 35: And just as I watched, David, I'm not clear that Laura's vote was counted.

[7:10:33] Voice 10: Okay. So let's please

[7:10:34] Voice 10: raise our hands again, clearly up, all those in favor

[7:10:38] Voice 23: of the motion on the screen. 12. Thank you.

[7:10:45] Voice 23: and none on the screen so now all is opposed and

[7:10:58] Voice 10: on the screen

[7:10:58] Voice 3: there's uh 13 opposed

[7:11:02] Voice 3: yeah 12 in the room and david graham is opposed so that's 13 opposed uh 12 in favor one abstain

[7:11:10] Voice 3: so that's 13 to 13 so that fails uh tidebolt fails there

[7:11:17] Voice 10: was one person abstained yes there's

[7:11:19] Voice 3: 26 trustees we had 12 in favor no janine dodds is not here okay so that changes

[7:11:28] Voice 3: it's 12 in favor

[7:11:31] Voice 3: 13 against it fails on that as well all right thank you that's close okay

[7:11:38] Voice 10: um thank you council

[7:11:41] Voice 10: so do we we have another motion i believe from another trustee is that trustee evans

[7:11:50] Voice 10: Lori, okay, thank you.

[7:11:53] Voice 9: Trustee Evans, over to you.

[7:12:00] Voice 23: I'll just wait for it to come on the screen.

[7:12:05] Voice 10: Let me finish with Trustee Evans at the moment

[7:12:07] Voice 10: and you have a motion.

[7:12:13] Voice 10: Okay, well, so sorry if I wasn't clear,

[7:12:16] Voice 10: the motion failed 12 to 11.

[7:12:24] Voice 10: Well, no, I think it's appropriate

[7:12:25] Voice 10: if you have a concern with the process.

[7:12:28] Voice 10: Thank you.

[7:12:29] Voice 10: I

[7:12:29] Voice 5: was just wondering what happens in the instance

[7:12:32] Voice 5: since Chair Elliott was recused,

[7:12:36] Voice 5: does that lessen the pool?

[7:12:39] Voice 5: Did you say you were recusing yourself from the vote?

[7:12:43] Voice 5: Does that, it doesn't change the, okay.

[7:12:49] Voice 9: Okay, so David?

[7:12:51] Voice 3: Yeah, if you're in the room,

[7:12:55] Voice 3: you either vote in favor, you vote against.

[7:12:58] Voice 3: If you decide not to vote and you're in the room,

[7:13:00] Voice 3: it's considered an abstained vote.

[7:13:02] Voice 3: And under the Local Government Act,

[7:13:05] Voice 3: well abstain vote is counted in favor correct okay yeah

[7:13:11] Voice 23: thank you

[7:13:13] Voice 23: um now trustee evans over to you

[7:13:20] Voice 25: thank you um so because we're not going to get to this discussion today but um it could affect

[7:13:28] Voice 25: the budget i'm going to move maybe i'll wait until it gets on the screen i might read this

[7:13:35] Voice 25: out and then it'll hopefully get there i'm going to move that trust council hold on i actually do

[7:13:42] Voice 25: need the words here we go i know that trust council reduced the policy statement amendment

[7:13:53] Voice 25: project charter budget from 50 000 to 30 000 in recognition of the fact that executive council

[7:14:00] Voice 25: has proposed a project charter that has shifted the public engagement to the 2024-25 fiscal year

[7:14:06] Voice 25: year.

[7:14:10] Voice 10: So we're trying to get that motion up on the screen. Oh, beautiful. Thank you, everybody.

[7:14:19] Voice 10: Okay, so moved. Does everybody see the motion? Do I have a seconder for the motion?

[7:14:27] Voice 23: Trustee Bernardo, thank you. You should

[7:14:31] Voice 9: speak to your motion.

[7:14:35] Voice 25: So the project charter was included in the package on page 153. There is, because there's

[7:14:43] Voice 25: been a shift in the timelines um the public engagement portion is shifting also in its dates

[7:14:50] Voice 25: and it was determined by executive council and staff that um not as much monies would be required

[7:14:58] Voice 25: in this fiscal year hence the reduction of the 20 000 in this particular budget

[7:15:03] Voice 10: all right thank you

[7:15:05] Voice 10: trustee evans is there any other speakers on the motion uh swell and fast sorry

[7:15:14] Trustee Fast: i just have a

[7:15:15] Trustee Fast: question i i may have missed it in the noise uh at the back but um is this consistent with the

[7:15:24] Trustee Fast: recommendations of financial planning committee or is it something recent this

[7:15:28] Voice 10: is recent and let's

[7:15:29] Voice 10: director freighter speak to it it's in her report uh

[7:15:33] Voice 28: so no at the time of financial planning

[7:15:36] Voice 28: committee's recommendation um they did not have information that our key staff person's gone on

[7:15:41] Voice 28: leave so necessarily we've shifted the project timelines thank

[7:15:46] Voice 10: you director fader any other

[7:15:48] Voice 10: questions or comments on the motions deb morrison i

[7:15:54] Voice 35: have just a question for director freder um so

[7:15:57] Voice 35: um and and i guess this is sort of from your report but i'm just curious if the additional

[7:16:05] Voice 35: 20 000 in this year's budget would in any way like keep the project sort of moving forward like

[7:16:13] Voice 35: Or is it just not possible to move it on any other timeline than what had to be adjusted based on the staffing sort of changes?

[7:16:20] Voice 35: I guess what I'm asking is, is the additional $20,000 that's currently in the budget useful for progressing the work on the policy statements here or not?

[7:16:33] Voice 28: So essentially it comes down to how much we would spend on communications for the project in the coming year.

[7:16:39] Voice 28: There are some unknowns.

[7:16:40] Voice 28: So what we've got proposed right now is $5,000 for legal and $25,000 for communications.

[7:16:46] Voice 28: the 25,000 number was proposed by consultants looking at the scope of work as a general

[7:16:50] Voice 28: estimate of what it might cost. If you gave us more money, we likely could put it to good use,

[7:16:55] Voice 28: but our best guess is that the 25,000 is hopefully adequate. So that brings you to

[7:17:00] Voice 23: 25 plus the five

[7:17:02] Voice 23: brings you to 30. Okay. That answers the question.

[7:17:14] Voice 9: Thank you. Any further consideration on this

[7:17:17] Voice 9: motion then

[7:17:20] Voice 23: i'm going to call for the vote all those in favor and lower your hands

[7:17:34] Voice 9: and those

[7:17:37] Voice 9: opposed please raise your hand thank

[7:17:39] Voice 10: you kate louise so that carries thank you thank you

[7:17:46] Voice 10: trustee evans are advancing that are there any other motions uh that you have for us lori

[7:17:56] Voice 9: okay she's in the eight

[7:17:57] Voice 10: over to you thank

[7:18:01] Voice 34: you chair luckham i hope this is the right place

[7:18:04] Voice 34: to bring this up this is the

[7:18:05] Voice 10: right place thank you

[7:18:06] Voice 10: i

[7:18:09] Voice 34: move that trust council put back into the

[7:18:13] Voice 34: budget the 27 500 for an in-person june council meeting which financial planning committee which

[7:18:24] Voice 34: i'm on recommended removing based on staff at that time not being able to secure a venue

[7:18:31] Voice 34: you.

[7:18:33] Voice 10: Moved by Trustee A. Strava, seconder. Trustee Maberly, seconding. Thank you.

[7:18:40] Voice 10: Yours to speak to your motion.

[7:18:44] Voice 34: Yes, I do. Thank you. This is our first year of a new term.

[7:18:51] Voice 34: I still believe that we need to see each other. I love looking at your beautiful faces.

[7:18:57] Voice 34: pieces i love seeing your smiles i think it makes my work better i don't know how many years we will

[7:19:06] Voice 34: need to do this i'd like it to go on forever but there are budget restrictions however this first

[7:19:13] Voice 34: year we really need to set ourselves in a collaborative way and the best way to do that

[7:19:21] Voice 34: is not just around this decision-making table,

[7:19:25] Voice 34: but at the time that we spend together between meetings.

[7:19:31] Voice 34: And I've seen it.

[7:19:33] Voice 34: Most of our decisions today were unanimous,

[7:19:37] Voice 34: and yesterday as well.

[7:19:39] Voice 34: And I think it's because we are looking at each other,

[7:19:43] Voice 34: wanting to support each other in a federative way.

[7:19:47] Voice 34: Thank you.

[7:19:48] Voice 10: Thank you, Susan.

[7:19:49] Voice 10: any other speakers on the motion we should get that up on the screen did you

[7:19:54] Voice 10: did you actually send a copy of it yeah there we go no it looks like we're writing it yeah

[7:20:00] Voice 10: okay so i'm gonna make a speaker's list i'm seeing ben raberley as no uh

[7:20:05] Voice 4: grant scott yeah

[7:20:07] Voice 4: i support the motion i i agree with everything that jesse yates has said um you want to make

[7:20:13] Voice 4: real decisions you do it in front of each other um you know at the last meeting we we had broad

[7:20:19] Voice 4: support for for in-person meetings and um you know i i just look at the discussion we had earlier

[7:20:26] Voice 4: this morning um around the finances and the the way we were able to talk to each other and and um

[7:20:32] Voice 4: you look at where we are now um i think it speaks about what in-person meetings do thank you ben

[7:20:39] Voice 10: um grant scott anybody else deb morrison tim peterson i

[7:20:46] Voice 11: second the motion

[7:20:50] Voice 23: Oh,

[7:20:51] Voice 11: you did it. I didn't I hear you support it. I didn't hear

[7:20:54] Voice 10: you second it. Okay.

[7:20:55] Voice 10: I may believe seconded it. Okay. So I'm presuming that we have your support.

[7:20:59] Voice 10: I third it.

[7:21:01] Voice 10: Okay. Grant Scott. Deb Morrison, over to you. It's already been seconded.

[7:21:06] Voice 10: Thank

[7:21:07] Voice 35: you. Okay, so I'm actually a big fan of virtual meetings, but the conversations, you know, and just gelling as a trust for the first year, I'm actually in favor of this motion, which surprises me, actually.

[7:21:27] Voice 35: But it's just because I think that it is important for us to get to know each other, to make better informed decisions and not assume that any one decision that we make is who we are as whole people in this trust council, which can happen when we're in these moments of decision making where we think, oh, you're you're against me.

[7:21:47] Voice 35: And we need to not be doing that. And we need to get to know each other in these moments to actually make sure we're working as a team. Thank you.

[7:21:54] Voice 35: so i'm four thank

[7:21:56] Voice 10: you and david graham who's joining us virtually and i do wish that you were

[7:22:01] Voice 10: here um but i'm glad that you're with us uh virtually and your hand is up and so please

[7:22:07] Voice 10: you have the floor thank

[7:22:09] Voice 8: you chair um and and i'm a fiscal small c conservative but

[7:22:15] Voice 8: a good decision can save money and considering the cost yes it's 27 500 but everyone has spoken

[7:22:23] Voice 8: spoken to the value of sitting in group and picking up on the nonverbal communication that

[7:22:29] Voice 8: I have completely missed for the last day and a half. I've missed all the good jokes. I didn't

[7:22:33] Voice 8: get a muffin. You know, I wish I was there. And I want to be there in June. So yes, I'm going to be

[7:22:39] Voice 8: voting for this one. Thank you.

[7:22:41] Voice 10: Looking forward to seeing you. Okay, so I've got Tim Peterson,

[7:22:45] Voice 10: Lee Middleton.

[7:22:51] Voice 15: Thank you. I'm in support of this motion. I was in support of

[7:22:55] Voice 15: of the previous motion council to have four in person this year and i have even before that came

[7:23:02] Voice 15: up i was uh in favor of uh more in-person meetings so i am in support thank you awesome

[7:23:12] Voice 10: lee middleton

[7:23:12] Voice 10: kate louis stanford thank

[7:23:15] Voice 12: you chair um before voting on this motion might i inquire as to

[7:23:20] Voice 12: to where this mysterious found place is

[7:23:22] Voice 12: that Trustee Yates refers to?

[7:23:25] Voice 10: Gabriel.

[7:23:28] Voice 10: And so, yes, that will require some reshuffling

[7:23:32] Voice 10: for later, Gabriel, but that'll all come to pass.

[7:23:38] Voice 23: Next on the agenda.

[7:23:44] Voice 10: Okay, thank you.

[7:23:45] Voice 10: You give me a hint when we're there.

[7:23:47] Voice 10: Leah Middleton, Kate Louise Stanford.

[7:23:51] Voice 20: As much as I love hanging out with you

[7:23:53] Voice 20: and all your lovely mugs,

[7:23:55] Voice 20: I am just going to take a stand and vote against this only because we're in a climate emergency.

[7:24:01] Voice 20: I find Zoom is the more ethical choice, but it's not that I don't love you all.

[7:24:11] Voice 10: Well, thank you for that sobering note. And I would recommend everybody carpool.

[7:24:17] Voice 10: We can we can make a better impact.

[7:24:21] Voice 10: Mary Boland.

[7:24:22] Voice 10: um

[7:24:25] Voice 26: i'm inclined to vote in favor which surprises me because i would have gone absolutely no way

[7:24:34] Voice 26: but i would remind everyone that i think you could they can handle up to nine people through zoom

[7:24:40] Voice 26: so you can choose to stay at home and miss the muffins if you want right okay

[7:24:46] Voice 10: thank you for that

[7:24:47] Voice 10: or donuts

[7:24:48] Voice 26: whatever so

[7:24:50] Voice 10: council are we ready to vote

[7:24:51] Voice 23: awesome all those in favor so you got the

[7:25:09] Voice 10: number hands down all those opposed all right okay so that that carries we have we you've got

[7:25:18] Voice 10: some supporters over here thank you ken um all right do i have a further motion or i now have

[7:25:28] Voice 10: have advice from the cao thanks

[7:25:31] Voice 7: mr chair if you uh just one further decision follows that decision

[7:25:34] Voice 7: and laurie will put this up on the screen for your consideration that the 2023-24 trust council

[7:25:40] Voice 7: meetings be held in person at the following times and locations june gabriola september

[7:25:47] Voice 7: question mark december victoria and march salt spring island okay

[7:25:56] Voice 10: does everybody understand 23

[7:25:58] Voice 7: 23, 23, 23, 24.

[7:26:01] Voice 10: And do we have a mover for that motion?

[7:26:06] Voice 10: But

[7:26:06] Voice 7: we need some discussion

[7:26:09] Voice 7: on where you'd want to go in September.

[7:26:12] Voice 7: And presumably a first choice and a second choice.

[7:26:16] Voice 7: So you don't have to come back

[7:26:17] Voice 7: and have this discussion again.

[7:26:19] Voice 7: And then we'd go research and make it happen.

[7:26:22] Voice 7: So who wants

[7:26:23] Voice 10: to host council in September?

[7:26:26] Voice 10: And I think Trustee Morrison has a question.

[7:26:30] Voice 10: Who has a question?

[7:26:31] Voice 10: Trustee Morrison.

[7:26:31] Voice 10: Okay, Deb Morrison.

[7:26:35] Voice 10: Somebody's mic's on, CEO.

[7:26:37] Voice 35: I have a question and a comment.

[7:26:39] Voice 35: Just a revision on the motion about the times,

[7:26:42] Voice 35: unless we put the dates up there,

[7:26:43] Voice 35: if we can just remove the times,

[7:26:44] Voice 35: because this is just locations.

[7:26:46] Voice 35: And then I vote Penders,

[7:26:48] Voice 35: because the Penders are something that I think

[7:26:50] Voice 35: really has to be seen to be believed.

[7:26:53] Voice 35: And so if we can work it out to be on the Penders,

[7:26:56] Voice 35: I would love to have that as an option.

[7:26:58] Voice 10: So we're looking for expressions of interest

[7:27:00] Voice 10: at this point and staff will investigate and book accordingly um so um we'll we'll note north pender

[7:27:07] Voice 10: um uh kate louis stanford i volunteer keats it's a great place okay

[7:27:16] Voice 31: seems

[7:27:18] Voice 10: interesting though

[7:27:19] Voice 10: given your voting anyway keats island is also offering up and it is a wonderful place

[7:27:29] Voice 10: uh deb again sorry

[7:27:31] Voice 35: i forgot to mention that um i believe it was in the december trust council

[7:27:37] Voice 35: package i can't quite remember but we had a piece of correspondence from a community member on pender

[7:27:43] Voice 35: that actually specifically asked for panders to be considered as a meeting location because of so

[7:27:49] Voice 35: many of the contentious issues sort of swirling

[7:27:51] Voice 10: in the space no get that let's spell pender right

[7:27:53] Voice 10: but um so we got pender and keats anybody else want to jump in here okay

[7:28:02] Voice 16: lee middleton wants to

[7:28:04] Voice 16: i'm going to jump in to refer to the keats business i'm fine if it's a keats i'm also

[7:28:09] Voice 16: fine if keats is deferred to the following year because okay whatever thank

[7:28:16] Voice 12: you get there's um

[7:28:17] Voice 12: there was a lot of work done with the south nation that in on south pender specifically

[7:28:23] Voice 12: specifically at Poets Cove two or three years ago.

[7:28:26] Voice 12: And I know the Trust has been reluctant to go to South Panda

[7:28:30] Voice 12: because of, obviously, you know, terrible transgressions

[7:28:34] Voice 12: during the construction in relation to the sale of people.

[7:28:37] Voice 12: But I wonder if it might not be time to embrace

[7:28:40] Voice 12: the olive branch that the sale of people themselves

[7:28:43] Voice 12: clearly have done and inquire as to whether or not

[7:28:45] Voice 12: that might be an option and sort of help repair

[7:28:49] Voice 12: a long-standing, or heal, help heal, help do our part

[7:28:53] Voice 12: and helping heal a long-standing wound tonight, yeah.

[7:28:56] Voice 10: Sure.

[7:28:57] Voice 10: But just to let you know,

[7:28:58] Voice 10: the South Pender LTC has embraced that opportunity

[7:29:02] Voice 10: because, indeed, we do know that there's been a lot of healing

[7:29:05] Voice 10: that has happened on that site,

[7:29:07] Voice 10: so it would be a good other location.

[7:29:09] Voice 10: So maybe that's...

[7:29:11] Voice 10: But I think that might work in conjunction with North Pender,

[7:29:14] Voice 10: who have the hall.

[7:29:15] Voice 35: I didn't say

[7:29:15] Voice 35: North Pender, actually.

[7:29:16] Voice 35: I said the Penders.

[7:29:17] Voice 35: I

[7:29:17] Voice 10: know you did.

[7:29:17] Voice 10: Yeah,

[7:29:17] Voice 35: because we don't have the facilities on North Pender,

[7:29:20] Voice 35: I don't think, to house the meeting.

[7:29:21] Voice 35: it would have to be poets i think

[7:29:23] Voice 10: so yeah so the penders thank you we'll call that a new local

[7:29:27] Voice 10: trust committee and keats is what i've heard um and i think we'll uh leave it there all right

[7:29:36] Voice 10: awesome ceo hudson pillar so

[7:29:38] Voice 7: the understanding is that we would first investigate the penders

[7:29:42] Voice 7: make sure that that works and if it doesn't work we'll go to the keats awesome okay

[7:29:49] Voice 7: Okay,

[7:29:51] Voice 10: I'm seeing more hands up here now.

[7:29:54] Voice 10: I see Hornby and Galliano.

[7:29:57] Voice 10: I'll go to Hornby first.

[7:30:00] Voice 11: Thank you. No, I'm not really lobbying for Hornby.

[7:30:03] Voice 11: I'm one of the northern three Gulf Islands.

[7:30:06] Voice 11: I don't know. Mesquite might not be possible.

[7:30:09] Voice 11: I don't know. Hornby or Denman.

[7:30:13] Voice 11: I'm not going to try to put it up there.

[7:30:16] Voice 11: Don't

[7:30:17] Voice 22: just

[7:30:18] Voice 11: say, you know, there's years ahead of us.

[7:30:19] Voice 11: Excuse me. When you're thinking next year after this, just think about one of those more difficult islands.

[7:30:27] Voice 11: That's all. Thank you, sir.

[7:30:30] Voice 7: I swear this is the last time I'll talk for the next three days, okay?

[7:30:35] Voice 7: So just so everyone knows, this process used to occur at the start of every term all the time.

[7:30:42] Voice 7: We'd just sort of, you know, get the rotunda in.

[7:30:45] Voice 7: We'd include every island.

[7:30:46] Voice 7: If an island didn't want to host at a given time, they'd decline.

[7:30:50] Voice 7: So given the conversation, we'll work with this and then bring you back something that says,

[7:30:55] Voice 7: think about the next two or three years, and then you can plug something in.

[7:31:00] Voice 7: We'll

[7:31:00] Voice 4: get a new route in the next month or two.

[7:31:01] Voice 4: So Ben Maberly, Galena.

[7:31:03] Voice 4: Just a note when we're looking at the vendors,

[7:31:06] Voice 4: just be aware that there's a really good water taxi service between the islands too,

[7:31:13] Voice 4: so we're not really looking for accommodations for everybody.

[7:31:15] Voice 4: I think once we do that, you know, when you do that research on what we need for accommodations,

[7:31:20] Voice 4: you know, I know it's possible for most of the southern Gulf Islands,

[7:31:23] Voice 4: just a water taxi to that location.

[7:31:27] Voice 10: Weather cooperating, yeah?

[7:31:28] Voice 10: Yeah.

[7:31:29] Voice 4: I don't know. It's a September. September should

[7:31:31] Voice 4: be good. Yeah. Okay.

[7:31:32] Voice 6: Alex Allen.

[7:31:35] Voice 6: Yeah.

[7:31:35] Voice 6: I'm not pushing for her and me yet because it'll take a two years or

[7:31:38] Voice 6: something to organize a combination because they're all taken on two years

[7:31:43] Voice 6: ahead. I like the idea of the Northern and the Southern Gulf Islands.

[7:31:47] Voice 6: Yeah. So, you know, Keats is Northern. I think it'd be good to, you know,

[7:31:51] Voice 6: we've got Gabrielle that's North and have a Southern and do that back and

[7:31:55] Voice 6: forth. I think it would be better. Okay. Anything else?

[7:31:59] Voice 6: yes one more thing there was a north pender we did have it in north pender it was in the

[7:32:05] Voice 6: community hall in natural fact yeah it wasn't we didn't yeah so uh you do have the ability

[7:32:12] Voice 6: to host it on your island no

[7:32:14] Voice 10: no it's the accommodation oh it must have been all in

[7:32:19] Voice 10: bmbs and stuff yeah anyway the staff will investigate what the options are and the

[7:32:28] Voice 10: The final word to Sam Borthwick, Denman Island,

[7:32:31] Voice 10: and then really let's get a mover on this motion.

[7:32:35] Voice 14: I promise I'll be really quick.

[7:32:37] Voice 14: The other thing, and this is sort of ancillary to this discussion,

[7:32:41] Voice 14: is one of the things I would really love,

[7:32:44] Voice 14: I've made a point in this term that I want to try and get to all of your islands

[7:32:48] Voice 14: at some point, because I think that's great.

[7:32:50] Voice 14: But I was wondering if we could, and I don't,

[7:32:53] Voice 14: maybe this is normally a thing that's done anyways,

[7:32:55] Voice 14: ways but invite uh the conservancy who to sort of show us their work on the islands that we visit

[7:33:01] Voice 14: i would love to have that be part of the process because i want to know

[7:33:05] Voice 10: yeah so historically and

[7:33:07] Voice 10: those of you that have been here long enough we always engage with local groups to make

[7:33:12] Voice 10: presentations and conservancies and and other amazing initiatives that happen on the islands

[7:33:17] Voice 10: are all part and parcel of the deal so absolutely and if we're lucky we'll have a walkabout or

[7:33:22] Voice 10: or whatever, you know, so we'll figure that out.

[7:33:26] Voice 10: Yeah, awesome, looking forward to it.

[7:33:28] Voice 10: So do I have a mover for this motion?

[7:33:31] Voice 10: I see Susan Yates would be the appropriate mover.

[7:33:34] Voice 10: And who do I have to second?

[7:33:35] Voice 10: I see Ben from Galliano is the seconder of the motion.

[7:33:40] Voice 10: Do we need to have any further discussion?

[7:33:43] Voice 10: All those in favor?

[7:33:59] Voice 23: Yeah,

[7:34:00] Voice 10: and anybody opposed?

[7:34:01] Voice 10: opposed. I almost want to end the meeting on that note. But let's keep rolling. So where are we at

[7:34:09] Voice 10: with the budget? Are there any further motions to amend the budget? Susan Yates.

[7:34:14] Voice 34: Just a quick

[7:34:16] Voice 34: comment. It's possible that the June meeting on Gabriola might be less than $27,500. I have no

[7:34:26] Voice 24: no

[7:34:26] Voice 34: idea that will be up to staff and that would be really nice if it was a bit less than that

[7:34:33] Voice 34: and my other comment is those are the longest days of the year and it will be really nice to not be

[7:34:40] Voice 34: on zoom and we will get a beautiful tour from our conservancy excellent

[7:34:46] Voice 10: okay so um we ask that

[7:34:51] Voice 10: that question one more time are there for any further amendments to the proposed draft budget

[7:34:59] Voice 10: wonderful julia looks like you know what you're doing tonight and so i want to thank you for that

[7:35:07] Voice 10: work in advance and i want to thank everybody that's contributed to that today so before we

[7:35:12] Voice 10: move on however i've got to be careful here um i need to be sure that you've turned your minds

[7:35:19] Voice 10: to the other remaining items.

[7:35:21] Voice 10: And we have one request for decision here at 7.2.14.

[7:35:27] Voice 10: But just want to make sure you've turned your minds

[7:35:29] Voice 10: to 7.2.11.

[7:35:31] Voice 10: That's the conservancy budget.

[7:35:32] Voice 10: And then 7.212 is the business cases

[7:35:35] Voice 10: that were not advanced for fiscal responsibility, et cetera.

[7:35:41] Voice 10: And then of course, 7.2.13, the most important part,

[7:35:46] Voice 10: the results of the public consultation

[7:35:47] Voice 10: and that we've done justice to those.

[7:35:50] Voice 10: So I'm just going to ask if there are any remarks

[7:35:53] Voice 10: for those items, otherwise,

[7:35:54] Voice 10: I'm going to receive them for information.

[7:35:57] Voice 10: I'll give you a moment because that's a bit of a surprise.

[7:36:03] Voice 10: 7.211, 12 and 13.

[7:36:06] Voice 10: So I'm not seeing anything.

[7:36:08] Voice 10: So I'm going to move now to 7.2.14,

[7:36:12] Voice 10: the Salt Spring Island Local Trust Committee

[7:36:13] Voice 10: special tax resolution request.

[7:36:16] Voice 10: This is a decision.

[7:36:17] Voice 10: decision. It's on page 393 of your agenda.

[7:36:22] Voice 23: Oh, I got the wrong page. 393.

[7:36:35] Voice 10: There we go. And this

[7:36:36] Voice 10: is coming from the Salt Spring Island Local Trust Committee. And I'm wondering who's going to speak

[7:36:42] Voice 10: to the RFD. And then I'll go to those who want to speak to it. Is Stefan Cermak going to speak

[7:36:49] Voice 10: to the rfd okay over to you stefan and uh remember that 15 trustees are new so um may not necessarily

[7:37:01] Voice 10: be completely clear thank

[7:37:04] Voice 17: you mr chair sorry i was having a hard time keeping up so the purpose

[7:37:08] Voice 17: of this request for decision is to request that islands trust council include a special property

[7:37:15] Voice 17: tax requisition for the Salt Spring Island Local Trust area in the amount of $43,500

[7:37:21] Voice 17: in the next annual budget. This is to fund additional operations of the Salt Spring Island

[7:37:28] Voice 17: Local Trust Committee in preserving and protecting the quality and quantity of water resources within

[7:37:33] Voice 17: the Salt Spring Island Local Trust area. This request is a reduction from the original request

[7:37:40] Voice 17: of $75,500 to $43,500, and it was made by resolution of the Salt Spring LPC.

[7:37:46] Voice 17: The funding enables the continuation of contract coordination services to administer SWPA,

[7:37:52] Voice 17: that's the Salt Spring Island Watershed Protection Alliance's operations and projects,

[7:37:57] Voice 17: on behalf of the Salt Spring LPC, including development of educational and communication materials.

[7:38:03] Voice 17: As a special tax requisition, the funding will only be collected from properties

[7:38:08] Voice 17: within the salt spring island local trust area and this salt spring ltc has carried resolutions

[7:38:14] Voice 17: recommending trust council's approval of this requisition and i'll leave it at that and i'm

[7:38:19] Voice 17: happy to answer any questions all

[7:38:22] Voice 10: right so are there any questions or comments i i do want to

[7:38:26] Voice 10: recognize jamie harris as uh having quite a keen interest in this and i'll be certainly looking

[7:38:31] Voice 10: for someone to make a motion and then i'm also going to go to ben mabry as i see his hand up

[7:38:36] Voice 10: so anybody get their hands up and we'll uh talk about it laura patrick so

[7:38:42] Voice 23: over to you jamie

[7:38:44] Voice 23: thank you i'm

[7:38:47] Voice 5: not in support of this special tax requisition we had robust conversation at our ltc

[7:38:54] Voice 5: regarding this there in my opinion there hasn't been any real deliverables on this for all these

[7:39:04] Voice 5: years which i'm i'm spacing it out as far as how many years it's been at this point but it's

[7:39:09] Voice 5: upwards of the 750 000 range in cost and um we already have the crd and north salt spring

[7:39:21] Voice 5: waterworks taking care of the watershed and us added into the picture this seems to muddy the

[7:39:30] Voice 5: waters you could say um also with our robust conversation that we had at our ltc it was

[7:39:40] Voice 5: strongly opposed um and i don't want to hurt anybody's feelings by any means we had robust

[7:39:46] Voice 5: conversation and and others that voted for this stated they didn't understand what was really

[7:40:01] Voice 5: going on with this and so i quickly jumped on that to say well how can we support something that

[7:40:07] Voice 5: that isn't understood um so no real deliverables i can't see how another year is going to do

[7:40:16] Voice 5: anything different the watershed is in beautiful condition up there on maxwell it's protected

[7:40:23] Voice 5: and um we have other governmental organizations taking care of it and us being involved is in

[7:40:31] Voice 5: in no way uh helping the matters there i guess i'll just leave it at that thanks

[7:40:37] Voice 10: thank you jamie uh ben mabilly and then laura patrick

[7:40:40] Voice 4: yeah i just kind of uh question probably

[7:40:42] Voice 4: for stephan um is piers island included in this and uh if they are why because i don't

[7:40:50] Voice 4: think they get they benefit from this and what why aren't they just being exempted from the

[7:40:55] Voice 4: tax requisition stefan uh

[7:41:00] Voice 17: thank you for the question to the chair the the legislation

[7:41:02] Voice 17: doesn't permit exclusion of the associated islands in the local trust area from the special tax

[7:41:08] Voice 17: requisition. So when Salt Spring Island applies a special tax property requisition, it applies

[7:41:15] Voice 17: to Piers Island, Prevot Island, Secretary Islands, Mowgli Island, etc., etc. And that's true for any

[7:41:21] Voice 17: of the local trust areas. All your associated islands are included as one entity. I can't

[7:41:28] Voice 17: really contemplate why. I just imagine it'd be too challenging for the legislation to exclude them.

[7:41:32] Voice 17: So as a taxing unit for special property tax, the local trust area is one, it's treated that way, and the Salisbury LTC or any other LTC has no ability to exclude anybody from that.

[7:41:47] Voice 9: Thank you. Hope

[7:41:49] Voice 10: that answers the question. Laura Patrick?

[7:41:53] Voice 18: Cooperation is messy business. So is watershed protection. There's a lot of jurisdictions that have their fingers in this.

[7:42:03] Voice 18: and this work that's done really represents what the in cooperation with part of our mandate is

[7:42:10] Voice 18: there have been significant deliverables we've worked really hard for the last two years to get

[7:42:16] Voice 18: a strategic plan that is done that has been prepared in cooperation with the staff from four

[7:42:23] Voice 18: different agencies our aim was to have the logos of all four agencies on that cover and endorsed

[7:42:31] Voice 18: endorsed by those four agencies and this next year is about starting to implement that plan

[7:42:37] Voice 18: and coordinate implementation of it the governance is one of the first actions that is in that

[7:42:43] Voice 18: strategic plan so there is work to be done to evaluate how we move forward in watershed protection

[7:42:51] Voice 18: and what that looks like and that includes it was a complete options analysis that was done

[7:42:58] Voice 18: if anyone's interested just last spring and that includes either the crd potentially taking the

[7:43:05] Voice 18: lead on having a watershed service like many regional districts do but they don't uh our

[7:43:12] Voice 18: local trust area is also messy business we straddle two electoral areas pierce island

[7:43:21] Voice 18: is in southern gulf island electoral area under our former trustee paul brent is electoral area

[7:43:27] Voice 18: Salt Spring is under Salt Spring electoral area so the the intent of the work that we do includes

[7:43:35] Voice 18: the entire local trust area but it is primarily focused on Salt Spring like everything ends up

[7:43:41] Voice 18: being because Salt Spring is so big and it's about all of the watersheds not not just one

[7:43:46] Voice 18: Mount Maxwell watershed that it's the entire watersheds of the all the islands the whole

[7:43:52] Voice 18: island that we're looking at so this i wish the strategic plan was in my hand today it's been

[7:43:57] Voice 18: hard work staff have done it and have worked well together from the various agencies and i'm really

[7:44:05] Voice 18: looking forward to having it in hand and moving forward and actually being a model of what in

[7:44:09] Voice 18: cooperation can look like okay thank you

[7:44:15] Voice 10: so i have deb morrison i believe on the speaker's list i've

[7:44:18] Voice 10: We've got Joe Bernardo and Jamie Harris back on the list.

[7:44:24] Voice 10: Oh, sorry.

[7:44:25] Voice 10: It wasn't Deb Morrison.

[7:44:27] Voice 10: It was David Maughan.

[7:44:30] Trustee Maude: It was the big DM.

[7:44:32] Voice 10: Yeah.

[7:44:36] Trustee Maude: So, David Maughan.

[7:44:40] Trustee Maude: I'm not really prepared to debate the merits of SWFO one way or the other.

[7:44:44] Trustee Maude: My concern is really the logistical unfairness of other islands being taxed for something that only benefits Ulster.

[7:44:54] Trustee Maude: And I think we've seen a couple of pieces of correspondence from Piers Island.

[7:44:58] Trustee Maude: And that's where my sympathy lies, is, you know, there's that great term, taxation without representation.

[7:45:05] Trustee Maude: and you know there are a bunch of taxpayers that are going to be paying for something that they

[7:45:12] Trustee Maude: literally without argument are receiving no benefit from and i think that is a governance

[7:45:18] Trustee Maude: functional dysfunction that i really really struggle with is that with all the stuff that

[7:45:26] Trustee Maude: we look at like we can always argue well you're getting a benefit this is one where i can't look

[7:45:32] Trustee Maude: at somebody from piers island and go this is why i'm taxing you and and i realize it puts

[7:45:38] Trustee Maude: us in a bad position if they really want to do something good but i don't think it's fair and

[7:45:44] Trustee Maude: that's that's that's my discomfort with it so up is a whole other thing um we have two trustees

[7:45:49] Trustee Maude: with two different points of view there which which i have to respect but it's the taxation

[7:45:54] Trustee Maude: thing that really really bothers me thank you thank

[7:45:57] Voice 10: you david um joe bernardo thank

[7:46:01] Voice 16: you i i've

[7:46:02] Voice 16: I've actually got a bunch of questions because I've I've I've had any number of conversations with folks about this special tax requisition.

[7:46:10] Voice 16: And, you know, I have the natural instinct everybody else does, which is, well, it's not my business.

[7:46:14] Voice 16: It's Salt Spring and it's special for them. But I just have questions here, which is I don't really have a clear understanding of what this project is intended to achieve.

[7:46:26] Voice 16: and i heard trustee harris is talking about um i understood him to be saying that there is

[7:46:34] Voice 16: significant overlap between this project and what the capital regional district is doing

[7:46:38] Voice 16: i guess i kind of want to know what's the difference between what this project's doing

[7:46:44] Voice 16: and capital regional district and other agencies so that's one question second question is uh

[7:46:51] Voice 16: what's being done with the money like what is the project like who's getting the money and where's

[7:46:56] Voice 16: it going and that sort of thing third one is got to do with the equity issue the trustee mod just

[7:47:02] Voice 16: brought up which is um may seem like a weird question but i'm wondering if it's i appreciate

[7:47:08] Voice 16: the point that the tax structure doesn't allow this uh separating the piers island folks from

[7:47:14] Voice 16: salt springs folks i'm wondering if there's a mechanism whereby they can be taxed and then

[7:47:18] Voice 16: the money can be refunded i know it's kind of a goofy arrangement but if that's the way to get

[7:47:24] Voice 16: to equity perhaps that could be explored is that feasible that's the third question thanks

[7:47:34] Voice 10: um thank you joe um kind of we're fishing for some answers here for the question um um and i think

[7:47:43] Voice 10: i'm going to defer to laura patrick who is the chair of swipa to obviously that's difficult to

[7:47:52] Voice 10: do in a minute or two but what is it the SWPA is doing to answer Joe's question and I think Joe

[7:47:58] Voice 10: also needs an answer about that tax shift which I think we've investigated that in the past but

[7:48:06] Voice 10: we're making a decision today about the future of SWPA over to you this

[7:48:12] Voice 18: past year we've been

[7:48:12] Voice 18: working on the strategic plan and we have the money goes toward the retaining a coordinator

[7:48:17] Voice 18: and also we have an education budget

[7:48:21] Voice 18: for materials and education, which all the agencies share.

[7:48:25] Voice 18: So we're not overlapping.

[7:48:26] Voice 18: CRD doesn't go out there and create their own information.

[7:48:29] Voice 18: We've worked together to decide

[7:48:30] Voice 18: what the education materials are, produce that,

[7:48:33] Voice 18: and put that out as a unified group of agencies.

[7:48:37] Voice 18: So the coordinator works with all the agencies

[7:48:40] Voice 18: to coordinate, it's like everyone has

[7:48:42] Voice 18: a little different aspect of what their responsibilities are

[7:48:45] Voice 18: for watershed protection.

[7:48:47] Voice 18: And so the coordinator works under the direction of a lead agency.

[7:48:51] Voice 18: So we have to have a project.

[7:48:53] Voice 18: This past year, the project was the strategic plan that was under the Islands Trust as a lead agency.

[7:48:59] Voice 18: And we get agreement from the other agencies to use the coordinator to coordinate that.

[7:49:03] Voice 18: So the coordinator helped run, work with all the staff, coordinate the staff, and work with the consultant to get what consultant needed to work with all the staff.

[7:49:13] Voice 18: The coordinator has the on-island experience.

[7:49:15] Voice 18: experience and works under in that in that way so that's where the money goes next year the

[7:49:22] Voice 18: activities that are being focused on it is the implementation of the strategic plan there's a

[7:49:27] Voice 18: number of initiatives in that plan that need coordination and that have been agreed to

[7:49:34] Voice 18: it's messy business water is very messy so there's all these agencies that have different elements

[7:49:39] Voice 18: and salt spring is a very unique case where we've been working together i mean we actually were

[7:49:46] Voice 18: before regional district and i will have their watershed protection service so this is it's a

[7:49:51] Voice 18: funky coordination uh it happens in every regional district where they're coordinating it here

[7:49:58] Voice 18: islands trust is taking the lead on coordinating it that may change as we get into the governance

[7:50:03] Voice 18: elements of the activity next year.

[7:50:05] Voice 18: I'm not, I can't predict that.

[7:50:08] Voice 18: As far as the equity issue,

[7:50:10] Voice 18: I'll let staff talk about the frustrations.

[7:50:12] Voice 18: I understand the frustrations.

[7:50:14] Voice 18: You said the intent is that the area is included.

[7:50:17] Voice 18: They get to use the materials that we create,

[7:50:19] Voice 18: especially the education materials.

[7:50:23] Voice 16: Okay.

[7:50:24] Voice 16: Thank you.

[7:50:25] Voice 16: So the question hasn't,

[7:50:28] Voice 16: like, I still don't know what the project is

[7:50:30] Voice 16: and who's getting the money and like,

[7:50:32] Voice 16: I understand the coordination function,

[7:50:34] Voice 16: But is part of this grant money or are we, is our staff, what's our staff doing, if anything?

[7:50:45] Voice 10: Director Cermak, are you going to answer that question?

[7:50:49] Voice 10: That's probably.

[7:50:50] Voice 10: It would be my pleasure.

[7:50:51] Voice 23: It

[7:50:52] Voice 10: would be my pleasure.

[7:50:53] Voice 10: Thank you, sir.

[7:50:54] Voice 10: Yeah, sure.

[7:50:54] Voice 10: And maybe address the

[7:50:56] Voice 17: tax thing as well, if you don't mind.

[7:50:58] Voice 17: Well, maybe I'll start at the end.

[7:50:59] Voice 17: And the tax thing, I don't believe we can change the legislation, and I'm completely unaware of refunding in any mechanism.

[7:51:09] Voice 17: However, that doesn't mean to say that the Salt Spring Island Local Trust Committee could not turn its attention to the needs of Pierce Island, which they actually have done in the past pre-COVID.

[7:51:19] Voice 17: They had a meeting on the island, asked them what would they like to do, and they worked with that community at that time.

[7:51:26] Voice 17: And I believe that's the kind of solution that would be most amicable.

[7:51:29] Voice 17: So if you want to explore that more, we can talk about that more.

[7:51:33] Voice 17: But going back, what is SWIPA?

[7:51:35] Voice 17: My goodness.

[7:51:36] Voice 17: So I'll just tell you a bit of a background.

[7:51:38] Voice 17: I've been there since the beginning, and I've watched it morph as a planner to manager to here we are.

[7:51:44] Voice 17: And SWIPA was created through BIDAL 154 from Trust Council.

[7:51:48] Voice 17: That was the Trust Council deferred authority to coordinate with the province and other entities down to the local trust committee in order to preserve and protect the quality and quantity of water resources on the island.

[7:52:02] Voice 17: Trust Council deferred that authority because nobody was taking that authority on the island to coordinate that effort.

[7:52:10] Voice 17: trust the islands trust is unique in having that coordination ability and it's in your mandate

[7:52:17] Voice 17: to do so so trust council deferred that authority to the ldc and they ran with it and it's gone over

[7:52:24] Voice 17: the years in different directions it started off as looking at the eutrophication of its lakes

[7:52:29] Voice 17: it studied that it made some resolutions it moved on and i hope you don't mind me saying so that

[7:52:36] Voice 17: that water on Salt Spring Island is probably at the center of politics and issues

[7:52:40] Voice 17: because the distribution of water is kind of densities and development and so on and so forth.

[7:52:47] Voice 17: So I think it went that way for a while.

[7:52:50] Voice 17: It has now become a really well-functioning coordination body that includes the province,

[7:52:57] Voice 17: includes the local agencies, the regional district, the local.

[7:53:01] Voice 17: There's a lot of volunteers that go to these things that have been involved for years and years and years.

[7:53:05] Voice 17: and they all come together and every year the contract has gone to the same coordinator which

[7:53:11] Voice 17: we've been very lucky and this coordinator not only coordinates the meetings but also coordinates

[7:53:17] Voice 17: information amongst the groups helps coordinate how things go to and fro so that's that's what

[7:53:23] Voice 17: SWIFT is doing that money on an annual basis is that if it's a certain amount of money you're

[7:53:30] Voice 17: You're paying for the coordinator that's a contract position, and then the other two functions are education and communication materials, which the coordinator helps put together.

[7:53:48] Voice 23: Okay, thank you.

[7:53:49] Voice 10: I was just writing down names.

[7:53:51] Voice 10: My speaker's list is getting much longer.

[7:53:54] Voice 10: and so i want to provide some equal airtime opportunity for jamie harris here but just

[7:53:59] Voice 10: also want you to know that i've got dag falk judith getty alex allen kate louise stanford

[7:54:04] Voice 10: and marie boland on my list as well as lee middleton now oh my gosh we're just going to

[7:54:11] Voice 10: have everybody talk aaron campbell and dan morrison all right jamie harris when i give

[7:54:19] Voice 10: you that thank you i'll

[7:54:20] Voice 5: try and keep it short so to go with what trustee patrick was saying

[7:54:25] Voice 5: you know you taking a simple approach and saying that the water issue is messy well let's make it

[7:54:32] Voice 5: less messy it's already taken care of by the crd our watersheds are protected 100 we have dpas

[7:54:40] Voice 5: riparian areas all we're doing is creating more bureaucracy and if i'd like the suggestion that

[7:54:48] Voice 5: piers island be exempt and if that's the case how about them or get refunded how would anybody who

[7:54:53] Voice 5: doesn't want to participate in the tax requisition get um you know any any property owner could get

[7:54:58] Voice 5: refunded i would uh i'm sure we would uh see a lot of people um join that initiative um so not only

[7:55:05] Voice 5: is piers island not benefiting i really don't see how salt spring island is benefiting if the

[7:55:11] Voice 5: The Islands Trust supports rainwater catchment.

[7:55:15] Voice 5: This whole conversation is moot, you know, because if we're worried about development and water, we already know where the water is.

[7:55:23] Voice 5: It's protected.

[7:55:25] Voice 5: It's pretty cut and dry to me.

[7:55:27] Voice 5: I see it as a big practice of more bureaucracy and nothing delivered for it.

[7:55:34] Voice 5: Thank you, Jamie.

[7:55:36] Voice 10: So I'm going to go to Dag Falk, Judith Getty, Alex Allen, and more following that.

[7:55:42] Voice 37: Yeah, thank you.

[7:55:43] Voice 37: um joe stole my idea of giving the money back um but maybe that can't be done but i think the

[7:55:50] Voice 37: relationship is really really important with the islands that don't benefit and so if this is going

[7:55:55] Voice 37: to go forward i really really hope that something can be done to give a service to them or something

[7:56:00] Voice 37: that they want not just sort of something that they don't want or don't need um because i think

[7:56:06] Voice 37: that could be a give us a very black eye you know and it's not that's not who we want to be

[7:56:11] Voice 37: is somebody that's unfair in that way and I understand that our hands are tied but

[7:56:15] Voice 37: if we explain that and offer something up I think that's important um so we have two trustees from

[7:56:25] Voice 37: uh Salt Spring here on both sides of this and so I'm and I don't I don't live there or know enough

[7:56:31] Voice 37: about it so it's I I you know I like both of you and want to take your your uh your views into

[7:56:37] Voice 37: consideration so i'm wondering it might help me a little bit has there been a survey or has the

[7:56:44] Voice 37: public had a chance to voice themselves on this and do you have a percentage of for and against

[7:56:50] Voice 37: kind of thing sure

[7:56:54] Voice 5: um 68 i believe voted against it in the survey and last year it was over 70

[7:57:00] Voice 5: and

[7:57:00] Voice 9: i'd like to give laura patrick

[7:57:03] Voice 9: the opportunity to provide her interpretation on that result

[7:57:05] Voice 9: There

[7:57:08] Voice 18: was clearly a campaign on Piers Island that sways the only handful of people that responded to the survey.

[7:57:15] Voice 18: But we also have two letters in the agenda package in support.

[7:57:20] Voice 18: Thank you.

[7:57:21] Voice 18: Okay, thank you, Dag, for that.

[7:57:23] Voice 36: That's great.

[7:57:24] Voice 10: Judith Getty.

[7:57:26] Voice 36: I don't know Piers Island and I don't know what their situation is.

[7:57:30] Voice 36: But I think that if it's any small comfort to them, I've written a note on the margin of my agenda that without a formal referral to the Governance Committee that we can add this to our list of the many things that we can look at to see whether or not there can be legislative changes that allow for some kind of discrimination between the islands that don't want services and whatever.

[7:57:55] Voice 36: ever but if it's legislated down then i think we're pretty well stuck with it um when i look

[7:58:01] Voice 36: at the list of activities that have gone on that are described on 394 of our agenda um there's a

[7:58:08] Voice 36: whole lot of the stuff in there that the group has worked on that um from a bowling perspective

[7:58:13] Voice 36: i'm interested in um a lot of the materials that have been created um and the work that's been done

[7:58:19] Voice 36: So possibly that is something that can filter down to Piers Island as well.

[7:58:26] Voice 36: Sure.

[7:58:27] Voice 10: I just want to say something, having been past chair, because you asked an interesting question.

[7:58:36] Voice 10: You don't know much about Piers Island.

[7:58:38] Voice 10: And Piers Island is unique, as all of the islands are.

[7:58:42] Voice 10: But it's unique in the fact that it has a water pipe that runs over from Saanich to provide its water, which is unique, and it's supported by the regional district.

[7:58:55] Voice 10: So that's a little piece of information about Piers Island that may not be obvious.

[7:59:00] Voice 10: I'm going to go to Alex Allen, Cape Blue Stanford, and we'll continue on from there.

[7:59:08] Voice 6: All right. Thank you, Chair.

[7:59:09] Voice 6: Well, David Maud said a lot of what I was going to say earlier.

[7:59:12] Voice 6: But, yeah, regarding the survey, I'm just trying to find this page, but, I mean, 143 members of the public, that's, what is that?

[7:59:20] Voice 6: That's, your island is 11,635 residents, so that's 1.2% responded.

[7:59:28] Voice 6: Anything, like, any survey should be, like, 25% or more to be, you know, to look at what the results are.

[7:59:34] Voice 6: and uh you know the 68 percent did not support when i when i look at the actual respondents

[7:59:41] Voice 6: 70 percent were from salt spring island and 30 percent were from piers island and uh and yes

[7:59:48] Voice 6: it's very peer-centric in terms of responses but they obviously have concerns and so i'm not going

[7:59:51] Voice 6: to support this okay

[7:59:54] Voice 23: take three stanford

[8:00:00] Voice 20: I have a couple of comments and then I have a question.

[8:00:03] Voice 20: Taxation for service.

[8:00:05] Voice 20: The Gambier Local Trust area, we are taxed on a particular service from BC Ferries.

[8:00:11] Voice 20: And I would say maybe 20% of us actually have the ability to use that service.

[8:00:17] Voice 20: And we constantly sit there with that extra line item on our rural tax, which is the Langdale Float.

[8:00:25] Voice 20: I think it's more common than we realize that people are taxed for services that they actually cannot access.

[8:00:34] Voice 20: As far as coordination for SWPA, I just really wish that George Grams was here.

[8:00:43] Voice 20: He was so eloquent in his defense and promotion of this coordinating function.

[8:00:50] Voice 20: function um what i'm seeing on the sunshine coast is what's happened with a lack of coordination

[8:00:58] Voice 20: around water water is messy as as the trustees say um there are levels of jurisdiction that

[8:01:08] Voice 20: one jurisdiction covers the watershed another jurisdiction covers the wells another jurisdiction

[8:01:14] Voice 20: covers municipalities uh and it goes on and on and on and because we part of the reason that

[8:01:21] Voice 20: the sunshine coast regional district declared a drought which is the first in canada to do a local

[8:01:28] Voice 20: emergency on a drought is because we didn't have coordinating functions across different

[8:01:34] Voice 20: jurisdictions and it shows so we're trying to catch up and we're spending quite a bit of money

[8:01:39] Voice 20: need to do that the question i have is how are first nations part of this coordinating function

[8:01:46] Voice 20: and that's i guess to salt

[8:01:48] Voice 23: spring island the terms

[8:01:58] Voice 18: of reference just identifies seats at the table

[8:02:01] Voice 18: for first nations and no one has taken those seats they're offered but they're not taken

[8:02:05] Voice 18: uh the the strategic plan i haven't seen it yet but that's one of the elements that is uh

[8:02:10] Voice 18: that staff were asked to address was how we move forward in a respectful way

[8:02:14] Voice 18: um and i and that's a key key element of it jamie harris

[8:02:21] Voice 18: thank

[8:02:23] Voice 5: you regarding local indigenous and

[8:02:25] Voice 5: first nations on salt spring island um the vast vast majority of those um local first nations

[8:02:32] Voice 5: supported my election um to this position um let me speak to the issue of of water on salt spring

[8:02:42] Voice 5: spring and it's we don't have a problem with water we're fighting water for the majority of the year

[8:02:47] Voice 5: the problem we have is with bureaucracy and water um it's pretty simple um as i see it like that

[8:02:56] Voice 5: you know we um you can get a building permit if you are going to have water delivered or if you're

[8:03:03] Voice 5: You're going to have rain catchment or a storage system that you present with your plan.

[8:03:14] Voice 5: So, again, we're fighting water most of the time.

[8:03:17] Voice 5: And we know where the water is, where it isn't.

[8:03:20] Voice 5: You can, again, get a building permit on the basis that you're going to have water delivered or with rain catchment.

[8:03:28] Voice 5: So I really don't see how this special tax requisition is doing anything for the taxpayers.

[8:03:32] Voice 5: they're not getting any value to this.

[8:03:35] Voice 5: And I guess I'll leave it at that, thanks.

[8:03:40] Voice 10: Okay, thank you.

[8:03:41] Voice 10: My next speaker then is Mireille Boland.

[8:03:47] Voice 26: Just to point, so 43,500 is because there's 32,000

[8:03:56] Voice 26: left in last year's budget.

[8:03:58] Voice 26: Otherwise it would have been 75,000.

[8:04:00] Voice 26: So there is 32,000 carried over from last year.

[8:04:05] Voice 26: um i have a kind of concern about something that's called special property tax requisition

[8:04:12] Voice 26: that's still in place like it's i think it's 10 years now and um i just feel that there should be

[8:04:21] Voice 26: some kind of step change some sort of boundary some sort of you know okay here's uh you know

[8:04:28] Voice 26: a milestone and then something changes and i don't see that happening but i have another question

[8:04:36] Voice 26: which is um i see deliverables mentioned here reports from groundwater solutions and econics

[8:04:44] Voice 26: etc are those paid for by other members of the alliance like what's the total budget for swipper

[8:04:52] Voice 26: that. Or, you know, I see just the coordinator roles supported by us and the communications

[8:04:59] Voice 26: material, but it would be helpful to see if there's a total budget that goes beyond that.

[8:05:05] Voice 26: Thank you.

[8:05:06] Voice 10: So I'm inclined to want to ask Stefan that question to kind of separate the political

[8:05:12] Voice 10: from the administrative, if that's all

[8:05:16] Voice 17: right. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I can only address a few

[8:05:20] Voice 17: of them i'm somewhat removed from the process but um i i do know that uh and different projects that

[8:05:27] Voice 17: are coordinated via swipa have different contributors for funding and the best example

[8:05:32] Voice 17: i can give is the western lake watershed assessment that was most recently completed it

[8:05:37] Voice 17: was a joint effort between the capital regional district and the salt spring island local trust

[8:05:41] Voice 17: committee where they both contributed and the crd led the project but the lpc worked with them on

[8:05:47] Voice 17: that so that's one example of where there were shared resources um and swipa does have its own

[8:05:53] Voice 17: uh budgeting um thing that it goes through with the ltc but i don't see it in this package or if

[8:05:58] Voice 17: it is it's buried um but yeah i think actually the chair um trustee patrick who's been the chair

[8:06:04] Voice 17: might actually be better of a better historical knowledge of sharing resources

[8:06:08] Voice 9: okay yeah thank you and so laura i'll ask you well

[8:06:12] Voice 18: as i said a project comes from a lead agency so

[8:06:15] Voice 18: So like the province did a water budget a few years ago,

[8:06:18] Voice 18: it was like a quarter of a million dollar project the province paid for.

[8:06:22] Voice 18: But the SWPA helped with the coordination because all the data had to come

[8:06:26] Voice 18: from all the various agencies that had various elements that needed to do

[8:06:31] Voice 18: that.

[8:06:31] Voice 18: And the coordinator ran around doing all the on-island data collection to

[8:06:35] Voice 18: support the work that the province could do to do the work.

[8:06:37] Voice 18: So like I said, there's a lead agency that has a project.

[8:06:41] Voice 18: It has to have the funding for that project at that lead agency.

[8:06:44] Voice 18: and it's the we come together to coordinate it sometimes we all contribute depending on what

[8:06:51] Voice 18: the project is and

[8:06:51] Voice 10: the interest so thank you laura so in in fairness uh jamie do you have

[8:06:57] Voice 10: anything to add to that about those reports thank

[8:07:01] Voice 5: you you know i'll say that weston lake

[8:07:03] Voice 5: is developed around it already and um possibly um you know year like long time ago i don't even

[8:07:11] Voice 5: know when that those houses would have been built but some are quite close to the to the

[8:07:14] Voice 5: the edge of the water there, but it's developed around.

[8:07:19] Voice 5: So it's not like it's going to see heavy development

[8:07:21] Voice 5: and so what's done has been done there.

[8:07:25] Voice 5: So, and again, the watersheds are very highly protected

[8:07:30] Voice 5: and people are well aware of the need to conserve water

[8:07:34] Voice 5: in the summertime, if they live in an area

[8:07:37] Voice 5: that is prone to maybe having a water shortage,

[8:07:41] Voice 5: which we do have those areas on Salt Spring,

[8:07:43] Voice 5: everybody knows where they are.

[8:07:45] Voice 5: And yeah, thanks.

[8:07:48] Voice 5: Thank you.

[8:07:48] Voice 5: Lee Middleton.

[8:07:52] Voice 12: Thanks, Chair.

[8:07:53] Voice 12: Yeah, it's a unique situation.

[8:07:55] Voice 12: We've been sat around this table for,

[8:07:58] Voice 12: I guess it'll be the ninth year,

[8:08:01] Voice 12: giving oversight to this tax requisition.

[8:08:04] Voice 12: And as Trustee Bernardo points out

[8:08:07] Voice 12: in seeking to find out exactly what this project is

[8:08:11] Voice 12: and what it will do,

[8:08:11] Voice 12: is we've had the luxury of all these previous years

[8:08:14] Voice 12: of both trustees from Salt Spring being aligned

[8:08:17] Voice 12: line and fully in support and for good or ill not making any comment and that now we don't we have a

[8:08:23] Voice 12: division uh between the two trustees which is forcing us to have to do the diligence that we

[8:08:30] Voice 12: haven't had to do the the last uh in my case the last sort of eight eight years um and so i'm

[8:08:38] Voice 12: wondering if in order to finish off the strategic plan work as sort of a compromised position

[8:08:43] Voice 12: requisition if a $20,000 requisition might obviously not do the printing and the education

[8:08:49] Voice 12: materials but might finish the strategic plan and it's sort of a you know in absence of any

[8:08:55] Voice 12: great insight on part of the council is a way forward across uh to trustees who are divided

[8:09:01] Voice 12: on on this um a suggestion um

[8:09:06] Voice 18: laurie want to respond to that the strategic plan will be done

[8:09:10] Voice 18: done this term, it's being paid for by this,

[8:09:14] Voice 18: it's supposed to be delivered this month.

[8:09:16] Voice 18: I heard there's a draft circular rating around the office.

[8:09:19] Voice 18: They haven't shared it with those politicians yet,

[8:09:21] Voice 18: but the plan will be done.

[8:09:22] Voice 18: It's the implementing of the activities in particular

[8:09:26] Voice 18: of the island's trust activities,

[8:09:27] Voice 18: local trust committee activities that are within

[8:09:30] Voice 18: this new coordinated strategic plan.

[8:09:34] Voice 18: Okay,

[8:09:34] Voice 10: Erin Campbell.

[8:09:38] Voice 10: Okay, thank you, sir.

[8:09:39] Voice 10: um deb morrison i think yeah

[8:09:45] Voice 35: so i'm gonna echo a little bit what lee said and also um just a couple

[8:09:50] Voice 35: other points that haven't been brought up so i i think we're in a dilemma here because uh i've

[8:09:56] Voice 35: always felt this is salt springs business but salt springs divided and so um here we are um

[8:10:04] Voice 35: i think some of the things that have been brought up about the survey or about letters or different

[8:10:10] Voice 35: things like that's the kind of detail that we don't necessarily have all the whole story and

[8:10:17] Voice 35: the history of how that is and so I don't know that it's a complete kind of public engagement

[8:10:24] Voice 35: process or not so I don't know how to weigh that information so I just kind of I'm trying to put

[8:10:28] Voice 35: that information to the side because I don't understand how to handle that information so

[8:10:33] Voice 35: So and then when we think about SWFA, I think we also want to ask ourselves, if we don't

[8:10:43] Voice 35: support the special tax requisition, then it is completely reasonable for Salt Springs

[8:10:51] Voice 35: LTC to come to us and ask us for support for their coordinator position directly out of

[8:10:58] Voice 35: our budget.

[8:10:58] Voice 35: So because the SWFA tax requisition is a tax requisition on additional tax just on the Salt Spring Island region.

[8:11:08] Voice 35: And if they don't support it, if it doesn't get support that way, it could come forward as a project from the LTC that would be listed in the budget.

[8:11:17] Voice 35: So just to be aware that, you know, that's another alternative for funding.

[8:11:21] Voice 35: And then the last thing I think it's helpful to know that the other agencies are contributing in some way because that does speak to the coordination.

[8:11:29] Voice 35: One of our roles as the trust is to coordinate.

[8:11:33] Voice 35: So, like, the fact that we're doing this as a special tax requisition, I almost feel like we don't support this on the special tax requisition, and it comes out of the base budget because it is a coordinating role of the trust.

[8:11:45] Voice 35: So just, like, from that perspective, I also have some questions.

[8:11:51] Voice 35: So two questions. One is water delivered, like to the comment that Jamie made about water being delivered.

[8:12:00] Voice 35: I thought that was against the current trust policy statement.

[8:12:04] Voice 35: I thought islands have to be independent of water. So that's one question.

[8:12:09] Voice 35: And then the second one is I really want to hear from Tim.

[8:12:13] Voice 10: Tim is next on the speaker's list. So he's got his foot in the door.

[8:12:19] Voice 10: but let's go to the regional planning manager now the director of planning services um for

[8:12:25] Voice 10: comments on trucking water thank

[8:12:29] Voice 17: you mr chair it is uh at time of building permit if the zoning

[8:12:32] Voice 17: already allows building then it's up to the regional uh district to issue the building permit

[8:12:37] Voice 17: and to show proof of evidence water and there there are examples when trucking water is is

[8:12:42] Voice 17: considered sufficient at that time that's their decision to make all

[8:12:47] Voice 10: right thank you and if if

[8:12:49] Voice 10: If it's all right, I'll continue with my speaker's list and go Grant Scott and then Tim Peterson.

[8:12:53] Voice 10: Grant's left the room.

[8:12:54] Voice 10: Guess what?

[8:12:54] Voice 10: Tim Peterson.

[8:12:58] Voice 15: Thank you, Chair.

[8:12:59] Voice 15: So I was the enviable position of being a new chair on Salt Spring, and this item came up.

[8:13:09] Voice 15: um and i did state at the meeting i i don't i i'm much too new to understand the complete

[8:13:17] Voice 15: complexities of salt spring with its multiple water districts some administered by the regional

[8:13:24] Voice 15: districts some private some by wells some by lakes it's a complex situation um my decision

[8:13:34] Voice 15: decision to uh you know I I was in a position to to uh either uh help advance this to trust

[8:13:45] Voice 15: Council or to uh leave it on on the floor at the LTC my decision to uh to vote in favor of bringing

[8:13:55] Voice 15: it to trust Council um some of the factors that influence that decision um are things like we have

[8:14:03] Voice 15: two letters here one from salt spring solutions one from the salt spring housing council society

[8:14:11] Voice 15: um both of them mentioned and i also heard from other people in the community

[8:14:17] Voice 15: the north salt spring water work districts has a moratorium on new water hookups

[8:14:25] Voice 15: again i'm not an expert on the situation but i did hear concerns that that the water situation and

[8:14:33] Voice 15: And that moratorium had negative effects on the aspirations of the community to be able to provide more workforce housing, which I understand is a high priority on Salt Spring.

[8:14:50] Voice 15: So those are the factors that influenced my decision to vote in favor of bringing this question to Trust Council here.

[8:15:03] Voice 15: So I just wanted to highlight that those were the factors that swayed my vote to bring this from the LTC here.

[8:15:16] Voice 15: And those letters, of course, are in our agenda package, and I'm not sure if anyone's had a look at them.

[8:15:22] Voice 15: But that water moratorium and its potential deleterious effect on the provision of more housing on Salt Spring were really the deciding factors for me.

[8:15:37] Voice 15: So I'm just going to give a little background on my process to get us here.

[8:15:44] Voice 23: Thank you, Tim.

[8:15:46] Voice 10: So, Grant, while you are out of the room, I skipped over you.

[8:15:50] Voice 10: And so now I'm coming back to you.

[8:15:52] Voice 10: my

[8:15:53] Voice 11: apologies for uh ding-a-ling-a-ling yeah yeah being a ding-a-ling but um

[8:15:59] Voice 11: no i i don't have any comment

[8:16:01] Voice 31: okay thank you

[8:16:03] Voice 11: all right uh

[8:16:05] Voice 10: susan yates just

[8:16:08] Voice 34: really a point

[8:16:09] Voice 34: of clarification this request for decision um is the final step in the local trust committee

[8:16:15] Voice 34: process of requesting this special property tax requisition i'm assuming this is the last year

[8:16:22] Voice 34: hear that Salt Spring or that you will be coming to council. Am I correct in that? Okay.

[8:16:35] Voice 34: Just from things that I've been reading and talking to people, I was under the impression

[8:16:41] Voice 34: that if you get this last installment of this special tax requisition, then the work maybe

[8:16:49] Voice 34: maybe can go on without it i could be

[8:16:52] Voice 10: wrong jamie

[8:16:54] Voice 5: you also had a response to that well i had a

[8:16:57] Voice 5: response to tim's comment about the water moratorium maybe some people like to hear my

[8:17:02] Voice 5: thoughts on that um there was a study back in i want to say 2019 i should have this in front of me

[8:17:09] Voice 5: um showing clearly that there was a 30 million gallon surplus of water um and the water moratorium

[8:17:15] Voice 5: we're talking about is the um one of the maxwell watershed um there's certain people on that water

[8:17:20] Voice 5: board it's a big contentious issue in the community um a lot of people say that um it's

[8:17:27] Voice 5: just as more of an exercise of people who don't want anything happening in their backyard type of

[8:17:33] Voice 5: deal and uh and are actually um hindering the um the the forward movement of workforce housing

[8:17:40] Voice 5: housing projects, and definitely something we'd like to deal with, but I think that supporting

[8:17:48] Voice 5: this special tax requisition wouldn't help that in any way, shape, or form.

[8:17:54] Voice 5: If anything, not supporting this would hopefully send some signals about the water moratorium

[8:18:03] Voice 5: and how we do need water for workforce housing, and water is there.

[8:18:09] Voice 5: There will be an election coming soon for the Water Board.

[8:18:13] Voice 5: And if we get the right people in there, we'll see quite a different picture and story coming.

[8:18:19] Voice 10: Thanks.

[8:18:22] Voice 10: Joe Bernardo, you're my last.

[8:18:25] Voice 10: Oh, no, I got one more speaker coming up here.

[8:18:29] Voice 10: Thank you.

[8:18:31] Voice 10: I'm happy to go for a vote, by the way.

[8:18:33] Voice 10: This is difficult.

[8:18:35] Voice 16: difficult. We've got a situation here where there's a divided local trust committee and

[8:18:43] Voice 16: we're being asked to resolve the division by picking one side over another. And I'd actually

[8:18:49] Voice 16: be fine with that if I was in a position to make a principled and informed decision,

[8:18:57] Voice 16: except I'm not. I neither understand what this funding is actually going to coordinate. I've

[8:19:06] Voice 16: I've read the material and I've heard people here

[8:19:09] Voice 16: that we're funding a coordination function,

[8:19:12] Voice 16: but it's not clear to me what the objective deliverables

[8:19:17] Voice 16: of the project are over the long term or its value.

[8:19:22] Voice 16: I'm not saying I don't have a position as to its value.

[8:19:25] Voice 16: I'm ignorant.

[8:19:29] Voice 16: I don't know how to vote because I don't know which side has more merits.

[8:19:36] Voice 16: so i'm at this stage i just have to say i mean i think i'm unless something magical happens here

[8:19:45] Voice 16: i'm probably going to i expect i'm probably going to abstain because i don't know enough

[8:19:49] Voice 16: to make an informed choice and i'm i

[8:19:51] Voice 23: regret that a great deal i've got speakers on my list here

[8:20:00] Voice 23: that i'll go

[8:20:01] Voice 10: through and just to get more opinion uh would be good to move towards some kind of a

[8:20:05] Voice 10: vote um um we certainly heard from everybody pretty much at this point

[8:20:10] Voice 10: sue ellen fast uh tim

[8:20:12] Voice 10: peterson and uh christina evans probably put tim after christine because you haven't spoken once

[8:20:18] Voice 10: yet thank you

[8:20:20] Trustee Fast: chair um i'm just going to speak briefly because most of the my question has been

[8:20:27] Trustee Fast: been answered uh thank you tim and uh about the moratorium and um i just want to say i uh

[8:20:33] Trustee Fast: uh i hear when i hear the sunshine coast having a drought until december 15th and the uh director

[8:20:43] Trustee Fast: for the sunshine coast has spoken here that's kate weiss when i hear about the climate emergency

[8:20:49] Trustee Fast: We're in the middle of the decade of climate action we have to take.

[8:20:56] Trustee Fast: I just wanted to mention that I can't see how defeating this motion will advance preserving and protecting the quality and quantity of water resources,

[8:21:10] Trustee Fast: which seems to be our goal, including in cooperation with.

[8:21:15] Trustee Fast: So I think nobody else is offering this kind of money.

[8:21:24] Trustee Fast: It's in our mandate.

[8:21:26] Trustee Fast: Climate is bearing down on us, and I want to be on the right side of history.

[8:21:30] Trustee Fast: I'll be voting in favour.

[8:21:31] Trustee Fast: Thank you.

[8:21:32] Voice 10: Thank you.

[8:21:33] Voice 10: Christina Evans and then Tim Peterson.

[8:21:36] Voice 25: Thank you, Chair.

[8:21:38] Voice 25: I don't claim to fully understand everything that's gone on here,

[8:21:41] Voice 25: but what I'm hearing is that there has been a lengthy process that involves other agencies

[8:21:47] Voice 25: in cooperation with Salt Spring to create a strategic plan. That strategic plan is at its

[8:21:55] Voice 25: end days. It's about to be released. So within that strategic plan will be the work.

[8:22:03] Voice 25: The LTC members haven't seen that plan yet, so they can't answer questions as to what that work

[8:22:09] Voice 25: entails for me all of that work with other agencies paying and contributing

[8:22:15] Voice 25: to it happening I think is critical to move along I don't want us to be the the

[8:22:24] Voice 25: the decision that says you know thank you for all of that work but we're

[8:22:28] Voice 25: stepping out now I think I lost my thought this is brilliant I had a good

[8:22:38] Voice 25: point i really did oh

[8:22:40] Voice 10: it's getting late in the day i'm surprised um

[8:22:44] Voice 25: yeah i can't remember it

[8:22:45] Voice 25: literally fell out of my head so uh i'm just going to close with there's a strategic plan

[8:22:50] Voice 25: there is work to be done the work is about to start we've got other agencies paying for it

[8:22:55] Voice 25: they have done all of this footwork and to pull the plug right at the point where you're going to

[8:23:01] Voice 25: to say now we can start delivering i i can't i can't i can't do that so i'm going to vote in

[8:23:10] Voice 25: favor of this okay

[8:23:11] Voice 15: tim peterson

[8:23:12] Voice 10: uh

[8:23:13] Voice 15: yeah it occurs to me that there is an emotion on the table so i'm

[8:23:16] Voice 15: we've had a long conversation so i'm just going to go ahead and make the motion uh that the islands

[8:23:22] Voice 15: trust council include a special property tax requisition for the salt spring island local

[8:23:26] Voice 15: local trust area in the amount of $43,000 in its 2023-24 annual budget to fund the operations

[8:23:32] Voice 15: of the Salt Spring Island Local Trust Committee in accordance with the additional powers granted

[8:23:39] Voice 15: to it under Bylaw 154 related to preserving and protecting the quantity and quality of

[8:23:45] Voice 15: water resources within the Salt Spring Local Trust Area.

[8:23:50] Voice 10: All right, thank you. So that's moved,

[8:23:53] Voice 10: seconded. I think I heard over on this side of the table, and that's the motion that's up on

[8:23:57] Voice 10: your screen there as presented and i'll just ask for this uh the mover to speak to the motion and

[8:24:03] Voice 10: then we'll come to those who wish to address the motion before we vote uh

[8:24:08] Voice 15: i think i've already

[8:24:09] Voice 15: spoke to the motion i just wanted to get the motion on the floor because we've had a lot of

[8:24:13] Voice 15: discussion without emotion thank

[8:24:15] Voice 10: you uh jamie harris you have your hand up

[8:24:18] Voice 5: i just want to say

[8:24:19] Voice 5: before anybody makes up their mind to just imagine why i'm sitting here right now

[8:24:26] Voice 5: Now, there's been a huge shift on Salt Spring Island and a huge discomfort with the way things have been handled for many years.

[8:24:37] Voice 5: And more importantly, the vast, vast majority of local Indigenous openly supported my election in a very big way on the island.

[8:24:48] Voice 5: So think about that to help you make up your mind. Thanks.

[8:24:53] Voice 10: Thank you. Laura Patrick, Lee Middleton, Kate Lewis, Stanford.

[8:24:56] Voice 10: for yeah oh sorry sue ellen fast i mean i haven't done that long absolutely

[8:25:04] Voice 18: agree and that's why i

[8:25:06] Voice 18: worked really hard to push getting the strategic plan done it was difficult it was hard we set the

[8:25:12] Voice 18: bar high staff worked together well i really think it represented the in cooperation with part of our

[8:25:20] Voice 18: mandate being done on something that's so important you talk all the time about we want to have good

[8:25:26] Voice 18: good science to base our decisions on.

[8:25:29] Voice 18: And this is cooperated, coordinated science

[8:25:32] Voice 18: of groups working together for the benefit of this Island.

[8:25:35] Voice 18: We are very lucky to have the dedicated staff,

[8:25:39] Voice 18: even from the province that sees this area.

[8:25:41] Voice 18: They come to our meetings, they care about Salt Spring.

[8:25:46] Voice 18: So I really urge you to support this

[8:25:48] Voice 18: and let's let the strategic plan land.

[8:25:51] Voice 18: And like I said, the first activity

[8:25:52] Voice 18: is getting into the governance

[8:25:54] Voice 18: and what it looks like going forward, and it may change.

[8:26:00] Voice 10: Okay, I'm going to go through my speakers.

[8:26:01] Voice 10: Let's not come back to Jamie.

[8:26:04] Voice 10: Lee Middleton, Sue Ellen Fast, Jamie Harris.

[8:26:10] Voice 12: Thank you, Chair.

[8:26:11] Voice 12: I think echoing some of the previous comments,

[8:26:16] Voice 12: I'd like to propose an amendment,

[8:26:20] Voice 12: one that will probably make neither party

[8:26:23] Voice 12: and neither trustee unsaltering happy,

[8:26:25] Voice 12: but that's I think the hallmark of a good compromise.

[8:26:28] Voice 12: I don't see that we have any other way forwards.

[8:26:31] Voice 12: And so I would suggest that amendment

[8:26:34] Voice 12: that the amount of 43,500 be more or less half

[8:26:37] Voice 12: than replaced with 22,000.

[8:26:42] Voice 12: The strategic plan can stand on its own merits

[8:26:44] Voice 12: and comparison would really be completed.

[8:26:46] Voice 12: And then the LTC can come forward

[8:26:50] Voice 12: for any subsequent funding.

[8:26:52] Voice 12: And so this seems in absence of us

[8:26:54] Voice 12: us having any real clear way to do our due diligence

[8:26:56] Voice 12: as a council, a compromised position that, you know,

[8:27:01] Voice 12: is neither party's preference, but seems to me really

[8:27:05] Voice 12: one of the only ways we can go forward.

[8:27:07] Voice 12: So it's probably not a friendly amendment.

[8:27:09] Voice 12: So sorry to burden your chair with.

[8:27:12] Voice 10: It's definitely not a friendly amendment.

[8:27:14] Voice 10: So you will have to make a motion.

[8:27:16] Voice 12: Yeah, so I move that the current motion be modified

[8:27:20] Voice 12: by replacing the dollar figure 43,500

[8:27:23] Voice 12: with the dollar figure, 22,000.

[8:27:29] Voice 23: Okay.

[8:27:30] Voice 23: Do I have a seconder for that motion?

[8:27:35] Voice 10: Ben Maberly seconded the motion.

[8:27:37] Voice 10: Do you wish to speak further to your motion?

[8:27:39] Voice 12: No, that was enough.

[8:27:40] Voice 12: Thank you, Chair.

[8:27:42] Voice 10: Who would like to speak to the motion?

[8:27:44] Voice 10: Ben Maberly?

[8:27:45] Voice 4: Yeah, I just sort of want to echo Lee's.

[8:27:48] Voice 4: I think we've reached a spot here where, you know,

[8:27:53] Voice 4: I'm with Joe.

[8:27:54] Voice 4: I'm not sure, right?

[8:27:55] Voice 4: Right. I'm uncomfortable with taxation without representation.

[8:28:00] Voice 4: I'm uncomfortable with that. I'm comfortable with all those islands that that are going to support this and don't feel like they're going to see deliverables out of it.

[8:28:10] Voice 4: And I'm I'm not sure that there's a way to to make that right.

[8:28:17] Voice 4: I understand. I'm very connected to the First Nations on Salt Spring that that oppose this as well.

[8:28:24] Voice 4: and so that makes me uncomfortable but i do understand exactly what christina is talking

[8:28:31] Voice 4: about where we have something in process that's virtually finished and there's some deliverables

[8:28:38] Voice 4: at the end and and you know i think the compromise is good it allows things to move forward instead

[8:28:46] Voice 4: of killing the project and um it's as lee says probably doesn't make anybody happy which is

[8:28:54] Voice 4: is, as he says, the homework of a good decision, so.

[8:28:59] Voice 4: Okay,

[8:28:59] Voice 10: so I got a new speaker's list going on the amendment.

[8:29:03] Voice 10: And just before I go to that,

[8:29:05] Voice 10: I just want to make sure that Joe was out of the room.

[8:29:07] Voice 10: We've made them, and Joe,

[8:29:08] Voice 10: there's been an amendment to the motion for the amount.

[8:29:11] Voice 10: Just want to make sure you're aware of that.

[8:29:13] Voice 10: And I think everybody else was in the room.

[8:29:15] Voice 10: And so Laura Patrick Sue Ellen Fast,

[8:29:19] Voice 10: asked no okay laura patrick on the amendment to the motion i

[8:29:25] Voice 18: can't support the amendment

[8:29:27] Voice 18: like i said the strategic plan is not a deliverable the strategic plan is a strategic

[8:29:31] Voice 18: plan for work going forward it includes actions schedules budgets and it was done on some

[8:29:37] Voice 18: expectation that there's money to carry on the coordination in the current status into at least

[8:29:44] Voice 18: this next year it could be changes coming as like said they're dealing with governance is

[8:29:49] Voice 18: one of the top things that's going to be done as a multi-agency conversation so i can't support

[8:29:55] Voice 18: a reduction further we've already taken a significant reduction from seven

[8:30:00] Voice 18: be $5,000 to the $43,500, and we need to give some assurances to get the work done.

[8:30:08] Voice 10: Thank you, Laura. Sue Ellen Fast, and then Christina Evans, if I'm not mistaken.

[8:30:15] Voice 10: Thank you, Chair.

[8:30:15] Trustee Fast: I just was asking to see the amendment motion. Thank you.

[8:30:20] Voice 9: Oh, I see. Okay.

[8:30:23] Voice 10: So, Christina Evans.

[8:30:25] Voice 10: thank

[8:30:27] Voice 25: you chair um so from what i'm hearing from laura what she's saying is they need to have that

[8:30:33] Voice 25: 43.5 i understand the motion from trustee mabley to reduce the um special tax to 43

[8:30:42] Voice 25: from from 43.5 to 22 um can i make um uh suggest an amendment to your amendment that the remainder

[8:30:50] Voice 25: remainder uh that the difference um flow from um the current budget if that's needed because as

[8:30:59] Voice 25: deb morrison said if it if this work doesn't come from the special tax then that then there will be

[8:31:06] Voice 25: a business case come forward for for that money out of our general budget

[8:31:11] Voice 23: i just want to seek

[8:31:19] Voice 10: legislative services director advice on amending a motion here i don't have it yet but the

[8:31:27] Voice 10: consideration of taking the the remaining funds from a tax island's trust track requisition

[8:31:35] Voice 10: that strikes me that changes the intent to some extent um and so i think that that would have to

[8:31:42] Voice 10: to be a separate motion if this failed let's say david yeah

[8:31:48] Voice 3: robert's rules would allow like two

[8:31:50] Voice 3: amendments at the same time but that gets confusing and the intent is not to change the as you said

[8:31:56] Voice 3: the intent of the resolution so i would recommend that you just deal with this one and then if you

[8:32:01] Voice 3: want if it passes or fails you can decide how to go from there and

[8:32:06] Voice 10: then i think the debate has

[8:32:07] Voice 10: is surrounded around whether or not

[8:32:09] Voice 10: we want to continue funding SWPA at all.

[8:32:12] Voice 10: And I think that that is creative financing,

[8:32:15] Voice 10: but doesn't necessarily respect the interests of those

[8:32:19] Voice 10: that are not interested in funding SWPA at all.

[8:32:21] Voice 10: So good creative idea,

[8:32:24] Voice 10: but I think let's just talk about

[8:32:27] Voice 10: the amendment at this point.

[8:32:29] Voice 10: So we've got a proposed amendment on the table

[8:32:33] Voice 10: to change the amount from 4,300 to 2,200.

[8:32:36] Voice 10: And so, Mayreed Boland.

[8:32:41] Voice 10: And Jamie, I'll come back to you.

[8:32:43] Voice 10: Just

[8:32:43] Voice 26: for clarity, my understanding is that the budget held by SWIFT stays at $75,500.

[8:32:54] Voice 26: But there's a carryover of $32,000 from last year, I believe.

[8:33:00] Voice 26: And therefore, the ask was reduced to $43,500.

[8:33:07] Voice 26: Am I right or am I wrong about that?

[8:33:14] Voice 10: Julia Mobs, thank you, Julia.

[8:33:16] Voice 10: Let's turn your microphone on.

[8:33:17] Voice 10: Thank you.

[8:33:18] Voice 27: So there is a SOFA reserve fund,

[8:33:21] Voice 27: the Special Property Tax Reserve Fund.

[8:33:23] Voice 27: The balance in that fund will be $32,000

[8:33:26] Voice 27: at the end of this fiscal year.

[8:33:28] Voice 27: There currently is not a request

[8:33:30] Voice 27: from the Salt Spring Island Local Trust Committee

[8:33:32] Voice 27: to draw on those funds to use next fiscal year.

[8:33:35] Voice 27: So currently the plan is that the $32,000

[8:33:38] Voice 27: that remains unspent from SWPA would stay

[8:33:41] Voice 27: in the reserve fund.

[8:33:42] Voice 27: It certainly could be drawn on from the reserve fund

[8:33:45] Voice 27: to fund the continued work of SWPA,

[8:33:47] Voice 27: but right now that's not included in the budget.

[8:33:50] Voice 27: We'd have to make that amendment.

[8:33:52] Voice 27: And to speak to why there was a reduction

[8:33:54] Voice 27: from the original ask of 73,500 down to the 43,500,

[8:33:58] Voice 27: I wasn't at that meeting.

[8:33:59] Voice 27: I wouldn't be able to speak to that.

[8:34:02] Voice 10: Thank you.

[8:34:03] Voice 10: Any other speakers on the motion to amend?

[8:34:05] Voice 10: and the amendment is to reduce from 435 to 22,000.

[8:34:10] Voice 10: Otherwise I'm going to call the vote.

[8:34:12] Voice 10: Oh, sorry, Jamie, you're okay.

[8:34:14] Voice 10: I'm going to call the vote on the amendment.

[8:34:16] Voice 10: All those in favor

[8:34:18] Voice 23: of the motion to amend.

[8:34:27] Voice 23: Okay, so those opposed and that's interesting numbers.

[8:34:41] Voice 23: And so abstains, so

[8:34:48] Voice 10: it still carries.

[8:34:51] Voice 10: Yeah, well, it definitely carries, yeah.

[8:34:53] Voice 10: Yeah. No, sorry. It fails. And so, yeah. And so even with the abstentions, it still fails.

[8:35:01] Voice 10: Am I correct, David? Okay. Thank you. So now we're back to the original motion unamended.

[8:35:09] Voice 10: I

[8:35:09] Voice 23: would like to call the vote. So let's call the vote. All those in favor. Thank you. And

[8:35:29] Voice 23: and any opposed and online, yeah, those opposed.

[8:35:41] Voice 10: And so abstentions won't affect the outcome.

[8:35:46] Voice 10: So that carries.

[8:35:48] Voice 10: All right, thank you council for the discussion.

[8:35:51] Voice 10: And we look forward to the work of SWPA

[8:35:55] Voice 10: and we'll see how it unfolds next year.

[8:35:57] Voice 10: Thank you for the vigorous debate.

[8:36:00] Voice 10: All right, we are at 536.

[8:36:03] Voice 10: I had some notion in my mind that we might actually

[8:36:06] Voice 10: get to the trust programs, trust area services stuff today, but I think that you've worked so

[8:36:12] Voice 10: hard today. I think we should watch Herring Fest and go to dinner. Is that all right?

[8:36:19] Voice 10: Okay, but tomorrow we got to get through some items. I don't believe there's anything else

[8:36:25] Voice 10: to do with the budget. Julia, you're okay. So then that's recess and turn down the lights and

[8:36:32] Voice 10: let's see the movie. You want to do an introduction? In fact, you're going to stop recording and all

[8:36:36] Voice 10: all that good stuff this is a social event recess so a call for recess all

[8:36:45] Voice 23: those in favor thank you