Salt Spring Island Local Trust Committee regular meeting, March 13, 2024

[0:00:00] Voice 26: and here we are day two today we're going to talk budget that's fantastic um i must say that

[0:00:06] Voice 26: yesterday afternoon strategic planning session i think went really well we had some really great

[0:00:12] Voice 26: conversations and we certainly saw some results from that i was suitably impressed by the ability

[0:00:19] Voice 26: of the facilitator to get us to lead that conversation and get us through it and get

[0:00:23] Voice 26: get us to a place where we had, in a lot of situations, had agreement on certain things.

[0:00:31] Voice 26: And so just to report out to the public, we had a workshop learning session yesterday on goals and priorities

[0:00:41] Voice 26: and had pretty in-depth conversation as a group and as small groups of people as well

[0:00:50] Voice 26: all on governance, organizational excellence, growth management, community resilience,

[0:00:55] Voice 26: environmental stewardship, climate, First Nations relations and reconciliations,

[0:00:59] Voice 26: and housing as topics that were pulled out of a survey that was conducted earlier

[0:01:06] Voice 26: and surrounding the work that we do here at the Island Trust presently.

[0:01:11] Voice 26: And we had a good discussion and just some common understanding about the goals

[0:01:17] Voice 26: and priorities that are ahead of us for 2025.

[0:01:20] Voice 26: 2028 hard to think about 2028 but that's what we're doing so um just want to i think today

[0:01:30] Voice 26: we'll uh i'm committed to start us off with the administrative services this morning

[0:01:35] Voice 26: and we'll pick up those items uh left behind um yesterday in the um uh local planning services

[0:01:42] Voice 26: section um later on today or thursday at the latest and so we'll pick that up but let us

[0:01:50] Voice 26: uh begin today with administrative services i hope everybody's okay with that behind me on that

[0:01:57] Voice 26: and um uh julia mobs um thank you for you and your team's work in preparing us for today's discussion

[0:02:05] Voice 26: and um thank you for taking the time with me yesterday to understand the process um so before

[0:02:12] Voice 26: we get well we're just going to we're pretty much going to slide directly into this uh joe bernardo

[0:02:17] Voice 26: is provided regret. She's not

[0:02:19] Voice 26: with us. Mairead

[0:02:21] Voice 26: Boland as Vice

[0:02:22] Voice 26: Chair is going to speak

[0:02:25] Voice 26: on behalf of the Financial Planning Committee

[0:02:27] Voice 26: and we'll

[0:02:29] Voice 26: work through this. And I see

[0:02:31] Voice 26: Trustee Patrick, do you have a question?

[0:02:33] Voice 16: Yesterday in the beginning of the meeting

[0:02:35] Voice 16: a piece of correspondence was added to the agenda

[0:02:37] Voice 16: and that was going to be sent out and

[0:02:39] Voice 16: I have not received it so

[0:02:41] Voice 16: I don't know if that was sent out yet for us.

[0:02:43] Voice 16: I know it's a tomorrow item but

[0:02:44] Voice 16: I don't have it.

[0:02:49] Voice 26: Okay. That's the Dan Rogers correspondence, was it? Okay. You'll look after it. Perfect.

[0:02:57] Voice 26: Thank you. Thank you for raising that. Well, let us begin. So, good morning, Julia and

[0:03:04] Voice 26: counsel. We have a number of consent agenda items here to start us off with in Section

[0:03:11] Voice 26: section 7, starting on page 97, 7.11 through 7.14. I'll just simply ask if, Julia, do you wish to

[0:03:21] Voice 26: address any of these items? Any further? No, thank you. And so, trustees, do you wish to speak to

[0:03:26] Voice 26: any of these items before we move into the discussion items? That's items 7.11 through 7.14.

[0:03:34] Voice 26: for all right looks like yes yes

[0:03:41] Voice 33: please i'm

[0:03:43] Voice 26: sorry so i don't see your hand up there may read

[0:03:45] Voice 33: okay

[0:03:46] Voice 33: i'll put my hand up i was trying to find it doesn't react as fast as i would

[0:03:52] Voice 26: like no that's

[0:03:54] Voice 26: fine um just i did look online and i didn't see you so um now uh then would you wish to speak to

[0:04:01] Voice 26: I'd

[0:04:02] Voice 33: just like to ask Julia to show us together the financial forecast and to consider, you know, the end of year view that we will have.

[0:04:18] Voice 26: 7.1.3?

[0:04:20] Voice 26: Yeah.

[0:04:21] Voice 26: Okay, thank you then.

[0:04:23] Voice 26: so then if there's nothing further there i'll get you to lower your hand now and i'll come back to

[0:04:28] Voice 26: you in a moment um then i will take it that item 7.11 7.12 and 7.14 be approved um as presented

[0:04:39] Voice 26: and let us by general consent and let us then go to 7.1.3 and i think julia did you understand uh

[0:04:47] Voice 26: marriage request there I

[0:04:50] Voice 15: believe so okay

[0:04:51] Voice 26: so over to you then please Julia thank

[0:04:53] Voice 26: you all

[0:04:55] Voice 15: right good morning council I'll give some very brief comments on is that

[0:05:01] Voice 15: better that's better okay it's almost too low for me these heels are too high

[0:05:05] Voice 15: yeah so I'll provide some brief comments on the third quarter forecast so the

[0:05:10] Voice 15: third quarter forecast is looking at our projected performance for the year

[0:05:15] Voice 15: against budget, so where we think we will be landing at March 31st of this year on a financial

[0:05:22] Voice 15: basis. The approved budget for the current year included $9.9 million in spending. We are

[0:05:29] Voice 15: forecasting a spending of $9.5 million, so we are underspending this year against the approved

[0:05:35] Voice 15: budget to the tune of about $385,000. Because we have an underspending this year, those dollars

[0:05:41] Voice 15: will flow into the surplus fund which therefore are available for us to use in next year's draft

[0:05:47] Voice 15: budget which we have done so that's a very brief high-level comment if there's details or questions

[0:05:52] Voice 15: on specific items making up that information i can personally so i

[0:06:02] Voice 33: do have a specific question

[0:06:04] Voice 33: um i think julia you indicated to me that the bulk of the underspend is due to um

[0:06:14] Voice 33: vacancies and could you comment on the vacancy rate and turnover because I know that you allow

[0:06:22] Voice 33: in the budget that you expect a certain level of vacancy but it seems like we constantly run

[0:06:28] Voice 33: at a much higher rate than we expect.

[0:06:32] Voice 15: So that is true we do have significant underspendings

[0:06:36] Voice 15: and salaries expense this year it is due to vacancies those vacancies are higher this year

[0:06:42] Voice 15: because none of the three new staffed positions that were approved in the budget were hired

[0:06:47] Voice 15: throughout the year with the exception of the local trust committee meeting administrator which

[0:06:51] Voice 15: has only just been hired so we've had three staff positions vacant for basically the whole year

[0:06:56] Voice 15: um that is a significant contributor to why we have extra underspending against salaries this

[0:07:03] Voice 15: year we have had some other vacancies of course in the zero position as well as some planning

[0:07:07] Voice 15: positions um that also contribute and i think over here yes

[0:07:14] Voice 33: thank you that's it for me thank you

[0:07:18] Voice 26: uh christina evans um

[0:07:21] Voice 17: just to clarify you saying that the forecasted uh surplus you said was 300

[0:07:26] Voice 17: and something but in the sheet here it says it's 780 like 2 000. um which one's correct like i'm

[0:07:33] Voice 17: at the surplus line on page 117 or if you want the abbreviated one and one ten um which one is it

[0:07:42] Voice 15: so our forecasted level of underspending is 385 000 which is different to the forecasted

[0:07:50] Voice 15: um surplus draw or contribution so we are spending 385 000 less than we anticipated

[0:07:58] Voice 15: anticipated, which means we are actually putting money into surplus, whereas the budget anticipated

[0:08:04] Voice 15: we would take money out.

[0:08:06] Voice 15: So the difference between taking out $592,000 from surplus and putting in $189,000 to surplus

[0:08:14] Voice 15: is that $782,000.

[0:08:17] Voice 15: All right.

[0:08:24] Voice 26: Any further questions on that?

[0:08:28] Voice 26: Oh, I'm sorry, Grant, we didn't see you there.

[0:08:30] Voice 26: Go ahead.

[0:08:34] Voice 5: Yeah, I was looking at the talk when you were speaking there, because I can see here

[0:08:38] Voice 5: not what you need so the original budget will be at nine nine twenty three but the expenditure will

[0:08:46] Voice 5: be nine five thirty eight so that's the 385 and that's four percent is it in a nutshell yes okay

[0:08:55] Voice 5: i think

[0:09:02] Voice 27: that covers it okay

[0:09:04] Voice 26: so then i'm going to then um by general consent uh uh approve 7.1.3

[0:09:12] Voice 26: as presented in the package and we're going to move on to decisions now 7.2

[0:09:21] Voice 26: just a quick summary so we know where we're at on page 119 120 through to 126

[0:09:30] Voice 26: the draft session outline the assumptions and principles the budget overview and then starting

[0:09:39] Voice 26: on page and funding requests and starting on page 146 of the business cases and so i'm going to give

[0:09:46] Voice 26: the the chair of the fbc the opportunity to speak to the recommendation that they've

[0:09:50] Voice 26: advanced and julia to speak to the overall uh budget information that we have um

[0:09:57] Voice 26: i don't think we're going to go through the business cases individually however if at the

[0:10:02] Voice 26: the end of the conversation there's um a desire of trustees to add or remove items from the budget

[0:10:10] Voice 26: um those business cases are there and we'll have that opportunity to have that discussion and

[0:10:17] Voice 26: and and vote accordingly to add or remove from the agenda does that sound right to you

[0:10:22] Voice 26: julia uh

[0:10:24] Voice 15: yes i think there will be a point in time where there'll be a polling of trustees to

[0:10:29] Voice 15: find out if there are specific business cases that they wish to have spoken to or have questions on

[0:10:34] Voice 15: before we move into budget amendments yeah

[0:10:36] Voice 26: so when we get there we'll go through that yeah okay so

[0:10:39] Voice 26: i'm going to turn it over to the um uh chair of financial planning committee to uh um make any

[0:10:46] Voice 26: remarks or comments about the um recommendation from fpc and then i'll come to juliet mob to take

[0:10:51] Voice 26: us through the rest of the section uh

[0:10:54] Voice 33: thank you um okay so uh just some uh brief sort of

[0:11:02] Voice 33: introductory comments on i i was promoted through the ranks because joe can't be here i'm trying to

[0:11:09] Voice 33: channel my inner joe so okay folks the time has come to pin your colors to the mast the overall

[0:11:17] Voice 33: budget increase is approximately 6%. So far we've considered the budget requests in isolation

[0:11:24] Voice 33: when it's easy to see the absolute necessity of the item in question. Now we must look at the

[0:11:32] Voice 33: entire budget and consider its viability with respect to the community we live in. Is it

[0:11:39] Voice 33: affordable? Are we targeting the right things? I would note that the business case is for several

[0:11:45] Voice 33: significant items in terms of money and resources cost have come relatively late to us and this does

[0:11:52] Voice 33: not make it easy for people to consider and discuss. I hope that trustees have looked carefully

[0:11:57] Voice 33: at the Salt Spring Island water project business cases, the Gabriola water balance project,

[0:12:05] Voice 33: the implementation of the ombudsman's report on bylaw enforcement, the ITC staff position. It was

[0:12:12] Voice 33: bookmarked earlier but the business case was relatively recently presented.

[0:12:19] Voice 33: At the recent FPC with the help of staff we reduced the budget by £125,000.

[0:12:28] Voice 33: I might add that the FPC is not all about reducing. £30,000 was added to the Trust

[0:12:35] Voice 33: policy statement amendment budget by the FPC and £75,000 was added to fund activities of the CAO

[0:12:43] Voice 33: Hiring Committee. So we try to balance things as best we can. Please trust council. Don't focus on

[0:12:52] Voice 33: your personal hobby horse. Think about the whole. It's natural to want to add in things that we

[0:12:59] Voice 33: support, but we are less inclined to challenge or remove items that are already in the budget.

[0:13:04] Voice 33: it supported by others but please consider that 75 000 is equivalent to one percent

[0:13:11] Voice 33: correct me if i'm wrong julia so um for next year budget guidelines will be an important

[0:13:20] Voice 33: starting point too late for this year but we had some very good discussions including a special

[0:13:26] Voice 33: meeting the business case templates and the timelines for budget preparation will be reviewed

[0:13:32] Voice 33: and there may be some changes.

[0:13:35] Voice 33: Implementing a full corporate planning process

[0:13:37] Voice 33: is not a magic bullet,

[0:13:39] Voice 33: but it can surely help to make

[0:13:42] Voice 33: some of our budget decisions less painful.

[0:13:45] Voice 33: And with that, I will turn you over

[0:13:47] Voice 33: to the full budget session onwards.

[0:13:50] Voice 33: Thank you.

[0:13:52] Voice 26: Thank you very much, Mairead,

[0:13:55] Voice 26: for stepping in and taking on this role today.

[0:13:58] Voice 26: Appreciate that.

[0:13:59] Voice 26: David Marler has just reminded me

[0:14:02] Voice 26: to let you know that motions ideally right um sent in advance to um alexandra there at motion

[0:14:09] Voice 26: at islandstrust.bc.ca and that'll help us move through the process when we get to the business

[0:14:16] Voice 26: cases and the like um so now julia over to you on the budget assumptions principles and the overview

[0:14:24] Voice 15: uh thanks chair we do usually give our cao an opportunity to say a few words about budget a

[0:14:29] Voice 15: he wishes.

[0:14:31] Voice 12: CAO, over to you. Well, thanks. Yes, it's been, I think, a fairly rigorous process

[0:14:40] Voice 12: that's got us to the point where we're at. We had business cases in front of FPC in October

[0:14:48] Voice 12: and some minor amendments moving to more significant review. There's requests for

[0:14:55] Voice 12: or a number of reviews or deepening of the business cases,

[0:14:58] Voice 12: which I think was deemed satisfactory

[0:15:01] Voice 12: at the end of the day.

[0:15:03] Voice 12: And we've got what I think

[0:15:06] Voice 12: is a relatively balanced offering to you,

[0:15:11] Voice 12: meaning there's express need in terms of staffing, projects.

[0:15:17] Voice 12: There's some facilities management requests

[0:15:20] Voice 12: inside this budget.

[0:15:21] Voice 12: it and also a final lens where um at least on the administrative side of the organization there was

[0:15:29] Voice 12: a request to to cut back as much as possible so there was an exercise in looking at um you know

[0:15:35] Voice 12: i'm i'm being a bit cheeky by saying you know pens and paper and and and just sort of winnowing

[0:15:42] Voice 12: down some of the um any potential extras so that an exercise did occur and and was part of the last

[0:15:48] Voice 12: fpc's conversation um that follows i believe two years ago when we did a similar exercise

[0:15:54] Voice 12: so um when i look at this budget um i think that it's um for the intentions expressed that it

[0:16:00] Voice 12: fairly represents what uh what's required for the coming year thank you thank you now

[0:16:06] Voice 26: over to you

[0:16:07] Voice 26: thank

[0:16:08] Voice 15: you chair uh the budget overview briefing begins on page 127 of the agenda package so we

[0:16:15] Voice 15: can turn our attention there for the discussion today as everyone's aware trust council has seen

[0:16:19] Voice 15: this draft budget once before at the december meeting and no changes were directed to the

[0:16:24] Voice 15: budget at that time financial planning committee has seen this budget four times throughout the

[0:16:29] Voice 15: budget cycle and has made some changes all of which i believe have happened since december

[0:16:35] Voice 15: the changes fpc has made to the budget are also on page 127 of the agenda package near the bottom

[0:16:41] Voice 15: first fbc recommended an enhanced approach to the policy statement project and that added

[0:16:45] Voice 15: $30,000 into the draft budget. They've also added $75,000 for hiring a recruitment firm to take on

[0:16:52] Voice 15: the search and interview process for a new CAO. And they've made some adjustments to operational

[0:16:58] Voice 15: and program funding, including removing contingency funding, removing Islands Trust Conservancy

[0:17:04] Voice 15: ecosystem mapping, reducing office supply costs, removing funding for the trustee office on

[0:17:10] Voice 15: Galliano Island, removing stewardship education program funding, as well as the history and

[0:17:15] Voice 15: heritage grants and aid funding, reducing the amount allocated towards the Salt Spring Island

[0:17:20] Voice 15: office relocation by $50,000. They've reduced legal litigation costs with the understanding

[0:17:25] Voice 15: that new litigation may need to be funded from surplus as the year progresses. There's been a

[0:17:30] Voice 15: reduction to secretariat services of $10,000, a reduction to executive committee chair travel

[0:17:37] Voice 15: costs, as well as a reduction for two new staff persons acknowledging that they are unlikely to

[0:17:43] Voice 15: to be hired at the start of the year and so we can reduce the budget accordingly. So as the Vice

[0:17:48] Voice 15: Chair of FPC said all of these changes have resulted in a net decrease to the draft budget

[0:17:53] Voice 15: of $125,000 which represents about 1.6% in taxation. So these changes have been incorporated

[0:18:02] Voice 15: into the budget resulted in what the budget looks like today. On page 129 of the agenda package we

[0:18:08] Voice 15: have a high level summary of what's in the budget. The total proposed planned spending for next year

[0:18:13] Voice 15: is $10.9 million. Of that, $9.6 million is directed towards operations, $958,000 is directed

[0:18:22] Voice 15: towards specific projects, and $347,000 is directed towards the purchase of new capital

[0:18:28] Voice 15: assets. We do have grant funds in next year's budget that are helping to pay for some of our

[0:18:32] Voice 15: work, and that totals $834,000 in the budget. Overall, we're seeing a proposed 5.5% general

[0:18:40] Voice 15: tax increase to local trust areas, and that excludes amounts that we anticipate will be

[0:18:44] Voice 15: collected on new construction. There's a proposed 10.8% general levy increase to Bowen Island

[0:18:51] Voice 15: Municipality, also exclusive of amounts anticipated to be generated from new construction.

[0:18:57] Voice 15: We have proposed draws from surplus, as is fairly standard for Islands Trust. The proposed draw from

[0:19:02] Voice 15: the General Revenue Surplus Fund is $372,000. The draw from the LTC Project Specific Reserve Fund

[0:19:09] Voice 15: is $219,000. And there's a proposed draw from the Salt Spring Island Special Property Tax

[0:19:14] Voice 15: Requisition Fund of $73,000. So when we look at that summary, how does it compare to previous

[0:19:22] Voice 15: years? On the operations side of things, we're seeing an 8% increase or $681,000. And that is

[0:19:28] Voice 15: driven primarily by increases in staff salaries, recruitment costs, technical support costs,

[0:19:35] Voice 15: software support and licensing costs, office lease costs, as well as trustee remuneration costs.

[0:19:40] Voice 15: Our project budgets are increasing by 123% over last year.

[0:19:45] Voice 15: That's primarily due to increased work that's focused on housing, the policy statement work, some LTC major projects, as well as some projects from Salt Spring Island Local Trust Committee carrying over from the current year into next year.

[0:19:57] Voice 15: year. Our capital budget is increasing by 133% over the current year, and that's due mainly to

[0:20:05] Voice 15: the planned relocation of the Salt Spring Island office, as well as increases in computer hardware

[0:20:09] Voice 15: and software related to a planned conversion to Microsoft 365. So that's a high level summary

[0:20:15] Voice 15: for anyone that maybe has a limited attention span. The rest of us can go into the finer details

[0:20:21] Voice 15: of the budget items. When we look at planned revenues for Islands Trust, our largest source

[0:20:28] Voice 15: of revenue continues to be local trust area taxation that's calculated at 8.5 million

[0:20:34] Voice 15: dollars in the draft budget again 5.5 percent lift expected to come from the existing property tax

[0:20:40] Voice 15: base with an additional 0.5 percent existed to come from uh new construction and development

[0:20:47] Voice 15: the levy for bowen island municipality at 387 000 represents 11.9 increase over the previous year

[0:20:55] Voice 15: We're expecting 10.8% of that to be collected on existing tax space with 1.1% collected

[0:21:01] Voice 15: on new construction and development.

[0:21:03] Voice 15: The budget has no special property tax requisitions included as we've had no requests for those

[0:21:08] Voice 15: coming forward from local trust committees.

[0:21:11] Voice 15: We do have grant revenues funding specific work in next year's budget as well.

[0:21:15] Voice 15: Our provincial unrestricted grant for operations remains budgeted at historical amounts of

[0:21:20] Voice 15: $180,000.

[0:21:21] Voice 15: dollars. We have a provincial restricted grant that's been received for us to spend on First

[0:21:27] Voice 15: Nations engagement. The value of that grant is $150,000 and we expect to spend $77,000 of that

[0:21:33] Voice 15: next year and so we've included that amount in revenue. There's a provincial restricted grant

[0:21:38] Voice 15: for housing legislation implementation. The value of that grant is about $127,000 and we expect to

[0:21:46] Voice 15: spend it all next fiscal year and so that full amount is included in the draft budget as a

[0:21:50] Voice 15: revenue source we will be receiving funds from the local government climate action program once

[0:21:57] Voice 15: again valued at 38 000 and we're eligible for that because islands trust is a bc climate action

[0:22:03] Voice 15: charter signatory salt spring island local trust committee has received a grant under the provincial

[0:22:10] Voice 15: complete communities program and that's valued at 150 000 the expectation is 126 000 of that

[0:22:19] Voice 15: amount will be spent next fiscal year and so that amount is included in the budget as a revenue

[0:22:22] Voice 15: source the conservancy continues to receive funding from the federal government for species at risk

[0:22:28] Voice 15: protecting vulnerable species within the trust area there's 220 000 in the budget related to

[0:22:34] Voice 15: that grant we've also

[0:22:37] Voice 15: just been approved for a new federal grant that will pay for a registered

[0:22:41] Voice 15: professional biologist at the islands trust so in december the december trust council meeting

[0:22:46] Voice 15: Council approved our application for those funds.

[0:22:50] Voice 15: We've now been approved.

[0:22:51] Voice 15: I believe the total value of that grant is just over $200,000,

[0:22:55] Voice 15: and we're anticipating spending about $65,000 of that next year on a new staff position,

[0:22:59] Voice 15: so that's included as a revenue source in the budget.

[0:23:03] Voice 15: We continue to, as usual, have an empty line in the budget for contingent grants

[0:23:08] Voice 15: that may come forward at any point in the year.

[0:23:11] Voice 15: Other less significant forms of revenue include application fees.

[0:23:14] Voice 15: Those are valued at $276,000 in the draft budget, and that's just a calculation based on estimated application volumes multiplied by application fees.

[0:23:24] Voice 15: Investment income has been budgeted at $260,000.

[0:23:28] Voice 15: We have looked at projected investment rates and applied that against our property tax revenues and the dollars that we think we'll have to invest.

[0:23:36] Voice 15: We are expecting that interest rates will be coming down, but still are likely to remain higher than some historical norms.

[0:23:45] Voice 15: Moving on to planned spending, the largest area of spending for Islands Trust continues to be staff salaries and benefits.

[0:23:50] Voice 15: It's calculated at $6.7 million in the budget, and that represents 61% of overall spending.

[0:23:57] Voice 15: We've once again included a table on page 132 of the agenda package that shows the breakdown of staff levels by business unit or department,

[0:24:05] Voice 15: as well as the associated dollars for those staff members in each area.

[0:24:09] Voice 15: So what we see is that approximately 50% of our FTEs are working in the planning and bylaw services space, with the remainder of the FTEs allocated to Executive Office, Trust Area Services, the Islands Trust Conservancy, and Administrative Services staff.

[0:24:26] Voice 15: The table indicates that we are budgeting for a total of 63.6 FTEs next fiscal year, three of which are newly proposed staff positions.

[0:24:36] Voice 15: The first of those new positions is a full-time equivalent manager of protected areas for the Islands Trust Conservancy.

[0:24:43] Voice 15: That's budgeted at about $65,000 for base salaries and benefits, and this amount assumes a higher date of September 1.

[0:24:50] Voice 15: So that $65,000 does not represent the annual salary for a staff person, just the portion that they will be working with us in the year.

[0:24:58] Voice 15: We also have the addition of a new GIS staff, a GIS coordinator.

[0:25:02] Voice 15: This is to acknowledge the ever-increasing workloads in the GIS world.

[0:25:07] Voice 15: That's budgeted at approximately $70,000 for base salaries and benefits and assumes that

[0:25:12] Voice 15: we'll have somebody in the role on August 1st.

[0:25:15] Voice 15: We also have the addition of a temporary registered professional biologist, and that's the position

[0:25:20] Voice 15: that's been funded by a federal grant that Trust Council approved in December.

[0:25:26] Voice 15: Two of those new staff positions do have funding request business cases that are included in

[0:25:29] Voice 15: the agenda.

[0:25:30] Voice 15: So there will be an opportunity for staff to speak to those or respond to questions if there are any at the end of the budget presentation when the chair pulls trustees on those.

[0:25:41] Voice 15: Did you have your hand raised?

[0:25:44] Voice 15: Okay, I can pause here.

[0:25:51] Voice 3: Sorry, I'm sure you know what the question is and yourself or planning services can answer this.

[0:25:55] Voice 3: with 51% of our staff expenses in the planning and bylaw enforcement and $276,000 estimated as

[0:26:05] Voice 3: fees recovery for application fees. Can perhaps the director of planning services just tell me

[0:26:12] Voice 3: how we're tracking that? Because my understanding is we still have a policy on the books that says

[0:26:16] Voice 3: that we are attempting to recover 80 to 100% of the cost of application fees. So I just still

[0:26:23] Voice 3: don't have the answer I need, that we're either that policy is effective or I just would love

[0:26:30] Voice 3: that to be consistent.

[0:26:31] Voice 3: Through the chair.

[0:26:38] Voice 11: So if I understand the question correctly, you're answering the microphone.

[0:26:41] Voice 11: Sorry.

[0:26:42] Voice 11: So if I understand the question correctly, you're asking there's a disparity between

[0:26:47] Voice 11: what the cost of staff and the planning services is and the application grant or funding we're

[0:26:54] Voice 11: taking in?

[0:26:56] Voice 3: Yeah.

[0:26:56] Voice 3: Yeah, my main question is, we have a policy that says 80 to 100, I think, percent, somewhere in

[0:27:02] Voice 3: there, of the costs of application fees are to be covered by the actual, the costs of application

[0:27:10] Voice 3: processing are to be covered by the fees. And I want to know, do we actually have data? Are we

[0:27:17] Voice 3: continuing to track data on that? And if so, are we anywhere close to that? Or are we at 20%? Do

[0:27:24] Voice 3: Do we need to change that policy and be more transparent?

[0:27:28] Voice 11: Thank you for the question.

[0:27:29] Voice 11: I get it.

[0:27:30] Voice 11: So a little bit of background that the policy or the administrative fees were recently changed.

[0:27:36] Voice 11: As you know, Saturna is the last executive committee yesterday to approve the last fees change.

[0:27:42] Voice 11: And we haven't been tracking as well as we should up to this point.

[0:27:46] Voice 11: We did a couple of years ago, we tracked for a whole year.

[0:27:49] Voice 11: We knew what the average time was to take for each application type.

[0:27:54] Voice 11: it was that was the formula that was used to create the new fees but since then yes and then

[0:27:59] Voice 11: as director i'm aware that we haven't updated our processes we've had a turnover of regional

[0:28:03] Voice 11: planning managers and so on so forth i can give you reasons but the answer to your question is

[0:28:07] Voice 11: no we're not tracking as well as we can we're aware of that we have a process built in to

[0:28:11] Voice 11: review that after at the beginning of the new fiscal and we will be much more rigorously

[0:28:16] Voice 11: following those numbers as best as possible so we'll be able to report more how this time goes

[0:28:21] Voice 3: Thanks. And maybe just one follow up on that. Do you need a motion to the effect of to make sure that that tracking is happening? Because I was the one who instigated those motions to get the initial like work done on that. And I had hoped that that my intent with all of that was that it was going to continue to be tracked. Because I just, I just don't, we need to be transparent about where money's coming from. And if our policy is wrong, then we should change our policy. Or if we we just need to be consistent on this issue.

[0:28:50] Voice 3: through

[0:28:52] Voice 11: the chair i don't think we need a resolution um to change the policy or anything

[0:28:57] Voice 11: but certainly if you'd like to make a resolution to have say me report back as director on a

[0:29:02] Voice 11: regular basis on how that's going i would entertain that it keeps my my heat to my my bottom okay

[0:29:12] Voice 26: thank you good question thank you for the answer back them up and then

[0:29:17] Voice 26: grant scott has a question

[0:29:19] Voice 26: just

[0:29:19] Voice 15: a supplementary comment to a director a

[0:29:22] Voice 26: little bit more volume if you can yeah yeah

[0:29:25] Voice 15: supplementary comment to what director cermak has said when the exercise was undertaken to develop

[0:29:30] Voice 15: the fees that were meant to recover costs of processing applications some of the data inputs

[0:29:37] Voice 15: into that analysis were too low and so we ended up in a situation where the fees generated um were

[0:29:46] Voice 15: not going to recover there's also an allowance for local trust committees to actually reduce the

[0:29:51] Voice 15: the model fee by, I think it was up to 20%.

[0:29:54] Voice 15: So that of course has an impact.

[0:29:56] Voice 15: The other consideration is most of these fee bylaws

[0:29:59] Voice 15: have an

[0:30:00] Voice 15: automatic increase of 2% annually to account for inflation. Inflation hasn't been 2% for a long

[0:30:06] Voice 15: time now. So that gap is widening. So we're, yeah, we started with the gap, and it's growing

[0:30:12] Voice 15: because of what inflation is doing.

[0:30:15] Voice 3: Thank you for that. And so my understanding of that,

[0:30:18] Voice 3: and I watched that model bylaw development quite closely. And it's one of the reasons that Pender

[0:30:22] Voice 3: was the second to last to approve their bylaws, is I don't actually feel that they really met the

[0:30:28] Voice 3: policy. It wasn't an issue that I didn't want to update fees. It's that I couldn't justify

[0:30:32] Voice 3: it, because I didn't think that the model bylaws met what we have in our policy. And

[0:30:38] Voice 3: so, yeah, thank you for that. And yeah.

[0:30:44] Voice 26: Okay. Thank you. You want to continue?

[0:30:49] Voice 15: After I remember where we were, I think we were on page 132 of the agenda. Oh, sorry,

[0:30:56] Voice 15: Chair. We've got one question over here that was missed.

[0:30:58] Voice 27: Oh, yeah. Sorry. Yeah. Grant Scott. Sorry.

[0:31:00] Voice 27: thanks

[0:31:03] Voice 5: julia um when i look at this particularly page uh the one with the ftes on it

[0:31:14] Voice 5: and the budget breakdown there's a there's uh 51 percent goes to uh the planning and bylaw

[0:31:21] Voice 5: enforcement but when i look at it from the hornby islands point of view every application gets on it

[0:31:27] Voice 5: But due to more than usual applications, your application may take longer than expected.

[0:31:36] Voice 5: That's been going on now for as long as I can remember.

[0:31:40] Voice 5: So what that tells me is we need more FTEs directed towards the planning services so that we should not have that.

[0:31:49] Voice 5: That's a terrible advertisement for the Island's Trust having out on every letter that goes out to an applicant.

[0:31:55] Voice 5: But it's been on there as long as I can remember.

[0:31:58] Voice 5: And the second thing is we've been trying to get the Hornby Islands official community plan and land use bylaws done.

[0:32:05] Voice 5: It's been over two years now.

[0:32:06] Voice 5: And again, it boils down to this whole FTE thing because they naturally, what their primary job is, is to deal with the application of development permits and all that kind of stuff.

[0:32:18] Voice 5: And then the second thing is to get to the OCP and land use bylaw review.

[0:32:23] Voice 5: And it's been over two years, almost three years, doing what's not a very complicated

[0:32:29] Voice 5: OCP and land use by-law review, but the staff just don't seem to be able to get to it.

[0:32:34] Voice 5: So that tells me that this page, there's something wrong when half of it's going up to everything

[0:32:41] Voice 5: other than land use planning, 49%, and half of it goes to the people that actually serve

[0:32:48] Voice 5: the people of Hornby Island, who presumably that's what the island's trust

[0:32:52] Voice 5: is all about. So I don't get it.

[0:32:57] Voice 5: And now we've asked for another million-something,

[0:33:03] Voice 5: $1,150,000 increase.

[0:33:07] Voice 5: Well, if that went to getting

[0:33:10] Voice 5: 10 more planters, I'd be all over it.

[0:33:15] Voice 5: But it's not. So I'll just leave that as my initial observation

[0:33:20] Voice 5: on what this stuff's all about thank you it's not really a question i guess it's an observation

[0:33:25] Voice 5: right thank you grant back to you

[0:33:29] Voice 27: julia um

[0:33:30] Voice 15: i will just happily provide a comment if i may

[0:33:33] Voice 15: on your comment um the way yeah we need to elevate it um the rest of the staff at islands trust

[0:33:45] Voice 15: although not particularly allocated as ftes to planning do support the planning function

[0:33:51] Voice 15: So, for example, the administrative services team, we've got 10.1 FTEs there. We're the ones who are, you know, making sure the bills get paid, collecting the fees, supporting all of the computer and equipment for the planners.

[0:34:05] Voice 15: The work of Trust Area Services and Conservancy is quite closely linked with planning as well as, of course, we've got a, you know, we're considering environmental factors in the planning work.

[0:34:14] Voice 15: so there is a relationship there um so if we were to you know mess with the the complement of ft's

[0:34:22] Voice 15: you might see a different outcome um i understand what you're saying but we do all sort of work

[0:34:29] Voice 15: together can

[0:34:31] Voice 5: i just follow up there here for one second please but what it still says is that says

[0:34:37] Voice 5: says to me you

[0:34:42] Voice 26: can continue there grant that

[0:34:45] Voice 5: says to me that there's one person in the island's

[0:34:48] Voice 5: trust supporting each planner that's what that says to me you've got so maybe this should be

[0:34:59] Voice 5: directed towards the cao so i'm not sure where this is directed but this isn't up the people

[0:35:06] Voice 5: of hornby island are not very happy with where the island's trust is going right now and this

[0:35:11] Voice 5: goes back the one person who i really listened to was one of the first trustees in 1974 and she says

[0:35:18] Voice 5: and she's been watching this stuff very carefully for the last 50 whatever years that is and says

[0:35:23] Voice 5: it seems like the islands trust is off the rails so i think this money side of it is the place

[0:35:30] Voice 5: where that discussion goes on i don't want to julie this isn't directed towards you particularly

[0:35:34] Voice 5: but to all of us to consider what I just said.

[0:35:41] Voice 5: So I'll just leave it there.

[0:35:43] Voice 5: Thank you.

[0:35:44] Voice 27: Thank you, Julia.

[0:35:48] Voice 15: How's this for volume?

[0:35:50] Voice 15: Better?

[0:35:51] Voice 15: Okay.

[0:35:53] Voice 15: All right.

[0:35:58] Voice 15: Okay, I will lean into my microphone.

[0:36:02] Voice 15: All right, we are returning to page 132

[0:36:06] Voice 15: of the agenda package.

[0:36:07] Voice 15: So we were having a look at staff salaries and benefits expense.

[0:36:11] Voice 15: We've talked about the three new staff positions that are funded next year.

[0:36:15] Voice 15: We also have several other factors that are impacting salaries and benefits expense.

[0:36:21] Voice 15: Of course, we have the 3% wage increase for all union staff members, which is directed by the union agreement taking effect April 1 of 2024.

[0:36:30] Voice 15: We have the same increase being afforded to excluded management staff.

[0:36:34] Voice 15: That takes effect on July 1st of 2024.

[0:36:38] Voice 15: We do have a nominal amount for staff overtime included in the budget.

[0:36:42] Voice 15: We tend to see staff who work overtime take that as time off instead of as time paid out.

[0:36:48] Voice 15: And so the amount that's included in the budget for overtime is quite nominal.

[0:36:54] Voice 15: The benefit rate that we pay to the Provincial Service Agency remains calculated at 25.4%.

[0:37:01] Voice 15: 4%. They have confirmed for us that this rate will be the rate for next fiscal year. And so

[0:37:07] Voice 15: our benefits expense is calculated at $1.4 million. This covers the employer portion of CPP,

[0:37:13] Voice 15: EI, employer health tax, as well as pension contributions for staff, and also pays for

[0:37:18] Voice 15: the extended benefit plan that PSA pays for on behalf of the Islands Trust. Once again,

[0:37:26] Voice 15: we've taken, removed an allowance from salaries expense to acknowledge that we do have staff

[0:37:31] Voice 15: turnover every year. So we've calculated how much salaries expense we would need if we did not have

[0:37:37] Voice 15: any vacancies, and then we've reduced it by $170,000 to acknowledge those vacancies are very

[0:37:43] Voice 15: likely. That $170,000 is a number that's based on our historical underspending, which tends to be,

[0:37:49] Voice 15: I think, around two or two and a half percent of salaries expense. Trustee remuneration and benefits

[0:37:55] Voice 15: is calculated based on Trust Council policy, which hasn't changed. There's a 3.7% increase

[0:38:01] Voice 15: in base remuneration for trustees to adjust for CPI.

[0:38:05] Voice 15: We've also made adjustments to the number of folios

[0:38:07] Voice 15: by local trust area.

[0:38:09] Voice 15: Extended benefits continue to be paid for for trustees.

[0:38:13] Voice 15: That number has decreased slightly

[0:38:15] Voice 15: as we've made some adjustments to account

[0:38:17] Voice 15: for the actual enrollment by trustees

[0:38:19] Voice 15: in either the family or the single plan.

[0:38:21] Voice 15: Employer health tax remains calculated

[0:38:23] Voice 15: at 1.9% of base salary and that's a legislative percentage.

[0:38:28] Voice 15: percentage. We also continue to pay trustees for their attendance at committee meetings and we've

[0:38:33] Voice 15: included costs for that as well. Trust Council is planning to meet four times in person next year

[0:38:39] Voice 15: and so we've got a budget of $126,000 to pay for that. Each meeting is budgeted at just under

[0:38:46] Voice 15: $32,000 per meeting. Executive committee meetings and council committee meetings

[0:38:53] Voice 15: have nominal amounts as these bodies are going to be meeting primarily electronically so we've got

[0:38:58] Voice 15: $9,000 in the budget for all in-person meetings. And I think that will cover about five meetings

[0:39:04] Voice 15: in the year. Local Trust Committee direct expenses total $84,000, which is quite a bit higher than

[0:39:10] Voice 15: last year, which was $44,000. We have analyzed the spending trends of local trust committees,

[0:39:16] Voice 15: and we are seeing some higher activity levels taking place. And so we've adjusted for that

[0:39:21] Voice 15: accordingly. It's also more expensive for current LTC chairs to be traveling to their various local

[0:39:27] Voice 15: trust committees i think as everyone is aware so we've got increased costs for travel and

[0:39:32] Voice 15: accommodation associated with that um ltc meeting expenses are also rising as we've adjusted the

[0:39:40] Voice 15: accounting treatment for costs that are associated with staff traveling to those meetings historically

[0:39:46] Voice 15: the cost for staff traveling to local trust committee meetings was reported in the general

[0:39:51] Voice 15: travel account that was not in line with how staff travel was recorded for staff traveling to other

[0:39:57] Voice 15: public meetings like trust council for example and so we've changed the accounting treatment

[0:40:01] Voice 15: so that staff travel costs will go to the ltc meeting line which brings everything um consistent

[0:40:06] Voice 15: within the islands trust local trust committee projects are budgeted at 567.

[0:40:13] Voice 26: i have a question

[0:40:14] Voice 26: here before you go into the

[0:40:15] Voice 26: next section from uh toby elliott uh

[0:40:20] Voice 23: thank you jaron thank you julia

[0:40:21] Voice 23: Yeah. So, yes, my question is back to 132, the wage increase.

[0:40:30] Voice 23: So BCGE wage increases.

[0:40:34] Voice 23: Is there a total calculation of the 3% plus the 3% per step per person of staff who've moved up in steps and the 2.25.5% wage increase?

[0:40:48] Voice 23: And my question is, is that generally offset by the, so I see on the next page, the 2.5% of the overall salaries budget, which is allocated for staff turnover and contractors.

[0:41:02] Voice 23: So the debate that we often get into is we add full-time equivalent staff positions and then are required to, you know, buy union agreements to keep increasing the wages.

[0:41:18] Voice 23: But the counter argument, I would say, is that balanced by having to pay contractor salaries because we have high staff turnover because of burnout, because we don't have those full-time staff positions and other contractors that are doing the work that full-time staff could do.

[0:41:38] Voice 23: Has there been an analysis about that balancing?

[0:41:43] Voice 15: So I'm not entirely sure I understand the question.

[0:41:47] Voice 15: are you asking if the increases for staff are in addition to contractors

[0:41:57] Voice 15: when we have vacancies the

[0:42:01] Voice 23: numbers to me look like they they balance out but I'm

[0:42:06] Voice 23: not a financial planner in any respect so 2.5 percent of the overall salaries

[0:42:13] Voice 23: budget for staff turnover balanced with a 3% wage increase. I mean, those are just numbers, but

[0:42:22] Voice 23: has there been an analysis of the total cost of contractor staff turnover and then adding these

[0:42:30] Voice 23: increased BGEU union increases? No.

[0:42:36] Voice 15: So those two pieces that you've referred to, the $170,000

[0:42:41] Voice 15: for staff turnover and the wage increases for staff

[0:42:44] Voice 15: are very different. There's no offset there.

[0:42:50] Voice 15: The amount that's afforded to staff

[0:42:53] Voice 15: for the 3% increases is going to be higher than the $170,000.

[0:42:58] Voice 15: The $170,000 is based on

[0:43:01] Voice 15: a historical review of how much we tend to overspend. So we look

[0:43:05] Voice 15: at the last sort of five years and we see, oh, we tend to underspend every year

[0:43:09] Voice 15: uh two and a half percent of our overall salaries budget so we underspend by about 170 000 every

[0:43:15] Voice 15: year therefore we reduce it by 170 000 this year um looking at whether or not when we hire

[0:43:22] Voice 15: contractors when we've got staff vacancies or when we hire temporary staff in the event of

[0:43:26] Voice 15: staff vacancies those usually are not offsetting either we still end up in an um underspending

[0:43:32] Voice 15: against salaries and that's usually because you know we're not um backfilling every single vacancy

[0:43:39] Voice 15: if they're short for example we don't do that um so they don't offset thank

[0:43:45] Voice 26: you you want to

[0:43:49] Voice 26: continue with uh projects i think you got to thank

[0:43:52] Voice 15: you i was just wondering where we were

[0:43:54] Voice 15: okay local trust committee projects are listed on page 134 of the agenda package they total

[0:44:02] Voice 15: 567 000 in the budget 457 000 if that relates to specific project requests from various local

[0:44:09] Voice 15: trust committees we have about 37 000 as a pool of funding for minor projects that will be undertaken

[0:44:16] Voice 15: in the year and 73 000 relates to salt spring island local trust committee projects specifically

[0:44:23] Voice 15: related to freshwater which are proposed to be paid for out of the special property tax

[0:44:28] Voice 15: reserve fund all of the local trust committee projects that are listed in the agenda

[0:44:35] Voice 15: do have business cases that are also included in the agenda so i won't be speaking to the details

[0:44:40] Voice 15: of those various projects in my presentation,

[0:44:43] Voice 15: but when we move to the polling of business cases

[0:44:45] Voice 15: through the chair, that's the time where trustees

[0:44:47] Voice 15: can pull a particular business case out

[0:44:49] Voice 15: for staff to speak to or to have questions answered on.

[0:44:53] Voice 15: The Director of Planning Services has once again

[0:44:56] Voice 15: conducted a feasibility assessment,

[0:44:58] Voice 15: which is included in the agenda.

[0:45:00] Voice 15: That is to take a look at all of the planning-related projects

[0:45:03] Voice 15: and assess whether or not it's achievable

[0:45:05] Voice 15: to complete them all in next fiscal year.

[0:45:07] Voice 15: That's also available for staff to speak to

[0:45:10] Voice 15: of council wishes at the end of the presentation the islands trust conservancy expenses uh

[0:45:16] Voice 15: exclusive of salaries amount to 325 000 in the question

[0:45:20] Voice 15: may

[0:45:23] Voice 33: i ask a quick question please it's

[0:45:27] Voice 33: yeah thanks it's with respect to the um so i noticed that there's an rfd for the um

[0:45:35] Voice 33: the implementation of the ombudsman's uh you know recommendations and of course that's resources

[0:45:42] Voice 33: and it comes under planning.

[0:45:45] Voice 33: So I'm just thinking, when the feasibility was conducted,

[0:45:51] Voice 33: are the resources for that project included in the feasibility or not?

[0:45:57] Voice 33: Thanks.

[0:46:01] Voice 26: Stefan, I'm sorry, Mac.

[0:46:03] Voice 11: Thank you for the question.

[0:46:06] Voice 11: Not entirely, no, but we can absorb them into the regional planning team.

[0:46:10] Voice 11: If you read the business case, it shows who would be working on it

[0:46:14] Voice 11: and who the champions project supports and etc and uh yeah we it's a priority the regional planning

[0:46:21] Voice 11: committee which is supported by the regional planning team and it's always hard to include

[0:46:25] Voice 11: we have a fair bit of management work in there uh led by rpm kojima and we're confident we can

[0:46:32] Voice 11: get the work done but it is fair to say we did not include that in the feasibility report thank you

[0:46:38] Voice 11: Thank you.

[0:46:44] Voice 15: Okay. I think we were at the Conservancy. Conservancy budget exclusive of salaries

[0:46:50] Voice 15: comes to $325,000 in the budget. That's about a $28,000 increase over the previous fiscal year.

[0:46:57] Voice 15: The details of all of the Conservancy items that have come through the Conservancy Board

[0:47:02] Voice 15: are included in the agenda package as well for discussion after the presentation.

[0:47:08] Voice 15: Office leases and associated costs are totaling $505,000 in the budget.

[0:47:14] Voice 15: So we are seeing increases for our existing office spaces in Victoria and Galliano Island.

[0:47:20] Voice 15: The Salt Spring Island, of course, will be relocated.

[0:47:23] Voice 15: So we don't have solid figures for that office lease at this time.

[0:47:27] Voice 15: We've included an estimate based on our current Salt Spring Island office.

[0:47:31] Voice 15: But if we sign a lease that is more or less than that, we'll see some numbers change.

[0:47:37] Voice 15: Funding for the Galliano Island, the trustee, the office on Galliano Island for the trustees

[0:47:43] Voice 15: has been removed by Financial Planning Committee.

[0:47:46] Voice 15: So that totaled approximately $5,500 in the budget

[0:47:49] Voice 15: with the assumption that the Capital Regional District

[0:47:51] Voice 15: would renew their lease.

[0:47:53] Voice 15: That funding has been removed by FPC,

[0:47:55] Voice 15: but of course that's ultimately the decision of Trust Council.

[0:47:59] Voice 15: FOI and Records Management maintains funding at $10,000,

[0:48:04] Voice 15: which is the same as last year.

[0:48:06] Voice 15: This is to pay for contractors to help with records management

[0:48:09] Voice 15: and FOI work in the year.

[0:48:12] Voice 15: Recruitment and labor relations is budgeted at $96,000, which is quite a bit higher than what we've seen last year.

[0:48:18] Voice 15: And that's because $75,000 has been added to that line to hire a recruitment firm to replace the CAO, who will be retiring very soon.

[0:48:29] Voice 15: $21,000 of that line is geared towards advertising for job postings, as well as contracted human resourcing from the public service agency.

[0:48:38] Voice 15: Payroll processing is budgeted, same as last year, at $20,000.

[0:48:42] Voice 15: Again, that's money that we pay to the public service agency to process staff payroll.

[0:48:48] Voice 15: It brings me great joy to report, I think, for the first time ever at Trust Council, certainly in my tenure, that our insurance costs have gone down.

[0:48:57] Voice 30: Yay!

[0:48:58] Voice 15: Hallelujah.

[0:48:59] Voice 15: So this is a direct result of our involvement with the Municipal Insurance Association of BC.

[0:49:06] Voice 15: So we became a member January 1st of this year.

[0:49:10] Voice 15: And so we've realized some reduced premiums.

[0:49:13] Voice 15: That's flowing into next fiscal year, so we have about a $10,000 savings in premiums there.

[0:49:18] Voice 15: It's a great benefit to the Islands Trust.

[0:49:20] Voice 15: The MIA is very knowledgeable.

[0:49:22] Voice 15: They've got lots of resources that we can lean into, so we are seeing the benefit of reduced premiums as well as increased service levels.

[0:49:30] Voice 26: I'm just going to make a remark before we pass on this.

[0:49:34] Voice 26: Transitioning from the previous insurance model to the model offered to us through the municipal insurance association has been a piece of work that has been in play for eight years, maybe five for sure.

[0:49:53] Voice 26: And I'm really grateful to the staff for pursuing this.

[0:49:56] Voice 26: It took a lot of effort to pursue this and persuade the municipal authority to make this transition.

[0:50:02] Voice 26: And certainly the savings to the honest trust will be significant over time.

[0:50:05] Voice 26: So thank you, everybody.

[0:50:09] Voice 26: Deb Morrison.

[0:50:11] Voice 3: Sorry, you cruised by it, but I had a quick question about the recruitment and labor relations piece.

[0:50:16] Voice 3: So my understanding was that $75,000 is for recruitment.

[0:50:20] Voice 3: And did you say $21,000 of that is of the $75,000 or an additional $21,000?

[0:50:26] Voice 15: In addition.

[0:50:26] Voice 3: So I thought this, I was surprised by the 75K.

[0:50:32] Voice 3: And I would love it if, and maybe that's later,

[0:50:35] Voice 3: but I just would like an explanation of the 75K.

[0:50:38] Voice 3: That just seems really high to me

[0:50:40] Voice 3: if the advertising is not involved in it.

[0:50:43] Voice 3: Maybe I'm just naive about these things.

[0:50:48] Voice 15: We can answer that question now, I think.

[0:50:51] Voice 15: There is a business case in the agenda

[0:50:54] Voice 15: from the CAO Hiring Committee

[0:50:55] Voice 15: that may answer some of those questions.

[0:50:58] Voice 15: um it's generally recruitment fees are you know based on a percentage of the salary of the person

[0:51:04] Voice 15: that you're hiring when you're engaging with a recruitment firm um so i believe that's where

[0:51:09] Voice 15: the hiring committee got that number from um as i understand it that would be a full service

[0:51:17] Voice 15: engagement um there would be i actually shouldn't speak on behalf of the hiring committee so maybe

[0:51:23] Voice 15: i'll i'll let someone on the committee speak to that sure

[0:51:27] Voice 26: well as the chair of the hiring committee

[0:51:31] Voice 26: um we're grasping a little bit of a real number and um we wanted to ensure that there was a number

[0:51:38] Voice 26: in the budget and um the uh the request for bids has been posted and that's going to come up

[0:51:46] Voice 26: shortly and ideally there'll be a number of individuals or organizations that are interested

[0:51:51] Voice 26: in conducting that for us.

[0:51:54] Voice 26: And so we'll have some firm numbers coming up shortly,

[0:51:57] Voice 26: but there will also be potentially other ancillary thoughts

[0:52:00] Voice 26: associated with that.

[0:52:01] Voice 26: So we're just trying to be certain

[0:52:03] Voice 26: that we're allocating enough in there.

[0:52:05] Voice 26: And it's a bit of a reality check

[0:52:09] Voice 26: to realize how much it's cost.

[0:52:12] Voice 26: Thank you for the question, I think.

[0:52:13] Voice 26: Trustee Patrick and Trustee Evans.

[0:52:16] Voice 16: Isn't the 21,000 for advertising and job posting

[0:52:19] Voice 16: for other positions, not the CAO position.

[0:52:21] Voice 15: That's right.

[0:52:22] Voice 15: That's our standard amount that we incur

[0:52:24] Voice 15: for hiring of staff generally.

[0:52:28] Voice 15: The $75,000 is just for the CAO hiring and recruitment.

[0:52:33] Voice 15: And I think it'll end up being a full service

[0:52:35] Voice 15: where they're involved in the posting

[0:52:37] Voice 15: and reviewing paperwork for applicants

[0:52:40] Voice 15: and advising on the process from start to finish.

[0:52:46] Voice 26: Right.

[0:52:46] Voice 26: Trustee Evans?

[0:52:48] Voice 17: I was also going to clarify

[0:52:49] Voice 17: that the 75,000 for the CAO consultancy firm that was a number that was given to

[0:52:58] Voice 17: us also through the PSA based on their historical experience and they've got a

[0:53:02] Voice 17: lot of experience in that realm and they said that this is this is sort of the

[0:53:06] Voice 17: lower end that you should be looking at yeah

[0:53:10] Voice 26: all right please continue all right

[0:53:16] Voice 15: so we are now looking at legal costs um this continues to be an interesting

[0:53:20] Voice 15: space for us to budget for. Of course, we can never be sure what legal litigation might come

[0:53:27] Voice 15: against us in the year or what legal opinions we may be required to seek based on work we're

[0:53:32] Voice 15: undertaking. But we do look at historical spending and try to adjust for any knowns that might be

[0:53:38] Voice 15: coming up and leave a buffer for unknowns. Legal general is budgeted at $96,000, which is higher

[0:53:45] Voice 15: than last year, but is in line with historical spending norms. So we've brought that number up

[0:53:50] Voice 15: to more accurately reflect our actual spending levels on things like legal opinions and

[0:53:54] Voice 15: interpretations on various topics. Legal for bylaw enforcement is budgeted at $76,000. That's

[0:54:01] Voice 15: consistent with the current year and reflects the current levels of enforcement on the island.

[0:54:07] Voice 15: Legal litigation, this is the one that's really hard for us to budget for in any given year.

[0:54:11] Voice 15: It's budgeted at $42,000, which is quite a bit lower than last year, which was $72,000.

[0:54:17] Voice 15: And it's also quite a bit lower than what we generally see for a historical average, which is $123,000.

[0:54:24] Voice 15: So, the Financial Planning Committee has directed staff to budget lower for this amount this year,

[0:54:31] Voice 15: with the assumption that any excess spending over and above the $42,000 will be funded from an additional drop in surplus in the year as needed.

[0:54:42] Voice 15: Software support and licensing is budgeted at $204,000.

[0:54:45] Voice 15: It is about a $54,000 increase over last year, and the primary driver for that is $34,000 in new costs associated with Microsoft 365 subscriptions, new costs that are associated with CityView maintenance, as well as an increase in costs associated with existing software systems that are already in play at the Islands Trust and are seeing higher fees.

[0:55:08] Voice 15: Our computer hardware and software expenses are budgeted at $182,000, so that's $50,000 higher than the current year.

[0:55:16] Voice 15: That budget line includes $24,000

[0:55:18] Voice 15: for external technical support

[0:55:21] Voice 15: to prepare the Islands Trust server environment

[0:55:24] Voice 15: for the conversion to Microsoft 365.

[0:55:27] Voice 15: We have $28,000 geared towards replacing two of our servers.

[0:55:32] Voice 15: $13,000 is for server network hardware.

[0:55:36] Voice 15: We've got $12,000 for new computer monitors,

[0:55:39] Voice 15: a new boardroom camera, and a plotter.

[0:55:40] Voice 15: So that's some of our equipment that's in daily use

[0:55:43] Voice 15: that needs replacement.

[0:55:44] Voice 15: placement. $68,000 is budgeted for the purchase of 34 new computers. So

[0:55:49] Voice 15: that is a fairly high

[0:55:51] Voice 15: number of computers to be purchasing in a single year. There's a couple of factors influencing

[0:55:55] Voice 15: that. The first is last year, in an effort to reduce spending, we did cut some of the funding

[0:56:01] Voice 15: to purchase new computers. And so we're having to double up in the current year. There's also a move

[0:56:07] Voice 15: to Windows 11 as Windows 10 reaches end of life. And so we have to purchase new computers that can

[0:56:14] Voice 15: support windows 11 as many of our machines currently do not uh 29 000 in external contracted

[0:56:22] Voice 15: technical support is included to help the is team complete these projects the contract

[0:56:30] Voice 33: may i ask

[0:56:31] Voice 33: may i make a comment please on the computer calls sure

[0:56:36] Voice 26: you have a question there go ahead

[0:56:38] Voice 26: Yeah.

[0:56:39] Voice 33: So just as a kind of, as I think it was said earlier, an observation, I think that, you know, it would be wise to have a longer term plan to kind of even out the costs of these things, because these are essential.

[0:56:58] Voice 33: like we cannot not do these things they're not really um optional but it would really help if

[0:57:07] Voice 33: we built up a special fund a reserve fund based on a five-year plan to take care of these kind

[0:57:14] Voice 33: of hardware and infrastructure costs and um you know i know that people at the moment are having

[0:57:20] Voice 33: great difficulties with their laptops etc and perhaps you know that's due to our cost cutting

[0:57:25] Voice 33: last year, but it would be really helpful if we thought about that. And is there an update

[0:57:31] Voice 33: on the hiring of the new person to replace Mark in that vein?

[0:57:41] Voice 15: I'll respond to the first part of

[0:57:43] Voice 15: that question, and then we'll turn the second part over to the CAO. In response to a longer

[0:57:49] Voice 15: term planning for capital purchases, we can absolutely move to setting up a capital reserve

[0:57:55] Voice 15: fund. And that would allow us to build funds up over time so that when we've got significant

[0:58:01] Voice 15: capital costs incurred in a

[0:58:03] Voice 15: year, we can draw from that reserve fund as opposed to having a

[0:58:06] Voice 15: spike in taxation. The creation of any new reserve fund is at the will of council and policy actually

[0:58:13] Voice 15: says that it should be a recommendation from the CAO. So maybe I'll work with Russ to explore that

[0:58:21] Voice 15: and bring something back to next council meeting i

[0:58:25] Voice 12: can pick on part two yeah so yeah thanks for the

[0:58:29] Voice 12: question and um yesterday um if if i had the moment i would have given you a bit of an overview

[0:58:35] Voice 12: on where we are with information technology i'll just take a couple minutes right now and walk you

[0:58:40] Voice 12: through that um i think there's a general understanding that particularly in the last

[0:58:45] Voice 12: two or three years that information technology is really the lifeblood of the islands trust and the

[0:58:50] Voice 12: ability to communicate it is saving us money and it's great allowing for greater public transparency

[0:58:56] Voice 12: and we've just had an exponential growth in our capacity to deliver those things

[0:59:00] Voice 12: just witness this moving um feast we have here with trust council online attendees um on um

[0:59:06] Voice 12: live streaming etc etc as the health of the service and the hiring process um i realized

[0:59:14] Voice 12: that we needed some expertise, so I led a contract to have someone

[0:59:18] Voice 12: with specific long-range technical expertise come in

[0:59:22] Voice 12: and assist us with this hire. That's included

[0:59:26] Voice 12: in it is an overview of the health of our system and

[0:59:30] Voice 12: to give us some general pointers to the future and to try and match that future with

[0:59:34] Voice 12: the potential hire. We're just in the process of going

[0:59:38] Voice 12: forward. There's significant discussion around where that

[0:59:42] Voice 12: That position should exist within the hierarchy of the Allens Trust, whether it should be excluded or internal to the union side of the labor force.

[0:59:52] Voice 12: And that would be an undertaking that we're contemplating.

[0:59:56] Voice 12: I expect that we'll be out to market within the next two or three weeks.

[1:00:00] Voice 12: You know, depending upon what the outcome of that is.

[1:00:03] Voice 12: There's a number of different approaches.

[1:00:06] Voice 12: Overall, I think that we're looking at it, you know, I really appreciate the question around long-range planning.

[1:00:11] Voice 12: One of the recommendations that I'm getting is that, indeed, a masterworks plan for information services on a 12- to 36-month basis is what we really need to develop.

[1:00:21] Voice 12: and that needs to be cycled every six months on that 12- to 36-month rhythm

[1:00:27] Voice 12: because that's how technology is changing and how quickly it is.

[1:00:32] Voice 12: There's an acknowledgment that we have a very good system,

[1:00:37] Voice 12: but we're transitioning.

[1:00:40] Voice 12: We're transitioning from homemade applications to more out-of-the-box applications,

[1:00:45] Voice 12: software as a service,

[1:00:46] Voice 12: so you're going to be able to see potentially some reductions in hardware.

[1:00:51] Voice 12: but an increase in ongoing costs associated with purchasing software as a service

[1:00:56] Voice 12: and that's a trend that we're seeing across the industry and so some of those some of those

[1:01:00] Voice 12: nuggets um the the hiring of um someone to run that service and that it be maintained are just

[1:01:07] Voice 12: critical operational components for the allen's trust and a master work plan around the around

[1:01:14] Voice 12: the cycle i've described would certainly be part of a corporate plan with the corporate planning

[1:01:18] Voice 12: in process so it should be folded into there as a departmental um report so there's a brief

[1:01:25] Voice 12: overview of where we are it's it's top of mind and and the process is imminent thank you ceo

[1:01:33] Voice 12: back

[1:01:33] Voice 27: to you too thanks all

[1:01:37] Voice 15: right i believe we're on page 136 of the agenda uh taking a look at the

[1:01:41] Voice 15: strategic plan projects that have funding for next year uh they are all listed um in the agenda

[1:01:47] Voice 15: package most of these items have business cases or associated reports included in the agenda and

[1:01:54] Voice 15: of course available for discussion later so we've got $25,000 for reconciliation action efforts

[1:01:59] Voice 15: $81,000 is directed towards the policy statement amendment work uh stewardship education program

[1:02:05] Voice 15: has no funding this year that was removed by financial planning committee secretariat services

[1:02:09] Voice 15: has been reduced to $5,000 there's a housing needs assessment for the north and south gulf islands

[1:02:16] Voice 15: valued at $127,000 in the budget, and I believe that's the one fully funded by grants.

[1:02:22] Voice 15: There's a Housing Strategy and Housing Options Toolkit funded at $30,000. First Nations Engagement

[1:02:28] Voice 15: Plan for the Conservancy has a budget of $20,000, and there's a small amount, $3,000, for the

[1:02:34] Voice 15: Governance Committee to take on some small projects in the year. Operational projects, much the same.

[1:02:41] Voice 15: Those are listed in the agenda package as well with associated business cases that can be spoken

[1:02:45] Voice 15: open to later. There's $90,000 for CityView by-law portal, $10,000 for building footprint data

[1:02:52] Voice 15: update, $160,000 is directed towards the relocation of the Salt Spring Island office,

[1:02:58] Voice 15: and $120,000 directed towards the migration to Microsoft 365.

[1:03:05] Voice 26: Devin Morrison.

[1:03:07] Voice 3: So here's the challenge that I face when we deal with budgets, and maybe somebody from the FPC,

[1:03:13] Voice 3: see maybe maybe you can help with this but so when we see housing needs assessment i understand that

[1:03:19] Voice 3: piece but the housing strategy and housing options toolkit i need to understand how that work

[1:03:25] Voice 3: at a strategic level fits with the local work so for instance north pender is has a priority on

[1:03:32] Voice 3: housing um so our local project is that i just need to understand how these different pots of

[1:03:38] Voice 3: money fit together or where do they fit with fte because that's all buried in the salaries box and

[1:03:45] Voice 3: so i find it excessively difficult to make decisions informed decisions and to communicate

[1:03:51] Voice 3: those decisions with our community when i see housing here and there and staff there that are

[1:03:56] Voice 3: also doing it so i just need to understand if somebody could explain that to me that would be

[1:04:00] Voice 3: awesome okay

[1:04:03] Voice 26: you're not necessarily looking for that right at this moment because if you ask

[1:04:07] Voice 26: Stefan to maybe just summarize

[1:04:10] Voice 27: that okay

[1:04:17] Voice 11: so again the question is you want a better understanding

[1:04:20] Voice 11: of how planning services uses their staff to do projects regionally and locally that's part of

[1:04:26] Voice 3: the question I think this strategic money here too is also in trust services I think some of it

[1:04:34] Voice 3: potentially I'm not really clear frankly where where the and is it FTE is it advertising cost

[1:04:39] Voice 3: where you know and i i read the various pieces i just don't see the holistic thing that says

[1:04:46] Voice 3: housing here's all the pots of money that are going to this and this is how we're making sure

[1:04:51] Voice 3: that it's coherent within the work of the trust that's what i don't see and i think it is maybe

[1:04:58] Voice 3: what you're saying a little bit of that regional and russ we had this conversation at dinner last

[1:05:02] Voice 3: last night like how are we understanding that regional work and how it fits more deeply do you

[1:05:12] Voice 11: have a summary I'll give you my best summary I can right now and so as the trust Council will

[1:05:19] Voice 11: be aware we adopted the new policy as of April 2023 where creates a regional planning team

[1:05:26] Voice 11: and that regional planning team consists of all the island planners and a few others that does

[1:05:31] Voice 11: all the large large or extraordinarily large projects as well as the regional planning

[1:05:36] Voice 11: teamwork now the regional planning team itself actually doesn't have dedicated planning time

[1:05:41] Voice 11: so always scrimping and saving grabbing whatever we can to sort of you do that and so the current

[1:05:47] Voice 11: approach since i've been director the last year and a half has to apply the regional planning team

[1:05:51] Voice 11: tools as much as possible at the regional level such as doing the uh that strategic approach to

[1:05:57] Voice 11: housing which is developing plans or work that'll apply region-wide and tools such as the housing

[1:06:05] Voice 11: two options toolkit which then each ltc can use so we're trying to create tools and strategies that

[1:06:11] Voice 11: each ltc can apply and that involves that regional planning team that's in that policy and like i

[1:06:17] Voice 11: said this is the first year we've implemented that that team approach and we have found great success

[1:06:22] Voice 11: in delivering the projects the deliverables and then the same team members that are creating some

[1:06:27] Voice 11: of those projects are then using them at the local level such as in north tender gabriola and so on

[1:06:33] Voice 11: and so forth so that's the best answer i can is basically it's that team approach to creating

[1:06:40] Voice 11: large projects and the tools that are necessary at local level but i see other people right okay

[1:06:48] Voice 26: thank you stefan and i

[1:06:49] Voice 26: think the focus here is actually we're on the budget of this function

[1:06:53] Voice 26: at this moment and so the numbers are essentially what we need to focus on but certainly understand

[1:06:58] Voice 26: that we need to know where that funding and money comes from i think it's if it hasn't been said

[1:07:03] Voice 26: already i think and if i'm not mistaken um what's important in this particular budget cycle and the

[1:07:08] Voice 26: overall overall uh expenses is that the housing needs assessment is being covered by a grant this

[1:07:16] Voice 26: go around right so it's not we're not asking the taxpayers for that that's coming from the

[1:07:21] Voice 26: provincial government so that and i think that's 127 000 number ish is that correct yeah so laura

[1:07:27] Voice 26: patrick i

[1:07:29] Voice 16: just uh thank you stephan i think stefan's conversation really refers to the

[1:07:33] Voice 16: the thirty thousand dollars money that's uh for the toolkit that's the assembly of the tools that

[1:07:39] Voice 16: are going to be used at the uh at the local trust committee uh and using the housing toolkit

[1:07:44] Voice 16: specific uh in its example the housing needs assessment this is a pooling of funds that are

[1:07:50] Voice 16: directly doing the work for a local trust committee we are obligated to do those uh

[1:07:55] Voice 16: housing needs assessment now by legislative update and we're pulling them into one project but it's

[1:08:00] Voice 16: to do the housing so that is direct money that goes to your ltc right

[1:08:05] Voice 26: thank you trustee laroni

[1:08:08] Voice 16: okay

[1:08:09] Voice 32: um i was going to change the subject so if sue ellen wants to continue on housing

[1:08:16] Voice 26: um i'm sorry what is the question oh

[1:08:19] Voice 32: i had a question about the secretariat services

[1:08:22] Voice 26: but if we were not oh yeah well that's in that section yeah um so go ahead you've got the mic

[1:08:28] Voice 26: okay well

[1:08:30] Voice 32: um i'm the representative for the shellfish aquaculture management advisory

[1:08:35] Voice 32: committee and so the secretariat services 10 000 cut is going to affect the bain sound eco

[1:08:45] Voice 32: forum which as someone who's fairly familiar with that area the shellfish situation it's

[1:08:53] Voice 32: It's extremely important because it's such a diverse area with so many different players.

[1:08:58] Voice 32: It provides a third of the herring spawning happens in BC.

[1:09:05] Voice 32: So, I mean, we have the farmers, we have environment, we have government, etc., etc., etc.

[1:09:11] Voice 32: And the Bains Eco Forum is where they're able to come together and discuss and understand each other and make things happen.

[1:09:20] Voice 32: And as such, it's really, really important because, well, I'm a big, what's the word, proponent.

[1:09:32] Voice 32: I think that shellfish is usually often carbon neutral.

[1:09:36] Voice 32: And I think it's something we should be supporting.

[1:09:38] Voice 32: And as a lot of it happens, most of it happens in Bain Sound.

[1:09:42] Voice 32: This is a really important piece.

[1:09:45] Voice 32: I mean and of course it also would cut the right postal Douglas for

[1:09:54] Voice 32: conservation budget and they are they do a lot of things that the island stress

[1:10:00] Voice 32: really supports like biodiversity mapping mapping land coverage change

[1:10:03] Voice 32: environmentally sensitive areas speak species at risk etc etc etc so I think

[1:10:10] Voice 32: it's really important to help them continue their work because it informs

[1:10:13] Voice 32: funds our work

[1:10:14] Voice 26: okay thank you and if um you have a suggest a recommendation for council i'm hoping

[1:10:21] Voice 26: you've got a motion and i know there are some motions associated with restoring some of that

[1:10:24] Voice 26: funding so my speaker's list david mott um passed to alan fast thank you

[1:10:32] Voice 18: um i have a quick question

[1:10:34] Voice 18: for the planner i'm sorry for the manager i'm looking actually at uh lost my page now never

[1:10:48] Voice 18: Never mind. Thank you.

[1:10:49] Voice 18: I'm going to speak instead to the Secretariat Services and the other things that have been removed by Financial Planning Committee.

[1:11:05] Voice 18: And these are, I'm looking at page 260 for a handy list of things that were reduced by Financial Planning Committee.

[1:11:17] Voice 18: And I respect the work of the Financial Planning Committee and all the work that's gone into the budget by the committee members and by staff.

[1:11:25] Voice 18: But I just want to point out that compared to the point of view that my colleague over there, Grant Scott, provided, which was planning is the central function of the Islands Trust and the service that his people on Hornby Island expect and that all the other staff support planning.

[1:11:48] Voice 18: I look at, from Bowen Island's point of view, what people on Bowen Island expect from the Islands Trust is preserving and protecting nature and helping the ecosystems to make sure that butterflies and songbirds and everything survive.

[1:12:08] Voice 18: So when you look at the cuts on page 260, the reductions, I should say, in the following line items, which includes a couple of things we're talking about here, the secretariat services, the Islands Trust Conservancy ecosystem mapping, stewardship education cut to zero.

[1:12:35] Voice 18: I'm actually looking at page 260 just where there's the handy list but we can look at page 128 too

[1:12:43] Voice 18: I guess

[1:12:46] Voice 26: yeah and you know I'm just sort of going to hint I don't want to curb your uh what you

[1:12:52] Voice 26: want to say but if we're talking about things that are in and out we're probably better off

[1:12:55] Voice 26: dealing with those when we get to that section of

[1:12:58] Voice 18: the agenda I

[1:12:59] Voice 26: think we just want to continue

[1:13:00] Voice 26: with the summary at this time okay

[1:13:02] Voice 18: I just want to express my support for replacing the funding of

[1:13:06] Voice 18: of the stewardship education and the secretariat services

[1:13:12] Voice 18: and some of the other preserve and protecting of nature

[1:13:17] Voice 18: as opposed to our wonderful planners

[1:13:20] Voice 18: who do all kinds of good work in protecting nature too.

[1:13:25] Voice 18: But it's not the be all and end all serving citizens.

[1:13:28] Voice 18: We need to serve nature and the ecosystems too.

[1:13:32] Voice 18: Thank you.

[1:13:32] Voice 26: okay and let's try and focus our support for things that might be added reinstated and or

[1:13:39] Voice 26: removed um for a little bit later here so uh questions and comments with respect to where

[1:13:45] Voice 26: we're at so the speaker's list is now tim peterson yeah

[1:13:49] Voice 31: thank you chair i just wanted to uh get some

[1:13:51] Voice 31: clarity on i know earlier it said uh four items that we might want to debate specific items and

[1:13:59] Voice 31: And where do you want that to happen so that we don't get sidetracked during this briefing?

[1:14:05] Voice 31: Just so we're all

[1:14:06] Voice 31: on the same page.

[1:14:07] Voice 26: When we finish the reporting out on the budget, we'll have that discussion.

[1:14:11] Voice 31: Okay.

[1:14:11] Voice 31: I just wanted to clarify

[1:14:13] Voice 26: that for myself and everyone else.

[1:14:14] Voice 31: Thank you.

[1:14:16] Voice 15: Yeah, the intent is once I've completed my presentation

[1:14:18] Voice 15: and taken questions specifically on what I've talked about,

[1:14:22] Voice 15: council will be polled to have questions responded to on various business cases and projects.

[1:14:27] Voice 15: Once that conversation is wrapped up, it's a time for amendments to the budget.

[1:14:30] Voice 15: Right.

[1:14:31] Voice 26: Thank you. Okay.

[1:14:33] Voice 26: Trustee Gavreau.

[1:14:35] Voice 21: I just want to voice my support for what Trustee Laroni said.

[1:14:40] Voice 21: On Galliano, there's a lot of herring fishermen.

[1:14:43] Voice 21: And when I was looking over and researching this item on the budget, speaking with them, that area is very, very important, especially to our First Nations.

[1:14:53] Voice 21: If we can do anything to support them through adding that money back, it's a great thing for our buck, really.

[1:15:00] Voice 26: Thank you, Lisa.

[1:15:04] Voice 26: I

[1:15:04] Voice 19: just wanted to say I've put a motion to have this reviewed at a later point.

[1:15:10] Voice 26: We have ten motions in already, by the way.

[1:15:15] Voice 26: Trustee Evans?

[1:15:17] Voice 17: Thank you.

[1:15:18] Voice 17: I have a couple of questions.

[1:15:20] Voice 17: And maybe Julia can answer these.

[1:15:24] Voice 17: So on page 133 where we're talking about the in-person meetings being budgeted at $31,500

[1:15:32] Voice 17: half thousand dollars per meeting um i know that those were based on uh sort of the last four or

[1:15:36] Voice 17: five meetings that we held i know that we have now cut our like um break budget by not having

[1:15:44] Voice 17: um the snacks and everything included and i'm i've heard which is why i'm asking the question

[1:15:51] Voice 17: that's about a thousand dollars um per break that has been cut so if that's the case it'll

[1:15:58] Voice 17: it would be a reduction of approximately $5,000 per meeting.

[1:16:01] Voice 17: Can we, like, is that number sort of in the right ballpark

[1:16:06] Voice 17: if we were to put a motion forward

[1:16:08] Voice 17: to reduce the in-person meeting budget by $5,000?

[1:16:14] Voice 17: I

[1:16:16] Voice 15: think reducing this amount would put pressure

[1:16:19] Voice 15: on the Trust Council meeting expense line.

[1:16:22] Voice 15: This average that we came up with, the $31,500,

[1:16:26] Voice 15: hundred was based on i think the most recent five meetings that we've had but of course five

[1:16:31] Voice 15: meetings ago things were less expensive so that average we actually think is a little bit low

[1:16:37] Voice 15: when we look at it in the context of the planning that's happening for current meetings

[1:16:41] Voice 15: um it's an excellent thought though to if that is going to be the process moving forward that

[1:16:47] Voice 15: you know we'll be not having staff breaks um we can look at how that impacts this number

[1:16:54] Voice 15: um in future budgets but i would suggest this is a bit low so we might actually just hit it with

[1:17:00] Voice 15: those those changes okay so

[1:17:02] Voice 12: ceo has a remark just anecdotally i'd like to point out that

[1:17:07] Voice 12: that has been an unpopular choice well that's true oh

[1:17:12] Voice 17: well um it's a fiscally financial a

[1:17:15] Voice 17: financially prudent one whatever and i have one other question um and this one is regards on one

[1:17:22] Voice 17: page 134 where we're talking about the projects and we have the salt spring island um ocp and

[1:17:30] Voice 17: lub review uh so my question is um over to i guess laura um i know that in the the previous

[1:17:38] Voice 17: year's budget this was cut significantly my question is can that 222 000 be fully spent

[1:17:46] Voice 17: in this upcoming fiscal year and i understand there's a complete communities assessment

[1:17:51] Voice 17: at $150,000 that is budgeted for, is that a number that could be reduced?

[1:18:02] Voice 16: I'll start with the complete community is a grant fund.

[1:18:06] Voice 16: That was a fund that was provided 100% by grant funds, the $150,000.

[1:18:10] Voice 16: So we don't want to reduce that.

[1:18:15] Voice 16: Historically, prior to last year's budget, the OCP business case included $100,000 for

[1:18:21] Voice 16: for an additional $100,000 of what you see in the budget today for data collection and analysis,

[1:18:28] Voice 16: so that complete community grant fund replaces the additional amount that was in the budget from two years ago for the OCP.

[1:18:41] Voice 16: I'm a bit frustrated with the progress on the projects on Salt Spring.

[1:18:47] Voice 16: You know, we have last year we had a project feasibility assessment that said ours were appointed to the project, and here we have another feasibility assessment in this year's budget saying that there's ours appointed to the project.

[1:18:59] Voice 16: So I think the, you know, does Salt Spring need to have projects of this level?

[1:19:06] Voice 16: Yes.

[1:19:07] Voice 16: Looking out at other communities and what they're spending for OCP area plan work,

[1:19:12] Voice 16: work uh this is a fraction of what other communities are spending that are less populated

[1:19:17] Voice 16: than salt spring so we are for whatever reason think we can do the same amount of work for less

[1:19:23] Voice 16: money i can't understand that and it's not getting done so it was already taxed last year these are

[1:19:29] Voice 16: projects that should be done should it be done this year yes will it be done this year i don't

[1:19:36] Voice 30: i hope so okay

[1:19:37] Voice 17: so then i guess my question is back to julia mobs if that 150 000 was it had

[1:19:44] Voice 17: coming from grant monies and we've got the the 222 currently in the budget has that been offset or is

[1:19:51] Voice 17: that like where is that money coming from i'm just trying to understand that

[1:19:55] Voice 17: piece um

[1:19:56] Voice 15: so the 222

[1:19:58] Voice 15: 000 is made up of 126 000 of the grant money uh so the total grant is 150 but some of it's being

[1:20:06] Voice 15: spent this year so we've got 126 funding that work next year and then the i think 96 000 remaining

[1:20:13] Voice 15: remaining amount is coming from surplus. So that was the amount that was funded in the current year

[1:20:18] Voice 15: for that work, and it hasn't been spent. So we're flowing it into surplus next year and drawing it

[1:20:23] Voice 15: out again. So that work has no impact to taxation this year,

[1:20:26] Voice 27: next year. Thank

[1:20:28] Voice 26: you. That's it for

[1:20:30] Voice 26: our speakers. That's great. Okay, back to you.

[1:20:36] Voice 15: Okay, so I think we have reached the end of

[1:20:39] Voice 15: of conversation on budget expenses. So when we do take a look at our planned revenue sources

[1:20:47] Voice 15: minus our planned levels of spending, we do see a proposed budget shortfall in the year

[1:20:53] Voice 15: of $664,000. So in that instance, when we have a shortfall, we have to look to internal sources

[1:20:59] Voice 15: of revenue to pay for that shortfall. So that's our surplus and reserve funds. We are planning

[1:21:05] Voice 15: a draw from the General Revenue Surplus Fund of $371,000, a draw from the Local Trust Committee

[1:21:11] Voice 15: Project Specific Reserve Fund of $219,000, and a draw from the Salt Spring Island Special Property

[1:21:17] Voice 15: Tax Reserve Fund of $73,000. And those three draws together will make up for the $664,000 shortfall.

[1:21:28] Voice 15: The draw from General Revenue Surplus has been applied to the Salt Spring Office relocation to

[1:21:33] Voice 15: to the Microsoft 365 conversion,

[1:21:35] Voice 15: to the policy statement amendment project

[1:21:37] Voice 15: and First Nations engagement plan.

[1:21:39] Voice 15: The draw from the local trust committee

[1:21:41] Voice 15: project specific reserve fund is geared

[1:21:43] Voice 15: to local trust committee projects only.

[1:21:46] Voice 15: And the draw from the special property tax reserve fund

[1:21:49] Voice 15: is intended to pay for three Salt Spring Island projects

[1:21:53] Voice 15: directed towards the protection of freshwater.

[1:21:57] Voice 15: So staff have looked at the third quarter forecast

[1:22:01] Voice 15: from this year, as well as the draft budget from next year

[1:22:03] Voice 15: to make an estimate of where we think the balance in the general revenue surplus fund will be at the

[1:22:09] Voice 15: end of next year if we approve this budget today. Based on this budget, we are not able to meet the

[1:22:16] Voice 15: recommended minimum balance to be attained in the surplus fund under policy. It's estimated to be

[1:22:22] Voice 15: $1.86 million, and the policy recommendation would be to have $1.89 million in surplus. So we're

[1:22:30] Voice 15: We're about $30,000 shy.

[1:22:32] Voice 15: That's a fairly small amount.

[1:22:34] Voice 15: It absolutely will not put the trust in any kind of financial jeopardy,

[1:22:38] Voice 15: and most likely we'll end up putting more money into surplus in the current year

[1:22:42] Voice 1: than

[1:22:42] Voice 15: the forecast anticipated, so we should be just fine.

[1:22:46] Voice 15: There's lots of attachments to this briefing.

[1:22:48] Voice 15: I'm not going to speak to them individually.

[1:22:51] Voice 15: They're just included as support for the budget numbers.

[1:22:55] Voice 15: We have presented the budget by area of function this time around,

[1:23:00] Voice 15: which I think is new. That's page 138 of the agenda package. So this is the budget that will

[1:23:07] Voice 15: be put onto the website, and it shows how many dollars are directed towards each area of service

[1:23:13] Voice 15: at Islands Trust. We also have the numeric budget detail, which is the spreadsheet with all the

[1:23:19] Voice 15: small numbers. We have a grant summary to highlight for trustees what grants are coming in and what

[1:23:25] Voice 15: they're allocated to we've got lists of all of our projects strategic operating as well as list of

[1:23:31] Voice 15: new staff and also a surplus allocation for reference so i can take questions on anything

[1:23:37] Voice 15: that i've presented today and then i'll pass it back to the chair to pull for business cases

[1:23:44] Voice 26: all right thank you very much are there any um further questions on the work presented today

[1:23:49] Voice 26: by julia and then we're going to go into um discussing the business cases and what's in

[1:23:54] Voice 26: what's out so any questions for julia okay it looks like we got all those questions in during

[1:24:03] Voice 26: your presentation so julia thank you very much for this amazing work um i'm glad you're doing

[1:24:08] Voice 26: it because it wouldn't be anywhere near as clear if i was doing it so thank you very much for all

[1:24:13] Voice 26: this great work and your staff of course supporting you um you have a question next section okay so um

[1:24:23] Voice 26: um so we're we're going to move into now julia has said a couple times we're going to pull

[1:24:27] Voice 26: to determine what's in and what's out.

[1:24:30] Voice 26: And that is sort of is my intent.

[1:24:33] Voice 26: However, we have 11 motions already submitted, right?

[1:24:37] Voice 26: And I want to support good behavior.

[1:24:40] Voice 26: That's good behavior.

[1:24:41] Voice 26: And so, there's an ability to manage those motions

[1:24:45] Voice 26: that have come in on a first come, first serve basis.

[1:24:47] Voice 26: There's certainly some duplication.

[1:24:49] Voice 26: And there's also some items

[1:24:51] Voice 26: that are not necessarily specific to approving the budget,

[1:24:54] Voice 26: but might be recommendations going forward

[1:24:57] Voice 26: with respect to what we do in the next cycle.

[1:25:00] Voice 26: So, I'm just going to sort of summarize here that,

[1:25:04] Voice 26: you know, the sequence of business cases

[1:25:07] Voice 26: is sort of different in different documents.

[1:25:10] Voice 26: And so, we've got the business case summaries,

[1:25:14] Voice 26: and they cover LTC initiatives, trust counsel,

[1:25:18] Voice 26: conservancy, staffing request operations,

[1:25:20] Voice 26: and then at the very end is those that are unfunded.

[1:25:23] Voice 26: And so, ideally, you've sorted that out, and ideally, those of you that have submitted motions, I would simply like to go to the motions and respect those, because we could be here a long time just handling the dozen motions that are already on the floor, and I think that might meet everybody's needs as we go forward.

[1:25:42] Voice 26: but absolutely before we conclude this section i will be asking if there's any additional motions

[1:25:49] Voice 26: that need to be advanced but that also there's a hint there if you haven't submitted a motion now

[1:25:54] Voice 26: submit it but i think the popular ones maybe you know what they are and they may already be on the

[1:26:00] Voice 26: table is that satisfactory to everybody all right then julia um

[1:26:06] Voice 15: you may wish to see if there's

[1:26:08] Voice 15: questions on any of the reporting and business cases before we move into amendments okay

[1:26:13] Voice 26: Okay. Well, thank you for that. I was hoping that maybe in your summary, you touched on that,

[1:26:18] Voice 26: and we'd had that. But are there any questions on the business cases? I think that's a great

[1:26:22] Voice 26: question. And so I speak to Ellen for that, and I'll turn to David Mott to keep track of the others.

[1:26:29] Voice 18: Thank you. This is just a really quick question. I'm on page 149. Housing needs reports. It says

[1:26:38] Voice 18: beside there that Bowen contributes? Is that a typo?

[1:26:46] Voice 18: Yes. Thank you. I'll draw a line to that. Thanks.

[1:26:49] Voice 18: Excellent.

[1:26:51] Voice 26: Deb Morrison?

[1:26:52] Voice 3: Thanks. So on

[1:26:54] Voice 3: the housing strategy and housing options toolkit

[1:26:59] Voice 3: on page 177, unlike some of the

[1:27:03] Voice 3: other business cases, I can't see exactly what the money is spent on.

[1:27:07] Voice 3: And I know it's a placeholder. I can see that in the language

[1:27:11] Voice 3: of the thing I guess my question from my previous question kind of add-on is if

[1:27:17] Voice 3: it's staff who we already pay for in our ongoing budgets of time I just don't

[1:27:25] Voice 3: know what that $30,000 is potentially being placed out for great

[1:27:31] Voice 27: director

[1:27:34] Voice 11: Charmaine sure thank you it hasn't been allocated yet staff have some ideas but

[1:27:42] Voice 11: But I know that the Regional Planning Committee were successful last year once the budget was approved.

[1:27:47] Voice 11: Staff went to the Regional Planning Committee with a list of items, recommendations, which they adopted and re-implemented.

[1:27:53] Voice 11: So I would turn maybe to the chair who's got more ideas.

[1:27:56] Voice 26: Yeah, right. Regional Planning Committee has initiated this. So over to you.

[1:28:01] Voice 16: Well, as this body should recall, they approved a housing strategy in December.

[1:28:05] Voice 16: And there's a whole part two of that housing strategy that refers to supporting multifamily housing projects.

[1:28:15] Voice 16: So that is likely where this is going to be directed to.

[1:28:21] Voice 16: Last year, we had the same thing.

[1:28:23] Voice 16: We had this placeholder, and we were able to use that to create the housing toolkit that came out of this.

[1:28:30] Voice 16: but the strategy has a whole phase two of activities um that are so

[1:28:37] Voice 26: i'm thinking that

[1:28:38] Voice 26: the question hasn't necessarily been answered what are you going

[1:28:41] Voice 26: to spend this on contractors

[1:28:42] Voice 26: advertising material um so step on or our regional planning chair well

[1:28:53] Voice 11: i think the point the point

[1:28:55] Voice 11: is is we have a housing strategy action plan within it includes a whole host of proposed actions

[1:29:01] Voice 11: predominantly aimed at supporting non-profit groups getting through application processes

[1:29:06] Voice 11: better to you know get building done more than just doing that the land use stuff so we have not

[1:29:15] Voice 11: particularly allocated where the 30 000 would go but we do have a plan about where we would like

[1:29:21] Voice 11: to spend it if we can once we get the funding approved we will then go to the regional planning

[1:29:26] Voice 11: committee make recommendations on how to do so but with the predominant push is to really we've done

[1:29:33] Voice 11: the housing toolkit which shows what ltcs can do this as trustee patrick mentioned is to help the

[1:29:39] Voice 11: non-profit groups get through the process faster better and this is there's all kinds of actions

[1:29:45] Voice 11: in there about communications advocacy um doing individual types of reports what have you off the

[1:29:51] Voice 11: bat you know we could use it for staff time to actually do the work to do this but we haven't

[1:29:55] Voice 11: We haven't made those recommendations to RPC, and they haven't approved where to spend them.

[1:30:00] Voice 11: place an alert only identified that it would be helpful to actually implement the implementation

[1:30:05] Voice 11: plan okay

[1:30:07] Voice 3: and my reason for this question is because we're literally putting forward a north

[1:30:12] Voice 3: pender budget on housing and we understand that we would bear those costs for the north pender

[1:30:18] Voice 3: implementation of whatever staff produce around housing toolkits i don't mean to harp on this but

[1:30:24] Voice 3: but I have to be able to explain this and it has to be clear.

[1:30:28] Voice 3: And so what I need to understand is this can't be staff time because we have

[1:30:35] Voice 3: staff time paid for in the, but line items of other things.

[1:30:39] Voice 3: So this cannot be staff time from my perspective,

[1:30:41] Voice 3: it has to be contractor time or advertising.

[1:30:45] Voice 3: So I just, I need more clarity. And I understand what you're saying,

[1:30:49] Voice 3: but I can't like disregard the secretariat services,

[1:30:52] Voice 3: which I can clearly see what they are, X, Y, Z,

[1:30:54] Voice 3: and fund this.

[1:30:55] Voice 3: So I just need to understand.

[1:30:57] Voice 26: Right.

[1:30:57] Voice 26: So the chair of RPC has suggested that Trustee Elliott

[1:31:02] Voice 26: might have part of the answer there.

[1:31:04] Voice 23: So the piece that we left off

[1:31:07] Voice 23: or was left off from last trust council's decision-making

[1:31:10] Voice 23: was the round table and the inter-agency work.

[1:31:14] Voice 23: That has never been followed through on.

[1:31:17] Voice 23: And so if you look back to the December,

[1:31:21] Voice 23: So in our November RPC meeting and then that list, two-page list, which was created by the Acting Policy Advisor Mary Storzer, who has very good experience working with provincial governments, there's a whole set of objectives and then strategies and actions under them.

[1:31:38] Voice 23: And so the interagency cooperation staff roundtable is in there, undertaking work with First Nations to identify ways to incorporate Indigenous interests in suitable land analysis and pilot it.

[1:31:49] Voice 23: there's a whole raft of strategies we cannot accomplish that just with the regional planning

[1:31:54] Voice 23: team is my understanding that's going to be interagency and intergovernmental work and we'll

[1:31:59] Voice 23: need communications work and contractors for that so if you want to look at it it's it's a

[1:32:05] Voice 23: beautiful robust strategy um we can't do any of those activities without a budget for it that's

[1:32:12] Voice 23: it okay

[1:32:13] Voice 3: and just again to be clear i know this is a bit of harping on it but i have to be clear

[1:32:17] Voice 3: North Pender is like on board. We have a major project as our housing project. That's not what

[1:32:23] Voice 3: I'm asking. I'm just wanting clarity on like an interagency roundtable. Are we bearing more of

[1:32:30] Voice 3: the cost board or is it others and other governments who are also equally contributing?

[1:32:35] Voice 3: Coordination is a function of the trust. If we think that's important, yes, then we should bear

[1:32:38] Voice 3: the cost of it. If we need contractors, then where is our regional planning staff like leaning into

[1:32:45] Voice 3: those contractors are doing that work versus not because frankly one of the challenges we have

[1:32:50] Voice 3: anytime we deal with budget and this is absolutely not a comment on our staff but our budget is

[1:32:57] Voice 3: predominantly staff cost and when we make on time our projects i want us to understand where and be

[1:33:04] Voice 3: able to explain clearly in community where our staff costs are allocating into that work like

[1:33:11] Voice 3: Like, X number of people are doing the work on the toolkit.

[1:33:13] Voice 3: Awesome, right?

[1:33:15] Voice 3: And then we need a contractor to facilitate a meeting.

[1:33:17] Voice 3: Excellent.

[1:33:18] Voice 3: I can explain that.

[1:33:19] Voice 3: So that's the challenge.

[1:33:21] Voice 26: Right.

[1:33:21] Voice 26: So I think I want to move on.

[1:33:22] Voice 26: If there's a desire to remove this from the budget, then we can determine if council agrees with that notion or not.

[1:33:30] Voice 26: But presently, it's in, right?

[1:33:33] Voice 26: And so let's move on to what we want to include or not include.

[1:33:37] Voice 26: Are there any other questions associated with the business cases?

[1:33:42] Voice 26: Trustee Evans.

[1:33:44] Voice 17: Okay.

[1:33:45] Voice 17: So this is actually a question for our legislative services.

[1:33:50] Voice 17: David Mahler.

[1:33:54] Voice 17: Okay.

[1:33:54] Voice 17: So and I want to raise this before we get into our other discussions.

[1:34:00] Voice 17: so it's come to my attention that staff took it that has sent out an email to various bodies

[1:34:12] Voice 17: advocating that they write in in regards to one of our budget items i believe that that's

[1:34:20] Voice 17: interfering with political decision so i want to raise that and i think that this should be

[1:34:29] Voice 17: discussed in camera later um and i just want to understand can you clarify

[1:34:37] Voice 17: where the line is and what should not be crossed you

[1:34:43] Voice 25: know yeah

[1:34:48] Voice 28: can i talk to you offline and if

[1:34:51] Voice 28: we need to in camera for discussion we can do that or we can speak okay thanks okay

[1:34:56] Voice 28: Okay.

[1:35:00] Voice 27: Justine Borczyk.

[1:35:06] Voice 6: Glad you guys

[1:35:07] Voice 6: have got that sorted out.

[1:35:08] Voice 6: Hands off my names yet.

[1:35:11] Voice 6: Yeah.

[1:35:13] Voice 6: This is not a question regarding this word business case per se.

[1:35:18] Voice 6: This is we were sort of getting into it.

[1:35:24] Voice 26: Meet your microphone somewhere.

[1:35:29] Voice 6: Yeah.

[1:35:29] Voice 6: Yeah, I want to speak in support of the Secretary of Services, and I thank Trustee Laroni and Trustee Govro for their speaking.

[1:35:41] Voice 6: My particular focus, I have the privilege of sitting on the steering committee for, as per the terms of reference for the Bain Sound Labrador Channel Ecoforum.

[1:35:51] Voice 6: I'm the representative, the island stress representative on that steering committee.

[1:35:56] Voice 6: The work that that group does is tremendous.

[1:36:00] Voice 6: I don't want to beat this to death.

[1:36:02] Voice 6: I know you guys have already heard this thing.

[1:36:04] Voice 6: It's an incredible area.

[1:36:06] Voice 6: It's a very precious area.

[1:36:08] Voice 6: It is the definition to me in many, many ways of what we need to be preserving and protecting.

[1:36:13] Voice 6: It's a specifically unique amenity.

[1:36:16] Voice 6: It's one of the last herring spawns north of the border and one of the last ones on the West Coast in general.

[1:36:24] Voice 6: It's a very precious place.

[1:36:25] Voice 6: Bains Sound is a uniquely pristine body of water in many many ways and is

[1:36:30] Voice 6: already under great threat. This group I've gotten to see over the last year in

[1:36:36] Voice 6: a bit has, to my experience, which is admittedly limited, an unparalleled

[1:36:46] Voice 6: level of interagency cooperation and communication. There's a tremendous number

[1:36:54] Voice 37: I don't know if we'll even get this. I'm at 453 Marine, which is Doug.

[1:36:59] Voice 26: Janine, can you mute your microphone?

[1:37:05] Voice 6: Anyways, like I said, I said I wasn't going to beat this to death, and I'm not doing a very good job of not doing that.

[1:37:12] Voice 6: I think it's really, really important, and I understand and I want to say that I have tremendous respect and admiration for all of you who are taking on the burden of sitting on the financial planning committee.

[1:37:25] Voice 6: This is a tricky job, and I really appreciate the work that you do.

[1:37:30] Voice 6: Words are more my gift than numbers, and you guys do tremendous things, and I know that it's a tricky thing to make those decisions.

[1:37:38] Voice 6: To my mind, and not just the Bain Sound Ecoforum, all of the secretariat services, we get tremendous value for the investment we make there.

[1:37:49] Voice 6: and of all the places to try and make up those shortfalls,

[1:37:55] Voice 6: I don't feel that this is the place.

[1:37:58] Voice 6: And yeah, I had sent a motion.

[1:38:02] Voice 6: I wonder a little if my motion had been to restore the funding.

[1:38:07] Voice 6: I don't know if it's more a question of maintaining the funding

[1:38:10] Voice 6: as opposed to restoring it in terms of how that actually works

[1:38:15] Voice 6: because it's a recommendation, as I understand,

[1:38:17] Voice 6: from the Financial Planning Committee to reduce it.

[1:38:19] Voice 6: That is the active legislative element there.

[1:38:24] Voice 6: But I would welcome.

[1:38:28] Voice 26: So thank you, Trustee Borthwick.

[1:38:31] Voice 26: Let's try and keep the debate on inclusion or exclusion of things for when we get there.

[1:38:37] Voice 26: Are there questions with respect to any of the business cases at this time?

[1:38:42] Voice 26: I had meant to be on that part of that conversation.

[1:38:44] Voice 26: So, OK.

[1:38:45] Voice 26: Okay. And Trustee Boland, I think, is next, online.

[1:38:50] Voice 33: Yeah, I'm just, with respect to the process,

[1:38:53] Voice 33: I am a bit concerned that we're jumping around all over the place

[1:38:59] Voice 33: and somebody who really wants to speak for or against something

[1:39:03] Voice 33: may miss the opportunity.

[1:39:06] Voice 33: And I'm not sure how we deal with that.

[1:39:09] Voice 33: Do we go one by one by one?

[1:39:11] Voice 33: I'm

[1:39:12] Voice 26: trying to focus on that, Trustee Boland, and so I get the message.

[1:39:16] Voice 26: I think I

[1:39:16] Voice 33: was going to speak in response to that about the secretary of services, but I'll wait till later.

[1:39:22] Voice 33: That's fine. Thank

[1:39:23] Voice 26: you. I appreciate you raising it for the support process.

[1:39:28] Voice 31: Tim Peterson. Yeah, I don't have a question, but it's about process, too.

[1:39:36] Voice 31: I would like to speak on one of the specific items that I have a motion when we're at that spot and we're done with the general question.

[1:39:44] Voice 31: Good.

[1:39:45] Voice 26: Are we finished with questions? Let's go to the motions. And they've been kind of

[1:39:51] Voice 26: grouped here, but absolutely in a first-come, first-served basis. David Marley, can you give

[1:39:57] Voice 26: me what the first motion is? So

[1:40:00] Voice 26: let's just get it up on the screen, and perhaps somebody could

[1:40:06] Voice 26: read that out for clarity. And so the first one is from Trustee Boland.

[1:40:14] Voice 26: Yeah, larger on our screen as well. Thank you, everybody.

[1:40:30] Voice 26: Oh, Alexandra, please. So the administrative assistant, over to you.

[1:40:36] Voice 34: I just want to make it clear that I have put these in order of how they have been received

[1:40:40] Voice 34: and duplicates have been taken out.

[1:40:43] Voice 26: I see. Okay. Well, that's fine.

[1:40:45] Voice 26: fine. Let's make sure that we're accounting for all of those. So the first motion then

[1:40:53] Voice 26: is regarding 7.2.16 and is on the screen. Do I need to have it read out? Can everybody

[1:41:01] Voice 26: see it on the appropriate screen? Although for members of the public, actually, we should

[1:41:08] Voice 26: actually read the motion out. So let's read the motion out, David, and I will take it

[1:41:13] Voice 26: that Trustee Boland has moved it.

[1:41:16] Voice 28: Yeah, so the first resolution is Trust Council remove the proposed new staff position for

[1:41:21] Voice 28: Allen's Trust Conservancy, protect the areas manager from the 2024-25 draft budget.

[1:41:27] Voice 26: Right.

[1:41:28] Voice 26: So do I have a seconder for that motion?

[1:41:29] Voice 26: First step in the process?

[1:41:32] Voice 26: Seconded by Trustee Hunter.

[1:41:34] Voice 26: Thank you.

[1:41:35] Voice 26: So Trustee Boland, do you want to just...

[1:41:37] Voice 3: Point of order.

[1:41:37] Voice 3: Sorry.

[1:41:39] Voice 3: Just to be clear, there's optics here.

[1:41:42] Voice 3: So that was moved by Trustee Boland.

[1:41:45] Voice 3: yeah okay it's just would be great for the mover to read the motion sure

[1:41:51] Voice 26: we can do that too um yeah

[1:41:55] Voice 26: trustee boland's audio is not the best um so trustee boland you wish to speak your motion

[1:42:02] Voice 33: yes i do and um i can't understand why the audio is poor because uh i can hear all of you perfectly

[1:42:10] Voice 33: Perfectly. And I can hear other people who are online. Perfectly.

[1:42:14] Voice 26: The moment you're fine, let's not dwell on that. Let's move to speaking.

[1:42:20] Voice 33: All right. So the Alice Trust Conservancy budget is now and I think it's one point three million plus another two hundred thousand for the SAR funded by the SARS grant.

[1:42:35] Voice 33: and 800,000 are salaries and another part of and there's support from administrative staff

[1:42:44] Voice 33: within the islands trust and we are paying for that it's not common that something similar is

[1:42:54] Voice 33: paid for in a regional district or a municipality it's 10 percent of our budget

[1:43:00] Voice 33: it uh the plans that are created by the islands trust conservancy are approved by the province

[1:43:08] Voice 33: and the province appoints three trustees to the islands trust conservancy board so it is the child

[1:43:16] Voice 33: of the province they love it they approve the plans the plans are good um so i don't think

[1:43:24] Voice 33: that it's appropriate that we are paying so that's my second proposal but the first proposal

[1:43:30] Voice 33: is that we should not be adding staff positions in any case because um you know this staff position

[1:43:38] Voice 33: will be a hundred and i don't know forty thousand next year it's seventy thousand this year for part

[1:43:45] Voice 33: of the year and we are in a state of considering asking the province to do a review we're looking

[1:43:53] Voice 33: at implementing corporate planning and I just think it's not appropriate to keep

[1:43:58] Voice 33: bumping up the fixed costs by adding staff and we do it every year and so my

[1:44:06] Voice 33: proposal is that we do not we do not approve this new staff position and that

[1:44:13] Voice 33: the the comprehensive analysis of the materials created in support of this

[1:44:19] Voice 33: budget request, and it was very good, well put together, is used to make a strategic approach

[1:44:25] Voice 33: to the province to request funding for the entire ITC budget going forward. That would make a big

[1:44:32] Voice 33: difference to our budget. And don't forget that the work that's being done by the Conservancy,

[1:44:38] Voice 33: you know, within the Islands Trust mandate, there's reference to preserving and protecting

[1:44:43] Voice 33: protecting for the benefit of, you know, British Columbians in general.

[1:44:49] Voice 33: Well, I think it's only fair that the cost

[1:44:52] Voice 33: of that is shared by the people who are deemed to be benefiting

[1:44:57] Voice 33: and that we should we should continue to fund the hard core

[1:45:02] Voice 33: of land use planning within the Islands Trust.

[1:45:05] Voice 33: But this is arguably something that's beyond that.

[1:45:08] Voice 33: And we have an opportunity to take this

[1:45:10] Voice 33: material and go to the province and say okay over to you thank you okay

[1:45:17] Voice 26: thank you and um just going

[1:45:20] Voice 26: to ask everybody to be uh as brief as humanly possible um because if we spend a lot of time

[1:45:26] Voice 26: on the next dozen motions we're going to be here for quite some time not that we shouldn't be

[1:45:31] Voice 26: but let's try and be as brief as we possibly can so now speakers on the motion um trustee elliott

[1:45:39] Voice 26: Thank

[1:45:42] Voice 23: you. As a board member on the Conservancy, it is my pleasure to advocate for this position, which addresses a critical capacity issue that the Conservancy has been experiencing for over five years.

[1:45:55] Voice 23: So just to correct a few misapprehensions, perhaps they're mistakes.

[1:46:04] Voice 23: We are all children of the province.

[1:46:08] Voice 23: The trust is a creature of the province, the conservancy no less.

[1:46:13] Voice 23: The two are inextricably linked.

[1:46:16] Voice 23: OCP plans also have to be approved by the ministry.

[1:46:21] Voice 23: That's a requirement.

[1:46:22] Voice 23: Taxpayers in the Gulf Islands, I would say, benefit probably the most from being in proximity

[1:46:28] Voice 23: to some of these wonderful protected areas, and they voluntarily turn over their lands

[1:46:34] Voice 23: for covenants.

[1:46:35] Voice 23: We cannot put enough covenants on those lands to meet the needs and the requests that are

[1:46:42] Voice 23: coming in, because we do not have staff for the management of those covenants that is

[1:46:47] Voice 23: legally required.

[1:46:48] Voice 23: When you purchase a house, you don't stop maintaining it and putting investments into repairs and building it up, keeping it to code.

[1:46:57] Voice 23: You invest in that long-term capital purchase.

[1:47:01] Voice 23: So when we acquire a property, that's like acquiring a house, but you keep having to maintain it.

[1:47:08] Voice 23: And that's what a protected area manager does.

[1:47:11] Voice 23: And those are legal requirements with the covenants that come.

[1:47:14] Voice 23: And we can't keep putting covenants on that people are asking us to because we don't have the staff to do the tracking, the monitoring, the invasive species removal, working with landowners to protect those areas.

[1:47:29] Voice 23: So I would also say that for most Islands Trust residents, the heart core, not the work of the Islands Trust, the core of our work rests in the work of the Conservancy.

[1:47:44] Voice 23: When people look at the Islands Trust, they celebrate the conservancy, the lands that

[1:47:50] Voice 23: are protected.

[1:47:51] Voice 23: This is the core of the Islands Trust work.

[1:47:54] Voice 23: We can't keep doing it with two new managers.

[1:47:59] Voice 23: It's simply too much.

[1:48:00] Voice 23: Look at the numbers, 34 nature reserves and 79 conservation covenants covering 706 hectares

[1:48:07] Voice 23: of protected areas.

[1:48:10] Voice 23: Again, this is a critical capacity issue that we keep defunding and depressing the Conservancy

[1:48:17] Voice 23: budgets, partially because of the impact it always ends up having on Bowen Island Municipality.

[1:48:23] Voice 23: Speaking to both trustees, as I have before, they say residents of Bowen want to support

[1:48:30] Voice 23: the Conservancy.

[1:48:31] Voice 23: There's no question, and please speak to that if in error.

[1:48:35] Voice 23: The Conservancy is not land use.

[1:48:38] Voice 23: The Conservancy is the core of the Islands Trust's work, and this is not superfluous.

[1:48:43] Voice 23: This is to address critical capacity issues.

[1:48:45] Voice 23: That means we can't do the work that the province has mandated us to do.

[1:48:50] Voice 26: Thank you.

[1:48:51] Voice 26: So thank you, Trustee Elliott, for articulating your message there so well.

[1:48:56] Voice 26: I just want to point out it's not necessary to repeat what somebody else has said.

[1:49:00] Voice 26: Certainly you can endorse what another trustee has said if you wish, but let's keep the debate

[1:49:06] Voice 26: Sissing. Who's next? Trustee Gavreau.

[1:49:10] Voice 21: Thank you. I would like to endorse Trustee Elliott,

[1:49:13] Voice 21: my fellow board member. I am the vice chair of the Alley Trust Conservancy. And the Alley Trust

[1:49:19] Voice 21: Conservancy is a growth model, and we are having serious growing pains. We're not going to be able

[1:49:24] Voice 21: to support our ongoing work, and we're not going to be able to do any future work unless we increase

[1:49:30] Voice 21: our capacity. And you can help us weather those growing pains.

[1:49:35] Voice 26: Excellent. Thank you.

[1:49:37] Voice 27: Trustee Yates.

[1:49:39] Voice 14: Thank you so much, Trustee Gauvreau and Trustee Elliott. I, too, am a board member

[1:49:45] Voice 14: on the Islands Trust Conservancy. It is my duty and also my pleasure to support what has just

[1:49:52] Voice 14: been said. Three more items I'd like to just quickly mention. The Islands Trust Conservancy

[1:49:57] Voice 14: also represents collaboration with local island conservancy groups. We get amazing support from

[1:50:06] Voice 14: local island conservancy groups who love working with the islands trust conservancy

[1:50:12] Voice 14: serious growing pains yes but they're really good growing pains because the more land that we can

[1:50:18] Voice 14: protect in the islands trust area it's going to depend on private landowners unlike saturn island

[1:50:25] Voice 14: which has a huge gulf islands national park reserve cared for by the federal government

[1:50:31] Voice 14: most of the Island's Trust area does not have that.

[1:50:35] Voice 14: So we depend on the Island's Trust Conservancy

[1:50:38] Voice 14: to do that work.

[1:50:42] Voice 26: That's Steve Harris online.

[1:50:48] Voice 8: Thank you.

[1:50:49] Voice 8: Can you hear me okay?

[1:50:51] Voice 8: Yes.

[1:50:52] Voice 8: Oh, great.

[1:50:54] Voice 8: Yeah, pleasure to be here.

[1:50:57] Voice 8: It's my duty and pleasure as an elected official

[1:51:00] Voice 8: on Salt Spring Island to support this motion.

[1:51:05] Voice 8: One point in rebuttal to Trustee Elliott, I don't feel that the core of the Island Trust mandate is the Island Trust Conservancy.

[1:51:17] Voice 8: I feel the core of the Island Trust mandate is to be balanced, and we don't have a balance at this point.

[1:51:26] Voice 8: And further, I'm not sure what the Island Trust Conservancy's role is or why it's presented as part of the Island Trust.

[1:51:32] Voice 8: Trust. I have difficulty understanding how it seems that the Conservancy largely operates

[1:51:40] Voice 8: as its own entity with what appears to me to be no checks or balances by us as trustees.

[1:51:46] Voice 8: And the idea that if a trustee or trustees question the idea of the Conservancy,

[1:51:51] Voice 8: we are deemed to be blasphemers worthy of being proverbially drawn and quartered.

[1:51:57] Voice 8: I would suggest the Islands Trust, you know, to go further from this motion, I would suggest the Islands Trust urge the province to pass all present and future Islands Trust conservancy land to First Nations, free and clear of any covenants or encumbrances for First Nations to do with as they see fit.

[1:52:16] Voice 8: Anything else to me reeks of eco-colonialism or environmental colonialism, whichever you'd prefer.

[1:52:22] Voice 8: I'm sure trustees who genuinely support reconciliatory actions would easily be able to fully get behind the relinquishing of Islands Trust Conservancy land to First Nations.

[1:52:35] Voice 8: I'll leave it at that. Thank you.

[1:52:37] Voice 8: Trustee Evans.

[1:52:42] Voice 17: Thank you.

[1:52:44] Voice 17: So I'm on the fence.

[1:52:47] Voice 17: I want to support this.

[1:52:48] Voice 17: My question is, rather than hiring someone who is another manager at $124,000 a year, is there perhaps a lower position that could take on a large portion of the work and help balance out the work required at a lower salary to start, like $60,000 to $80,000 instead of $124,000?

[1:53:15] Voice 17: That I could definitely support.

[1:53:17] Voice 17: for it. And I understand when people are overloaded, having been in burnout myself, I fully get

[1:53:25] Voice 17: it. And I don't like saying I do advocate for that not to happen. But sometimes hiring

[1:53:31] Voice 17: somebody at a high level is not the right answer, especially when we're trying to be

[1:53:35] Voice 17: fiscally responsible. Perhaps it's hiring somebody at a more junior level. So I would

[1:53:41] Voice 17: like to throw that into the mix.

[1:53:44] Voice 26: uh director freighters uh raised their hand back there might be able to advise us on

[1:53:49] Voice 26: the criteria that they've used good

[1:53:52] Voice 20: morning council i'd be happy to so this position right

[1:53:54] Voice 20: now is being proposed as a 27 level that's akin to an island planner to move it down a level would

[1:54:00] Voice 20: make it akin to a planner too and it is proposed to have three to four direct reports reporting to

[1:54:05] Voice 20: it as i could with that working title as manager in fact we're now going to be proposing to the

[1:54:09] Voice 20: board to be something more like a team lead which is more a term the provincial government is using

[1:54:14] Voice 20: so that there's not as many people reporting into the manager and there's more focused effort and

[1:54:18] Voice 20: policy effort available also you're looking for policy analysis as part of this position and i

[1:54:22] Voice 20: would suggest you're more likely to get someone capable of that work in the island planner level

[1:54:27] Voice 20: 27 level band so it's not an excluded management position it's really more akin to an island

[1:54:33] Voice 20: planner and i would suggest we're not going to be able to recruit the person able to act as that

[1:54:36] Voice 20: team lead and undertake the policy analysis if it's to go more down to the plan or two level

[1:54:42] Voice 26: thank you very much for that answer okay who's next sue allen fast thank

[1:54:48] Voice 18: you chair i'm just

[1:54:50] Voice 18: going to be speaking uh against this motion um for some of the reasons i've already said about

[1:54:56] Voice 18: uh conservancy being uh central to the role of preserving and protecting unique island ecosystems

[1:55:03] Voice 18: systems, healthy communities, island character, sustainability, and the use of island resources

[1:55:11] Voice 18: like water.

[1:55:13] Voice 18: I'll just speak briefly to a couple of things that haven't been said before, I think.

[1:55:19] Voice 18: Number of applications for people wanting to voluntarily protect their land is increasing.

[1:55:27] Voice 18: So a number of applications for Islands Trust Conservancy is growing just as it is on the planning side and the developing side.

[1:55:38] Voice 18: And these applications also need to be dealt with.

[1:55:43] Voice 18: And that's why this is in front of us here, I think.

[1:55:45] Voice 18: It reflects the growth and activity in the whole Islands Trust region, if I've got that correctly.

[1:55:53] Voice 18: Somebody can correct me if I'm wrong.

[1:55:56] Voice 18: The other point I wanted to bring up is that Islands Trust Conservancy is pretty efficient, I think.

[1:56:04] Voice 18: When you look at it from, like, I wish we could take a balance sheet approach to this budget rather than only looking at salaries.

[1:56:10] Voice 18: Because if you looked at the balance sheet approach, you'd be looking also at all the cash and land that are donated to the Islands Trust Conservancy.

[1:56:19] Voice 18: because these things are voluntary donations

[1:56:25] Voice 18: and they don't show up anywhere on this budget

[1:56:28] Voice 18: because they go straight into land acquisition

[1:56:31] Voice 18: and taxpayers do not pay for land acquisition

[1:56:35] Voice 18: or the protection of the covenants except through the staff.

[1:56:40] Voice 18: And this is why I think we need to respond to the demand

[1:56:43] Voice 18: and the numbers of applications for people wanting to protect their land

[1:56:49] Voice 18: or to contribute to protecting land with cash and uh 113 protected places they need care and uh this

[1:56:58] Voice 18: is um what i think is um an efficiency in the island's trust to uh continue to be able to

[1:57:06] Voice 18: preserve and protect thank you thank

[1:57:08] Voice 26: you and want to acknowledge uh good behavior there and at the

[1:57:13] Voice 26: beginning of her remarks i am in favor or not in favor of the motion and it's completely clear

[1:57:19] Voice 26: to where people stand who's nice to get trustee getty i'm

[1:57:24] Voice 10: looking at the business case on page

[1:57:26] Voice 10: 246 of our agenda they've got um an alternative number two with respect to engaging with an

[1:57:34] Voice 10: independent contractor for project related work which doesn't the risks are enunciated there in

[1:57:40] Voice 10: terms of um how it doesn't fit in with the rest of the team and it may um not include the analysis

[1:57:47] Voice 10: that's needed but um is that and that hasn't been costed out i don't think in terms of what the um

[1:57:55] Voice 10: the class would be for an outside consultant but um is that a compromise that would work

[1:58:03] Voice 10: director fader do you have an answer to that

[1:58:05] Voice 20: um certainly and if you give me a minute i can pull

[1:58:09] Voice 20: The costs are comparable, if not more, because of the higher salary levels expected by contractors.

[1:58:16] Voice 20: Certainly, if you wanted to pilot that for one year, it's not the long-term solution for this team.

[1:58:21] Voice 20: It would resolve the difficulties, but it is a little second-tier solution that would be a temporary solution,

[1:58:27] Voice 20: but you wouldn't achieve cost savings through that approach.

[1:58:32] Voice 26: Okay. Let us continue on the speaker's list.

[1:58:35] Voice 26: Trustee Stanford.

[1:58:38] Voice 19: Thank you, Chair.

[1:58:40] Voice 19: Whereas I cannot support the motion that's on the floor, I do really commend Chesley Boland for adding the concept of going to the province for the full cost of the Islands Trust Conservancy.

[1:58:56] Voice 19: see um hopefully when we are in a position to be able to make a well-reasoned strategic ask

[1:59:03] Voice 19: to the province for supporting us more that this will be one of the flagships because it is the

[1:59:09] Voice 19: cleanest uh most coherent uh argument that we have that we are holding land on behalf of the

[1:59:17] Voice 19: province we're holding probably 14 15 million dollars worth of land on their behalf and

[1:59:25] Voice 19: And this is where we can ask.

[1:59:27] Voice 19: So thank you.

[1:59:28] Voice 26: Thank you.

[1:59:30] Voice 26: Trustee Morrison.

[1:59:32] Voice 3: Thank you.

[1:59:32] Voice 3: I am not in favor of this motion, though.

[1:59:35] Voice 3: I would field a motion if Trustee Getty wants to make such a suggestion to make this contracted position for a year.

[1:59:43] Voice 3: Normally, I would be against adding permanent positions without all of our governance issues resolved and all of the moving pieces.

[1:59:51] Voice 3: However, the conservancy is a slightly different animal from my perspective.

[1:59:56] Voice 3: And that it's quite clear the work that they're doing, their business case.

[2:00:00] Voice 3: is quite clear. I feel like it's easier to understand that work and the need for it right

[2:00:06] Voice 3: now. I also greatly support Trustee Boland in the idea, the second piece, which we'll see come back

[2:00:13] Voice 3: here. I asked about that. So the next motion related to this one, that absolutely we should

[2:00:20] Voice 3: be asking the province for the whole caboodle of the ITC. But I want the ITC, it's a shining star

[2:00:26] Voice 3: are positive ways that we are working in the space um so you know if we need to pilot it it's one

[2:00:32] Voice 3: thing if we want to go for the full staff position that's that's fine if we decide that as a council

[2:00:37] Voice 3: but i do not support removing this position thank you uh

[2:00:42] Voice 27: director fader uh

[2:00:44] Voice 20: thank you i wanted to

[2:00:45] Voice 20: clarify my earlier comments because i was thinking about the full scope of the position

[2:00:48] Voice 20: in the business solution options document that i did for the board i did lay out an option relating

[2:00:53] Voice 20: to hiring of a contractor, and in that suggested a reduced scope of work that simply addressed

[2:00:58] Voice 20: some of the policy pieces would be in the range of $56,000 to $84,000, but that doesn't address

[2:01:05] Voice 20: any of the sort of systemic pieces around staff supervision and the overall sort of management

[2:01:10] Voice 20: piece of the work. But I had laid out that just doing of the policy analysis pieces by contracting

[2:01:16] Voice 20: staff could be done in that range, which represented about 140 hours of work. Thank you.

[2:01:22] Voice 20: Okay.

[2:01:24] Voice 26: Thank you. So, Trustee Borthwick, and I'd like to move to calling the vote.

[2:01:31] Voice 6: Yeah, I'll be very brief. I, similarly to Trustee Evans, was feeling fairly on the fence about this.

[2:01:39] Voice 6: I really appreciate the dialogue that's happened around this. My sense, similar to Trustee Morrison,

[2:01:45] Voice 6: is that while we're undergoing this strategic reimagining of how we're aligning our priorities

[2:01:51] Voice 6: and allocating funds, it's important to, you know,

[2:01:56] Voice 6: not be hasty in creating long-term financial burdens.

[2:02:01] Voice 6: That being said, I also just want to say very, very briefly

[2:02:05] Voice 6: that I'm uncomfortable with the sort of unilateral

[2:02:11] Voice 6: paring with the same brush, voting one way or another

[2:02:14] Voice 6: on contentious issues like this, especially around the conservancy,

[2:02:17] Voice 6: It was implied earlier.

[2:02:23] Voice 6: This is an important thing, and the budget is a sensitive thing.

[2:02:26] Voice 6: The conservancy is a vital part of what the trust does.

[2:02:30] Voice 6: This is a difficult conversation, and we need to be cognizant of the complexity of that

[2:02:36] Voice 6: and not voting to increase the budget is contentious, obviously, with many of our constituents.

[2:02:44] Voice 6: Protecting the environment is also a very important thing.

[2:02:47] Voice 6: To imply that there's some moral imperative here lacks complexity, I think.

[2:03:01] Voice 6: In any case, I think I am not in support of this motion based on the discussion that's happened.

[2:03:14] Voice 6: I really appreciate the discussion that's happened.

[2:03:18] Voice 6: But, yeah, I would be open to if Trustee Getty or Morrison wanted to make an alternative motion as well.

[2:03:26] Voice 26: Thank you.

[2:03:26] Voice 26: So I've got two other voices I haven't heard here today on the table, Ken Hunter and Aaron Campbell.

[2:03:33] Voice 26: And I want to go to the vote after they have spoken.

[2:03:35] Voice 26: Okay?

[2:03:36] Voice 26: Ken Hunter.

[2:03:38] Voice 39: Thank you, Chair.

[2:03:39] Voice 39: As the seconder, I'm probably going to be the only one that votes for this motion.

[2:03:43] Voice 39: And with

[2:03:44] Voice 39: the utmost of respect for the Conservancy Board, the Ellis Trust general taxation should not be paying for it.

[2:03:53] Voice 39: That's my opinion.

[2:03:54] Voice 39: And I also want my vote recorded in the minutes.

[2:03:58] Voice 39: Thank you.

[2:04:00] Voice 7: Aaron Campbell.

[2:04:03] Voice 7: I would be in support of the motion, very similarly to Ken's view.

[2:04:10] Voice 7: But also, I think that sometimes making a decision to add more to relieve a problem stops us from the difficult decisions that need to be made to push for actually solving the problem.

[2:04:26] Voice 7: So I would be in support of this for the future idea of how we're going to fix it.

[2:04:33] Voice 26: OK, thank you. So, Council, the motion on the floor is to not fund the position for the Honest Trust Conservancy.

[2:04:40] Voice 26: And so I'm going to call the vote those in favor of not funding the position.

[2:04:45] Voice 26: Please raise your hand electronically or physically.

[2:04:50] Voice 26: Six.

[2:04:56] Voice 26: So that's six in favor.

[2:04:59] Voice 26: Four online.

[2:05:01] Voice 26: So that's seven in favor.

[2:05:03] Voice 26: So I'm just going to call for those opposed, those opposed.

[2:05:07] Voice 26: I'm pretty sure it fails.

[2:05:09] Voice 8: Yeah.

[2:05:12] Voice 8: Point of order, Mr. Chair.

[2:05:15] Voice 8: Yes, sir.

[2:05:16] Voice 8: Thank you.

[2:05:16] Voice 8: I just noticed on the chat that Lee Middleton has been trying to get in for

[2:05:21] Voice 8: quite a long time here. I'm not sure if he was able to vote on that.

[2:05:25] Voice 8: So that's my first question. Secondly, may I please have my

[2:05:31] Voice 8: support for this motion noted and recorded? Thank you.

[2:05:36] Voice 26: Absolutely. And Trustee Hunter also requested that his vote be recorded.

[2:05:40] Voice 26: And Trustee Middleton is not in the meeting at the moment. And that's unfortunate.

[2:05:45] Voice 26: but we'll make sure that he gets into the meeting yeah so that so that motion

[2:05:53] Voice 26: fails so you know what we're at 1036 I

[2:05:57] Voice 33: have an alternative motion that I'd like

[2:06:00] Voice 33: to put on the table

[2:06:02] Voice 26: we're at 1036 I want to go for a break okay and I want to

[2:06:10] Voice 26: advise council we've got another dozen motions to get through if you haven't

[2:06:14] Voice 26: submitted them to the to the address and I'm not going to entertain them at this

[2:06:20] Voice 26: this time I think we need to go first come first served and that's the only fair way to do it and

[2:06:26] Voice 26: really asking you to be brief and succinct to your support for opposition to the motions so that we

[2:06:33] Voice 26: can get through this work today it's critically important that we get through this today okay so

[2:06:37] Voice 33: Lee Middleton has joined us thankfully he was struggling to connect yeah I do have I would

[2:06:45] Voice 33: like to put the alternative motion on the table for me

[2:06:48] Voice 33: on the break

[2:06:53] Voice 26: we're going to go to the break

[2:06:55] Voice 26: and we'll determine what that looks like here thank you

[2:06:58] Voice 26: pardon me yeah um trustee boland i

[2:07:06] Voice 26: hope you're still listening send your additional motion to the email address in order to get it

[2:07:13] Voice 26: put on the list i

[2:07:15] Voice 33: did i've already sent it it's just um another version of the same or similar

[2:07:20] Voice 33: Thank you.

[2:20:09] Voice 30: It's not good.

[2:20:15] Voice 30: I'm not scared.

[2:20:16] Voice 30: I think it would be fair to me to go with the one.

[2:20:23] Voice 30: It's a good question.

[2:20:24] Voice 30: We can talk to this one.

[2:20:27] Voice 30: Okay, Council.

[2:20:32] Voice 26: We are in the budget session.

[2:20:35] Voice 26: And I would, despite the motion on your screen, I would like to stick to motions associated with the budget.

[2:20:45] Voice 26: This is some other work, this motion, the next motion from Trustee Boland is something that we can consider outside of the budget context and we can do that as new business or however it is that you want to do it.

[2:20:58] Voice 26: Subsequent to the budget included in future financial forecasting, I don't want to put it off forever, but I would like to focus on budget related inclusions or exclusions.

[2:21:09] Voice 26: So may

[2:21:11] Voice 33: I respond to that? I sent in an amended version of my first motion, which responds to many people who spoke about being ambivalent in supporting a permanent position.

[2:21:27] Voice 33: so my amended motion went to the motion email and I would be happy to have that on the screen

[2:21:37] Voice 33: and I believe it would be supported but I and this particular one are you suggesting that we

[2:21:45] Voice 33: discuss it later at this trust council meeting or at yeah okay that's fine but the amended motion

[2:21:53] Voice 33: about the staff position I would like that on the screen please no

[2:21:58] Voice 26: the new

[2:21:59] Voice 26: motion that you sent in is going to be dealt with in the order in which it was

[2:22:03] Voice 26: received and that up later okay that's fine okay thank you and is from so it's

[2:22:13] Voice 26: from trustee Peterson and stewardship education so I'll get you to read out

[2:22:18] Voice 26: your motion trustee peterson um

[2:22:24] Voice 31: uh stewardship education is official stewardship education

[2:22:29] Voice 31: okay i moved that stewardship education uh amount to 15 000 be added back to the proposed budget

[2:22:37] Voice 26: move to have a second trustee evans thank you um you should speak to your motion trustee peterson

[2:22:43] Voice 26: uh

[2:22:44] Voice 31: yes thank you chair um the stewardship education uh program is a good example of

[2:22:53] Voice 31: unstressed outreach um to residents and landowners in the trust area um the webinars

[2:23:01] Voice 31: is has been the focus uh the the main focus of the last couple of years um there's presently

[2:23:09] Voice 31: i believe there's two wildfire um webinars scheduled uh for within this fiscal um i i would

[2:23:19] Voice 31: look to to uh uh director of trust area services for maybe some if if they have a comment on the

[2:23:27] Voice 31: numbers of people that are showing up but i'm hearing wide support for these webinars um

[2:23:33] Voice 31: From constituents and considering the relatively modest funds, $15,000 represents somewhere around, I think it's under a quarter of a percent of tax increase.

[2:23:53] Voice 31: And I would mention that one of the part of the discussion and financial planning committee on this and the Secretariat Services was an effort to reduce the Bowen Island municipality contribution.

[2:24:09] Voice 31: And so I'd love to hear what the Bowen Island municipal trustees think about this, because I think I heard from Trustee Fast earlier that the Preserve and Protect portions are important to Bowen.

[2:24:28] Voice 31: And so in terms of whether it's valuable to Bowen to keep these programs, that would be good information.

[2:24:38] Voice 26: Okay. Thank you, Trustee Peterson. Do you have a speaker's list? Anybody wish to speak

[2:24:44] Voice 26: to the motion? Trustee Fass?

[2:24:48] Voice 18: Trustee Fass Thank you. Yes, as a Bowen Island municipal

[2:24:52] Voice 18: trustee, the stewardship education amount, I'm in favour of this motion. I think most

[2:25:00] Voice 18: Most of the people on Bowen really appreciate the webinars and the stewardship awards when they come up and all the other programs of the that fall into the stewardship education category, particularly on Bowen, where the Islands Trust is not as visible because we're far away.

[2:25:25] Voice 18: And we don't participate in so many of the other programs.

[2:25:29] Voice 18: this is one we participate in i think citizens really appreciate it thank you thank

[2:25:34] Voice 26: you any

[2:25:35] Voice 26: other speakers on the motion rusty getty ditto all right thank you any other speakers on the motion

[2:25:44] Voice 26: just the elliott and evan is that correct thank

[2:25:48] Voice 23: you chair as a member of fpc um i admit i was

[2:25:51] Voice 23: one of the ones who put up a list of potential cuts to consider all of them were subjected to

[2:25:57] Voice 23: a straw poll so now speaking as a member of trust council i regret having put the stewardship

[2:26:03] Voice 23: education piece and the secretariat fund up those are two that are broadly supported

[2:26:10] Voice 23: by personally by myself and at that table and i i put them up knowing that we had to have a debate

[2:26:15] Voice 23: i didn't want to have that debate so i fully support this motion thanks thank

[2:26:20] Voice 26: you any other

[2:26:20] Voice 26: discussion on the motion. I have my hand up. Trustee Boland, yes, I see you. Thank you.

[2:26:29] Voice 33: I think the webinars were good and stewardship education in general is good, but we do a lot

[2:26:38] Voice 33: around, it's all over the place, you know, in the Islands Trust Conservancy they ran some

[2:26:44] Voice 33: very excellent webinars. So I just find that we end up with these little small pockets of money

[2:26:50] Voice 33: dotted around the place doing very similar things and we don't gather them

[2:26:55] Voice 33: together and really consider the total budget that we're spending on anything

[2:27:00] Voice 33: in particular so I would I'm not going to support this I just feel like we need

[2:27:06] Voice 33: to you know trim and we need to really focus on what we're doing thank you

[2:27:14] Voice 26: apologies trustee Evans over to you no

[2:27:17] Voice 17: worries I am indefinitely in favor of

[2:27:20] Voice 17: this uh especially as chair of trust programs um and yes i hear what trustee boland said about

[2:27:27] Voice 17: multiple uh activities happening in various pockets but i want to stress that the webinars

[2:27:35] Voice 17: and the educational pieces that go out differ so while trust programs may be putting on webinars

[2:27:43] Voice 17: about water sustainability and wildfires and you know um stuff like that but the islands trust

[2:27:51] Voice 17: constituency is putting up webinars on maintaining the health of the environment and the plants and

[2:27:56] Voice 17: the trees and species at risk so they are vastly different but both equally important and this is

[2:28:04] Voice 17: an area for our constituents to gain knowledge and understanding and a place to go especially

[2:28:12] Voice 17: especially when the webinars are maintained after they've been created,

[2:28:15] Voice 17: and they have a following that goes on for years.

[2:28:19] Voice 17: So this is vitally important.

[2:28:21] Voice 17: It's not just the webinars.

[2:28:22] Voice 17: It's also the brochures that are made.

[2:28:24] Voice 17: It's also the educational mail-outs that go out.

[2:28:29] Voice 17: And there are so many other activities that happen.

[2:28:32] Voice 17: This, for me, is critical.

[2:28:34] Voice 17: So thank you very much for the support.

[2:28:36] Voice 26: Thank you.

[2:28:37] Voice 26: I'm going to call the vote.

[2:28:40] Voice 5: Oh, Grant Scott.

[2:28:42] Voice 5: Thank you.

[2:28:42] Voice 5: I'm going to vote in support of it, basically, for the reason that Sue Ellen said.

[2:28:46] Voice 5: It's really important to Bowen Island, and they are a long ways away.

[2:28:49] Voice 5: And if they get benefits from this, I think we should support it.

[2:28:52] Voice 5: Thanks, Sue Ellen.

[2:28:54] Voice 26: All right.

[2:28:55] Voice 26: I'm going to call the vote.

[2:28:56] Voice 26: All those in favor, please raise your hands electronically and physically.

[2:29:01] Voice 26: Those, lower your hands, please.

[2:29:03] Voice 26: There's like two online, three online.

[2:29:07] Voice 26: And any opposed?

[2:29:10] Voice 26: We have one, two, three.

[2:29:12] Voice 26: Who's this here?

[2:29:15] Voice 26: Two online.

[2:29:17] Voice 26: Oh, I see two online, sorry, I missed that.

[2:29:19] Voice 26: Okay, very good, thank you.

[2:29:20] Voice 26: So that carries.

[2:29:22] Voice 26: Thank you very much.

[2:29:23] Voice 26: The next motion, David, who?

[2:29:28] Voice 26: I see Trustee Peterson then.

[2:29:30] Voice 26: You've got a second motion here.

[2:29:33] Voice 31: Thank you.

[2:29:34] Voice 31: So my second motion is that the Secretariat Service

[2:29:37] Voice 31: amount of $10,000 be added back to the proposed budget.

[2:29:41] Voice 31: Just for clarity, there's 5,000 now.

[2:29:43] Voice 31: The original proposal was 15,000.

[2:29:46] Voice 31: the adding 10,000 back would bring it back up to 15,000.

[2:29:50] Voice 31: Thank you for that clarity.

[2:29:51] Voice 31: Is there a seconder?

[2:29:56] Voice 26: Okay, I heard a voice, Susan Yates, I think.

[2:29:58] Voice 26: Thank you.

[2:30:01] Voice 26: Do you speak further to the motion?

[2:30:03] Voice 31: Yes, thank you, Chair.

[2:30:04] Voice 31: I think the Secretary of Services is the prime example of where we're doing a good job of working in cooperation with others.

[2:30:14] Voice 31: There's a diversity of levels of government, including regional districts, federal agencies, the province, and other community organizations.

[2:30:31] Voice 31: Bain Sound has a number of federal agencies involved there.

[2:30:38] Voice 31: I can't really speak to the house sound, but I know someone in the room can, and that's been important over the years.

[2:30:45] Voice 31: In particular, a utility, I think, to all the trustees that have been part of it, the Southern Gulf Islands Forum, as a way for trustees, the MLA's office, the MP's office, and on Monday, we had Parks Canada participate.

[2:31:06] Voice 31: I think these are really important, and I don't see – we certainly can't support all of these with $5,000, and that's why I'm requesting the $10,000 to be added back to bring us back to the $15,000 initially proposed.

[2:31:25] Voice 27: And who's next?

[2:31:27] Voice 27: Alan Fass.

[2:31:28] Voice 27: Alan Fass, please.

[2:31:31] Voice 27: Not yet.

[2:31:32] Voice 27: David has the speaker's list.

[2:31:35] Voice 27: Who's next?

[2:31:38] Voice 27: I'm

[2:31:39] Voice 18: going to let Kate Wee speak to Kitsum House Hound Roundtable.

[2:31:44] Voice 18: I'm just going to say this is one of the Secretariat services is one of the few things that helps us reach our mandate in terms of in collaboration with others.

[2:31:55] Voice 18: And it helps us reach out into the marine area a little bit.

[2:32:02] Voice 18: Most of our work is on island land.

[2:32:06] Voice 18: I'll get some House Sound, Bain Sound for them.

[2:32:09] Voice 18: Some of these other ones help us to think about the surrounding waters.

[2:32:13] Voice 18: And for this small cost, I think that's a great way to extend our reach.

[2:32:19] Voice 18: Thank you.

[2:32:20] Voice 26: Thank you.

[2:32:22] Voice 26: Kate Lewis-Stamford.

[2:32:26] Voice 19: There's another point to the benefits of the secretariat and specific to the House Sound area.

[2:32:33] Voice 19: The Gambier Island local trust area, there's not a lot that the trust council can provide that local trust committee as a trust council.

[2:32:42] Voice 19: We don't have a lot of the program initiatives.

[2:32:46] Voice 19: We don't have those problems like water, housing, etc., etc.

[2:32:51] Voice 19: One of the things that you do provide for us is the ability to connect with the larger region in an area that isn't within our regional district.

[2:33:00] Voice 19: So we are more focused marine, as mentioned before, but also the ability to connect with communities in the Vancouver metro area, which is where we actually do a lot more of our environmental work and activity.

[2:33:19] Voice 19: It acts as a way of us being able to move beyond an area where we're actually quite isolated from.

[2:33:28] Voice 19: So it's a great bang for your buck, and I really hope to see that we can continue that activity.

[2:33:38] Voice 27: Laura Patrick.

[2:33:39] Voice 16: I'm speaking in support of the Secretariat Fund.

[2:33:42] Voice 16: We've heard a lot of numerous organizations discussed today that have benefited.

[2:33:46] Voice 16: We haven't talked about the Southern Gulf Island Forum, which benefits, which is the

[2:33:52] Voice 16: all elected, all elected from all official organizations or governments, jurisdictions

[2:33:58] Voice 16: in the Southern Gulf Islands, Israel's Rural Island Economic Partnership, and others that

[2:34:02] Voice 16: are island-specific organizations benefiting.

[2:34:05] Voice 16: And this is a tiny bit of money that just helps these not-for-profits or nonfunded agencies

[2:34:11] Voice 16: do something.

[2:34:12] Voice 16: MR.

[2:34:13] Voice 26: Costi Evans.

[2:34:14] Voice 16: MS.

[2:34:15] Voice 17: Thank you. I just want to say again, as chair of trust programs, this secretariat fund is oversubscribed to. So, and we had, and as I mentioned yesterday, to bear in mind that we have a resolution that $250 be allocated from the secretariat services to support the Vancouver Island and coastal communities climate leadership steering committee as well.

[2:34:38] Voice 17: so we have yet another layer to add on to this this again is it it's the it's one of the few

[2:34:45] Voice 17: areas where we really shine in our mandate working in cooperation with other government

[2:34:50] Voice 17: agencies so i'm absolutely in support of this thank

[2:34:55] Voice 26: you any other speakers online trustee

[2:34:59] Voice 26: Boland?

[2:35:01] Voice 33: I benefit from this. I go to the SGI Forum. It's an excellent thing. I think we should

[2:35:09] Voice 33: rename it in some way. And I also want to question that we should have a discussion about what the

[2:35:15] Voice 33: general principles are, because I understood that it would be like seed funding to set up

[2:35:21] Voice 33: new processes or new collaborations but what if we continue to get more and more new ones but we have

[2:35:31] Voice 33: you know created a situation where the others rely on us that that money is kind of almost

[2:35:37] Voice 33: guaranteed that is my issue with this that it should be reviewed in this coming year and really

[2:35:44] Voice 33: figure out like what is this what's the appropriate amount how do we prioritize

[2:35:50] Voice 33: if you and if you applications are made thanks thank

[2:35:57] Voice 26: you I would suggest you

[2:35:58] Voice 26: participate or engage with the Trust Programs Committee to discuss that and

[2:36:03] Voice 26: so therefore are there any other speakers so there are no other speakers

[2:36:07] Voice 26: I'm going to call the vote on the motion all those in favor so please lower your

[2:36:19] Voice 26: hand any opposed it looks like one opposed and so that carries thank you council what's the next

[2:36:32] Voice 26: motion david

[2:36:32] Voice 29: okay

[2:36:35] Voice 26: which one freedom of information christina evans over to you

[2:36:41] Voice 17: sorry i apologize in

[2:36:43] Voice 17: advance i have a few and i i've purposefully separated them out so they can be dealt with

[2:36:48] Voice 17: individually um i'm looking um at various line items to make reductions so the first one is i

[2:36:56] Voice 17: move that trust council reduce the freedom of information budget to 5 000 for the draft 2024-25

[2:37:02] Voice 17: budget as per the previous year's budget the reason why i requested that is the last year's

[2:37:08] Voice 17: spend was three thousand dollars um and should things go above that there is the there is i

[2:37:17] Voice 17: believe and i can ask julia mobs for clarification here the opportunity to go into surplus funds um

[2:37:23] Voice 17: if needed so that's and the reason why i'm putting all of these in here is to offset some of the

[2:37:28] Voice 17: items that we've just talked about with the increases so i'll leave that at that okay i need

[2:37:36] Voice 26: a second there for the motion yeah

[2:37:39] Voice 6: i just was about to say i think we need to second this before

[2:37:41] Voice 6: we get in too far into explanation yeah yeah yeah

[2:37:44] Voice 6: i'm happy to sorry yeah you want to second the

[2:37:47] Voice 26: motion i'm happy to second it you can

[2:37:48] Voice 26: both please thank you so um and have you do you need to speak

[2:37:53] Voice 26: further to the motion no thank you

[2:37:55] Voice 26: that's okay um director mobs do you want to clarify it that

[2:38:03] Voice 26: if there's an overspend here it can indeed come out of surplus yes or no uh

[2:38:09] Voice 15: we do have policy

[2:38:10] Voice 15: that allows overspending to be offset by other areas of underspending in the budget it's generally

[2:38:14] Voice 15: what ends up happening as the year goes on if we can't find an area of underspending elsewhere in

[2:38:19] Voice 15: the budget we can draw on surplus if there's funding available there i do want to clarify

[2:38:24] Voice 15: last year's budget did have ten thousand dollars for foi and records management but you're correct

[2:38:29] Voice 15: the forecasted spending in the current year

[2:38:31] Voice 15: is only $3,000.

[2:38:33] Voice 15: Right, thank you.

[2:38:35] Voice 26: So, speakers,

[2:38:36] Voice 31: Trustee Peterson.

[2:38:38] Voice 31: Yeah, thank you.

[2:38:39] Voice 31: I just have a question around the cost

[2:38:42] Voice 31: of processing Freedom of Information requests.

[2:38:45] Voice 31: I know the Liskety Island LTC has had four.

[2:38:50] Voice 31: That's five.

[2:38:51] Voice 31: We're up to five now.

[2:38:53] Voice 31: And I see there's one for Trust Council.

[2:38:55] Voice 31: So I don't know if I have no idea what the trend is on any other LTCs or other other islands trust bodies.

[2:39:05] Voice 31: But I wonder, is there like sort of is there a ballpark average of what it costs to protest one of these?

[2:39:11] Voice 31: I mean, do we know?

[2:39:13] Voice 26: Yeah, I made sure the

[2:39:15] Voice 26: chair. Yeah. Let's go to David Marler.

[2:39:17] Voice 26: Yeah. Your services director.

[2:39:19] Voice 28: No, there isn't an average because every freedom information request is different.

[2:39:24] Voice 28: different. They can range from really inexpensive, a few hours of time to a lot of time. I don't

[2:39:32] Voice 28: have a good estimate for you. The money, the 10,000 is for records management and FOI.

[2:39:38] Voice 28: We use it to bring in a consultant as necessary on the FOI side because we don't have control

[2:39:46] Voice 28: of when FOI comes in, but we do have a time limit of 30 days to respond. Sometimes that

[2:39:51] Voice 28: That can be a problem for us.

[2:39:53] Voice 28: That's where the money comes from.

[2:39:54] Voice 28: And then just to provide the same thing I provided to the FPC,

[2:39:58] Voice 28: the reason the funding is not used this year is because the records management side

[2:40:05] Voice 28: didn't get done due to the passing of the consultant

[2:40:09] Voice 28: and then administrative staff deficiencies due to leave and other things.

[2:40:15] Voice 28: We're unable to get on with it.

[2:40:17] Voice 28: So the plan is to do it in the next fiscal.

[2:40:19] Voice 28: Okay, thanks.

[2:40:20] Voice 28: Thank you.

[2:40:21] Voice 26: Any further discussion?

[2:40:25] Voice 26: All those in favor of the motion, please raise your hand.

[2:40:29] Voice 26: Calling the vote.

[2:40:38] Voice 26: Okay, so please lower your hands.

[2:40:41] Voice 26: And any opposed to the motion,

[2:40:43] Voice 27: please raise your hand.

[2:40:49] Voice 26: Okay, so that's one opposed, so that motion carries.

[2:40:53] Voice 26: And thank you very much.

[2:40:54] Voice 26: Let's go to the next motion, David.

[2:40:56] Voice 26: Who's that?

[2:41:00] Voice 26: And that's also Trustee Evans.

[2:41:02] Voice 26: All right, let's scroll that one up.

[2:41:05] Voice 26: Over to you, Trustee Evans.

[2:41:12] Voice 17: I move that Trust Council reduce the application sponsored by Executive Committee by $5,000

[2:41:23] Voice 17: for the 2024-25 budget to align with the current expected spend.

[2:41:29] Voice 17: Sorry, point of order.

[2:41:31] Voice 39: Yes.

[2:41:32] Voice 3: There were two motions by Trustee Boland.

[2:41:35] Voice 3: Are we taking multiple motions by somebody, or are we – sorry, I just want to make sure

[2:41:41] Voice 3: that Trustee

[2:41:41] Voice 26: Boland's second motion –

[2:41:42] Voice 26: yeah trustees motion trustee bowen's motion was not uh associated with the budget but was work

[2:41:48] Voice 26: that we could conduct outside of the framework of the budget thank you for that point of order

[2:41:55] Voice 26: back to trustee evans you've got we've tabled your motion to have a seconder for the motion

[2:42:00] Voice 26: uh trustee yates thank you we wish to speak to your motion trustee evans

[2:42:03] Voice 26: Thank

[2:42:04] Voice 17: you. Again, I was just looking for areas to grim based on expected past year spend

[2:42:14] Voice 17: just to help offset the increases that were done with regards to the secretariat and

[2:42:20] Voice 17: the stewardship increases.

[2:42:25] Voice 26: Okay. Any other speakers on the motion?

[2:42:28] Voice 29: Trustee

[2:42:29] Voice 25: Graham. Yeah, I'll be speaking against this motion. I think because of the work

[2:42:35] Voice 25: work that a regional planning committee has done regarding affordable housing. We can expect to

[2:42:39] Voice 25: have a number of applications from non-profit organizations to flood the planning department

[2:42:45] Voice 25: with really great applications, and I think we should anticipate some of those applications

[2:42:50] Voice 25: asking for funding relief. Thank you. Any other speakers? Professor Patrick?

[2:42:57] Voice 16: I, too, will be voting against it. I echo what David said, but this is one of the ways in which

[2:43:03] Voice 16: which we can support housing in the analyst trust

[2:43:06] Voice 16: by offsetting the cost of these applications.

[2:43:10] Voice 26: Trustee Campbell.

[2:43:11] Voice 7: I did exact same reasoning.

[2:43:14] Voice 7: I didn't see it.

[2:43:15] Voice 7: I know on Pender that we've had one for our community

[2:43:18] Voice 7: that's come forward that has been applied

[2:43:20] Voice 7: and it is one way for us to filter back

[2:43:23] Voice 7: some of the taxpayer dollars to try to support things

[2:43:25] Voice 7: that go on in our community.

[2:43:29] Voice 26: I just want to do a quick check in Julia.

[2:43:31] Voice 26: It strikes me we've had some additional requests

[2:43:34] Voice 26: us late in the financial period here um are we lower than expected budget at this time

[2:43:41] Voice 26: i

[2:43:42] Voice 15: think when the forecast was prepared that was the expectation i think you're right i think

[2:43:48] Voice 15: there's been a couple of more that have come in since forecast was completed um director sermac

[2:43:53] Voice 15: hoping you're nodding along with that he is okay okay so

[2:43:58] Voice 15: we are likely to spend that this year i

[2:44:02] Voice 15: I think the amount that's budgeted generally covers

[2:44:05] Voice 15: around four application sponsorships.

[2:44:08] Voice 15: Does that sound about right?

[2:44:09] Voice 26: Okay. Yeah.

[2:44:11] Voice 26: If there's no further speaker,

[2:44:13] Voice 26: then I'm going to call the vote.

[2:44:15] Voice 26: Those in favor, please raise your hand.

[2:44:22] Voice 26: All right, those

[2:44:22] Voice 27: opposed, please raise your hands.

[2:44:32] Voice 29: So

[2:44:32] Voice 26: please lower your hands.

[2:44:34] Voice 26: And that's one in favor and the majority is opposed.

[2:44:39] Voice 26: So that does not carry.

[2:44:40] Voice 26: Mary, thank you for the brave effort, Trustee Evans.

[2:44:43] Voice 26: What's our next motion?

[2:44:46] Voice 26: Oh, Evans, over to you again.

[2:44:49] Voice 17: Sorry, I did apologize in advance.

[2:44:51] Voice 17: I did send in a few.

[2:44:53] Voice 17: And these are just for, like I said, to see where people are sitting.

[2:44:56] Voice 17: So I move that Trust Council reduce the First Nations engagement plan by $10,000 for the draft 2024-25 budget

[2:45:03] Voice 17: and remain at the previous year's budget as no spending occurred last year.

[2:45:08] Voice 13: All right.

[2:45:10] Voice 26: Okay, so that's moved. Do I have a seconder? Okay, your name's up there already, so we'll leave that there. I think we've got to be careful about templates. So you wish to speak to your motion, Trustee Evans, and then we'll go to the speaker.

[2:45:29] Voice 17: Again, this is just, I'm just looking at the budget and the anticipated spend and looking for areas to be on par rather than increasing, seeing as though we are trying to be fiscally responsible. There is no other reason.

[2:45:41] Voice 17: All

[2:45:42] Voice 26: right. So speakers on the motion. And two more here. So Deb Morrison, over to you.

[2:45:50] Voice 3: Thank you. I actually just have a question for clarification on this. I did notice somewhere

[2:45:56] Voice 3: in our giant package here that there was British Columbia funding for some amount from one of the

[2:46:05] Voice 3: grants for First Nations engagement. Is that funding specifically, like, would that funding

[2:46:12] Voice 3: cover this ten thousand dollars or like because i my understanding would be that that first date

[2:46:16] Voice 3: that funding from the province has to be used for first nations engagement so is that the allocation

[2:46:23] Voice 3: that we should be using for first nation engagement do we need additional uh

[2:46:28] Voice 15: so that grant has been

[2:46:30] Voice 15: allocated out to various pieces of work that are in the budget um director freighter and director

[2:46:37] Voice 15: cermak took care of that allocation i don't recall off the top of my head if this was receiving that

[2:46:41] Voice 15: funding i think it was receiving 10 000 of that grant funding with the other 10 000 coming from

[2:46:48] Voice 15: the current year surplus because we taxed for it this year and didn't spend it so uh direct freighter

[2:46:53] Voice 15: is nodding along that that's correct so

[2:46:57] Voice 3: sorry just as a clarification to that so does that mean that

[2:47:00] Voice 3: we don't need that the amount that's in there is coming from the grant or it's coming we need

[2:47:07] Voice 3: an additional and i'm just unclear if we're taxing for it this year yes

[2:47:11] Voice 15: half of it's coming from

[2:47:13] Voice 15: surplus and half of it's being paid for by the grant so no impact to taxation this year okay

[2:47:22] Voice 26: trustee peterson yeah

[2:47:25] Voice 31: thank you i'm going to speak against the motion i i think

[2:47:30] Voice 31: certainly in terms of ltcs we have a deficit of of engagement and uh if i'm just worried that

[2:47:40] Voice 31: that removing funding might make that problem worse.

[2:47:44] Voice 31: So obviously if we don't spend the funding,

[2:47:49] Voice 31: it sounds like it's gonna go back to the surplus.

[2:47:52] Voice 31: This is not gonna affect our taxes,

[2:47:55] Voice 31: if I heard Julia correctly,

[2:47:57] Voice 31: and I wouldn't like to leave it in

[2:47:59] Voice 31: for stage engagement, Trustee Elliott.

[2:48:02] Voice 27: Trustee Elliott.

[2:48:04] Voice 23: Same, same, if there's no impact on taxation,

[2:48:06] Voice 23: I'm fully in support of the stain in the budget, thank you.

[2:48:12] Voice 26: Trustee Gavreau?

[2:48:14] Voice 21: I just had a question with the fence.

[2:48:17] Voice 21: The funds were not used, but they go in.

[2:48:20] Voice 21: I believe that Trustee Peterson answered that,

[2:48:22] Voice 21: that the funds will go back to the surplus if they're not used.

[2:48:25] Voice 21: That's my question.

[2:48:29] Voice 27: Trustee Patrick?

[2:48:34] Voice 16: I think yesterday when we were talking about our goals,

[2:48:36] Voice 16: we talked about the need to update our reconciliation action plan

[2:48:39] Voice 16: where we are today.

[2:48:41] Voice 16: And, you know, there's the C2C funding.

[2:48:45] Voice 16: There's $150,000 over five years.

[2:48:47] Voice 16: none of it is sufficient and I think we need to get very strategic

[2:48:51] Voice 16: and get a plan on how to do engagement today

[2:48:55] Voice 16: at the Allen's Trust Hall.

[2:48:57] Voice 26: You're in favour, you're not in favour

[2:48:59] Voice 26: of the motion. I

[2:49:00] Voice 16: just

[2:49:01] Voice 26: want to be clear on that.

[2:49:03] Voice 26: Who's next? So Trustee Boland and then Fass.

[2:49:07] Voice 26: I

[2:49:09] Voice 33: think this is another example of, I'm in favour of

[2:49:13] Voice 33: improving our First Nations engagement but we have some funding for

[2:49:17] Voice 33: reconciliation we're funding for this we're funding for communications we have the funding

[2:49:22] Voice 33: from the province and as far as i know every single project within you know ocp rub updates

[2:49:29] Voice 33: the funding for those projects includes addressing first nations engagement so it just seems to me

[2:49:37] Voice 33: that we have a very sort of spread out view without very specific things and as uh trustee

[2:49:47] Voice 33: evan said this wasn't spent last year so i'm in favor of removing it thank you thank you trustee

[2:49:54] Voice 27: faster thank

[2:49:56] Voice 18: you i'm um not in favor of reducing first nations engagement plan um i think that

[2:50:04] Voice 18: But right now, with the provincial government

[2:50:09] Voice 18: having passed the Declaration Act,

[2:50:13] Voice 18: some know as DRIPA,

[2:50:14] Voice 18: that change is coming to various provincial acts,

[2:50:20] Voice 18: including the Land Act,

[2:50:22] Voice 18: which affects crown land and shorelines,

[2:50:25] Voice 18: that it's fundamental that we update our...

[2:50:33] Voice 18: I mean, I think we're already ahead of the pack

[2:50:35] Voice 18: on its trust but we are uh there's a ton of work to do and um i don't think we could uh i can't

[2:50:43] Voice 18: get behind reducing a budget item like this thank you very much for the mover for looking for ways

[2:50:49] Voice 18: to make it all balanced thank

[2:50:53] Voice 26: you any further speakers i'm going to call the vote all those

[2:50:57] Voice 26: in favor of the motion five in favor all those opposed and so that does fail and we just get

[2:51:18] Voice 26: the numbers here yeah all right so that fails thank you very much council let's go to the next motion

[2:51:28] Voice 26: okay this is the last one from athens i think it is

[2:51:33] Voice 17: i was going to say that the next one is a moot point so it can be removed

[2:51:41] Voice 17: yep so my i believe my last one is i move that trust council adjust telephone and training line

[2:51:50] Voice 17: items for the draft 2024-25 budget so it remain at the previous year spend 12 000 and 10 000

[2:51:56] Voice 17: respectively for a joint reduction of five thousand dollars um

[2:52:01] Voice 26: okay do i have a seconder for

[2:52:02] Voice 26: this trustee uh gabbro seconded the motion um so do you just speak to your motion um again just

[2:52:15] Voice 17: simply maintaining the previous year's spend um on these two line items will again just give us a

[2:52:21] Voice 17: small reduction but every penny helps at this point okay

[2:52:27] Voice 26: um the speaker's on the motion all

[2:52:35] Voice 26: right then i'm going to oh this ceo you have some uh supportive

[2:52:40] Voice 12: information there go ahead

[2:52:43] Voice 12: um so the funding associated with training you have to contemplate is linked to the new positions

[2:52:47] Voice 12: that you're considering and any telephony

[2:52:51] Voice 12: or other associated sort of minor administrative costs.

[2:52:57] Voice 13: So

[2:52:58] Voice 12: as you bring in two and a half to three positions

[2:53:01] Voice 12: and the rationales are in your budget,

[2:53:03] Voice 12: you'd have to think there would be some training function associated.

[2:53:07] Voice 12: Okay.

[2:53:08] Voice 12: Some onboarding costs.

[2:53:10] Voice 26: Okay.

[2:53:12] Voice 26: Speakers.

[2:53:12] Voice 26: Oh, Julia, you have some remarks.

[2:53:14] Voice 26: that uh

[2:53:15] Voice 15: the same idea is also true actually for our telephone costs we've moved to a zoom based

[2:53:20] Voice 15: phone system so when we have new staff members we're adding numbers licenses for those staff so

[2:53:26] Voice 15: that increases our telephone costs as well okay

[2:53:29] Voice 26: speakers on the motion and trustee everyone was

[2:53:34] Voice 26: just to speak to your emotion yeah

[2:53:36] Voice 17: um so yeah i was going to say for the training staff recognition

[2:53:40] Voice 17: recognition and meetings um so it's just a reduction of a thousand dollars because that was

[2:53:45] Voice 17: eleven thousand twelve hundred so just putting it back to the ten thousand for the previous year

[2:53:50] Voice 17: or the spend and um telephone had been bumped up from twelve thousand to over sixteen thousand so

[2:53:58] Voice 17: if you could speak to the telephone a bit more detail as to why such a lot because that's the

[2:54:05] Voice 17: that's one-third increase and i don't think we're having one-third more people so if you could

[2:54:12] Voice 17: explain the that a little bit that might help as

[2:54:21] Voice 15: i said we do have uh new staff members and so that

[2:54:23] Voice 15: is a contributing cost the rates for our subscriptions for these things are also

[2:54:28] Voice 15: increasing which is an additional cost as well um there is some uh additional costs for zoom

[2:54:36] Voice 15: Zoom licensing for live, no, live streaming is not in the phone, so that's irrelevant.

[2:54:42] Voice 15: It's primarily for the new staff members, and then the rates are increasing for our

[2:54:46] Voice 15: Zoom-based phones.

[2:54:49] Voice 26: Okay, thank you.

[2:54:50] Voice 26: So, speaking to the motion, I see Trustee Middleton, we managed to get you into the

[2:54:56] Voice 26: meeting, and over to you, you're to speak to the motion.

[2:55:00] Voice 1: Yeah, thanks, and apologies for my lateness.

[2:55:03] Voice 1: Appreciate the flexibility getting me in.

[2:55:05] Voice 1: And I think this is probably a good way of capturing the savings that Zoom Phone would have brought to the organization.

[2:55:12] Voice 1: One of the reasons to switch to Zoom Phone is it's substantially cheaper, even though there's no deal out with the subscription costs are going up.

[2:55:22] Voice 1: There has to be some way of capturing the cost savings.

[2:55:25] Voice 1: This looks like one of the ways to do it.

[2:55:26] Voice 1: So I would support the motion because definitely,

[2:55:30] Voice 1: the Allen's Trust phone costs,

[2:55:32] Voice 1: if one would compare what was used previously,

[2:55:34] Voice 1: are now lower by using Zoom phone.

[2:55:38] Voice 1: Thanks.

[2:55:39] Voice 26: Any other speakers on the motion?

[2:55:41] Voice 26: I'm gonna call the vote then.

[2:55:43] Voice 26: All those in favor of the motion.

[2:55:46] Voice 26: And Trustee Harris, two on line.

[2:55:56] Voice 26: It looks like eight, so please lower your hands.

[2:55:59] Voice 26: All those opposed.

[2:56:02] Voice 26: Opposed.

[2:56:03] Voice 26: Hands opposed.

[2:56:05] Voice 26: And of course abstaining is a vote in favor.

[2:56:17] Voice 26: So that passes with the abstention.

[2:56:21] Voice 26: Okay.

[2:56:22] Voice 26: So let us go to the next motion, David.

[2:56:28] Voice 29: Trustee Gabbard.

[2:56:31] Voice 28: Those are all the same.

[2:56:34] Voice 28: Right.

[2:56:36] Voice 28: Keep going.

[2:56:41] Voice 27: Right.

[2:56:42] Voice 27: There you go.

[2:56:46] Voice 3: We're doing that one after because it's not a budgetary.

[2:56:50] Voice 3: Please make the motion.

[2:56:52] Voice 21: Hi, I move that the Trust Council reinstate funding

[2:56:55] Voice 21: for the Galliano Island Trust Office

[2:56:58] Voice 21: for the 2024-25 pledge.

[2:57:00] Voice 21: That's correct.

[2:57:01] Voice 26: We have a seconder, Trustee Yates.

[2:57:03] Voice 26: Thank you very much.

[2:57:04] Voice 26: Would you speak to your motion, Trustee Gavilan.

[2:57:06] Voice 21: A little bit that's not in the briefing.

[2:57:09] Voice 21: A little more information for you.

[2:57:11] Voice 21: Galliano holds about 7.1% land value of the trust area.

[2:57:16] Voice 21: So it bears about 7.1% of the property tax costs.

[2:57:20] Voice 21: so it's about six hundred thousand dollars that galliano gives sorry other notes a few more things

[2:57:28] Voice 21: the building is up for sale it's been up for sale for quite a while um as you know that the the rent

[2:57:36] Voice 21: is incredibly low low and it's a shared space with the crd liaison office i spoke with the

[2:57:43] Voice 21: liaison officer and uh it's their feeling that the crd would not continually set that space

[2:57:49] Voice 21: So not only would Galliano be losing Dan's trust, they'll be losing their CRD liaison as well.

[2:57:57] Voice 21: I think our office represents credibility and visibility, relevance and professionalism for the Galliano-Hans trust.

[2:58:08] Voice 21: It's one of the first buildings you see.

[2:58:10] Voice 21: When you get off the ferry, you drive down the road, you see the logo.

[2:58:14] Voice 21: I consider that office space to be a place where I can interact with members of the community in private.

[2:58:20] Voice 21: And I have a specific time a week when everyone is welcome to come to meet with me, Mondays from 9 to 11.

[2:58:29] Voice 21: I'm also available for impromptu meetings, Saturday morning, Sunday morning, whenever.

[2:58:34] Voice 21: It's across the street from my house.

[2:58:38] Voice 21: I think every island should have a designated space.

[2:58:42] Voice 21: As a trustee, meeting with the community members at this particular place is one of my favorite things about being a trustee.

[2:58:53] Voice 21: It's also extremely important to keep the office on Galeano

[2:58:56] Voice 21: because we are seeing a rise in our island communities

[2:59:01] Voice 21: of those that would rather turn back the dial to a time before the Island's Trust existed.

[2:59:06] Voice 21: Many on Galeano want to see the office go, but they also want to see the Island's Trust go.

[2:59:13] Voice 21: We've been at the location for 18 years, and before that, I don't even know how long.

[2:59:20] Voice 21: Decades we've had presence on that island.

[2:59:24] Voice 21: I use the office once or twice a week which sounds like a small number but as you know this is not a

[2:59:30] Voice 21: part-time job and that is a lot of time in that office I leave it up to you to decide the fate

[2:59:36] Voice 21: of the office I know it's last trustees from last term and Jane and Tahira over here defending the

[2:59:41] Voice 21: office as well and I hope you consider letting me keep it all

[2:59:46] Voice 26: right thank you so speakers to the

[2:59:47] Voice 26: motion

[2:59:48] Voice 30: scott

[2:59:51] Voice 5: over to you i just thought how much money is it involved it doesn't stay up there

[2:59:58] Voice 5: Julia?

[3:00:00] Voice 15: So it does depend if CRD renews their sublease with us or renews their sublease with us.

[3:00:06] Voice 15: If they do, it's about $5,500.

[3:00:09] Voice 15: I'm hearing that they may not.

[3:00:12] Voice 15: That puts our dollars up at about $9,500 per year.

[3:00:16] Voice 5: Either way, I second the motion.

[3:00:21] Voice 5: I think

[3:00:22] Voice 26: we had it seconded by Trustee.

[3:00:23] Voice 30: Oh, you did?

[3:00:23] Voice 26: Oh, of course.

[3:00:24] Voice 26: Sorry.

[3:00:25] Voice 26: That's all right.

[3:00:26] Voice 26: I'm trying my best.

[3:00:27] Voice 26: Thank you.

[3:00:28] Voice 26: I just had to see how you're, you know.

[3:00:31] Voice 26: Oh, thank you.

[3:00:31] Voice 30: any other

[3:00:32] Voice 26: speakers on the motion uh deb martin oh thanks sorry i'm

[3:00:37] Voice 26: interfering in who's running the

[3:00:39] Voice 26: speaker's list go ahead uh

[3:00:42] Voice 31: thank you i'm speaking in support of the motion um although i only use

[3:00:48] Voice 31: the office um around once a month when i'm on galley i know i'd say it's very useful for me

[3:00:53] Voice 31: as an off-island chair it's a space to meet with uh local constituents but um i think more

[3:00:59] Voice 31: More importantly than my use is the use by staff for the same purposes when staff go out and do their site visits and there's also meeting with constituents.

[3:01:10] Voice 31: And I actually think that that staff use is far more important than the convenience of my personal use of it.

[3:01:16] Voice 31: I also appreciate that Trustee Gavreau uses it a fair bit.

[3:01:20] Voice 31: And I think given the multi-use, I think it's worth keeping.

[3:01:28] Voice 31: I

[3:01:38] Voice 14: wish to support this motion. I know how important the physical location of an Islands Trust Office is for my local trust area. I do see the Galliano Islands Trust Office when I get off the ferry and visit Galliano, and I know how important it is for my fellow trustee to have that space.

[3:01:57] Voice 14: I also think it's a really important, just a statement in the southern Gulf Islands that here is an Islands Trust presence, it is used, and it's shared by other people.

[3:02:11] Voice 14: And that's really important, too.

[3:02:12] Voice 14: It's such a small amount of money to keep this office.

[3:02:37] Voice 17: I'm going to, unfortunately, sorry, I'm going to speak against this.

[3:02:41] Voice 17: The reason being is the majority of islands have given up their offices due to the expense of running them.

[3:02:47] Voice 17: And if the CRD do pull out, then that becomes an even greater expense.

[3:02:51] Voice 17: The expense almost doubles.

[3:02:53] Voice 17: Most of us will use a community space to have our constituent meetings or use a local coffee shop or something like that.

[3:03:04] Voice 17: And as much as we would all love to have a dedicated space, it's difficult to continue supporting it.

[3:03:11] Voice 17: There are other ways. And I think about like our like renting a space, how many times you could like our rental space that we that we use is about $50 a time. So how many meetings is that a year? That's a lot of meetings. So I'm going to I'm not going to support this. Sorry.

[3:03:30] Voice 17: um

[3:03:35] Voice 3: so pender removed its office last year the year before i can't remember now um and north pender

[3:03:43] Voice 3: and one of the reasons why we did that is because we personally as trustees didn't find we were

[3:03:48] Voice 3: using it that much because we met on properties or in different locations however i really think

[3:03:54] Voice 3: that we need to respect the differences among our islands and so i'm in support of this motion

[3:03:59] Voice 3: because I think that if Trustee Gavreau is naming that she's using it a lot and she needs the space

[3:04:04] Voice 3: for the work she's doing, Galleon's a small island. It may not be that there's other types

[3:04:09] Voice 3: of spaces. We have tons of different options on my own context. And so, and I also would highly

[3:04:15] Voice 3: encourage all of us in the Southern Gulf Islands to pressure the CRD or other regional districts

[3:04:21] Voice 3: about that because we had that pressure when we removed our space on Pender that that could be

[3:04:28] Voice 3: attention around losing the CRD office on Pender. So it's important to communicate with our CRD

[3:04:35] Voice 3: colleagues on their responsibilities in that too. Thank you.

[3:04:41] Voice 26: Apparently I got on the speaker's list.

[3:04:43] Voice 26: I just wanted to say for those of you that may not be familiar with the location, this is a tiny

[3:04:47] Voice 26: little building. It's not grandiose at all. It is a space. I want to respect actually what Lisa

[3:04:53] Voice 26: Gavro said about a private space for her to meet with constituents and others. And I think

[3:04:59] Voice 26: Indeed, each island is different, and I'm going to vote in support of it.

[3:05:03] Voice 26: Thank you.

[3:05:05] Voice 26: And Trustee Harris online.

[3:05:09] Voice 8: Thank you.

[3:05:11] Voice 8: I would just like to speak in opposition to this motion.

[3:05:16] Voice 8: I'm on Salt Spring Island.

[3:05:18] Voice 8: I know what it's like.

[3:05:19] Voice 8: I live in a small space.

[3:05:21] Voice 8: I don't use the office here.

[3:05:23] Voice 8: I seem to manage to meet with constituents, wherever it may be.

[3:05:28] Voice 8: There's even talk of the Salt Spring office is even in question at this point.

[3:05:32] Voice 8: so I'm not in favor of this. Thank you.

[3:05:36] Voice 8: Thank you.

[3:05:38] Voice 5: Trustee Scott? Thank you. I think this

[3:05:41] Voice 5: is exactly what we should support. Local government, local

[3:05:45] Voice 5: trust committees. If she says she needs it, she needs it.

[3:05:49] Voice 5: It's all supported. Thank you. Thank you.

[3:05:52] Voice 26: No more speakers on my list.

[3:05:53] Voice 26: I'm going to call the vote. All those in favor?

[3:06:03] Voice 27: Please lower your hand. Any opposed?

[3:06:06] Voice 27: Opposed? Bad boy. Right.

[3:06:15] Voice 26: So five opposed and that therefore carries. Thank you very much.

[3:06:21] Voice 26: The next motion.

[3:06:23] Voice 27: Trustee Graham. Do

[3:06:40] Voice 25: you want to read out the motion, Trustee Graham?

[3:06:43] Voice 25: I move that the press council return $10,000 to the executive committee expense amount regarding

[3:06:49] Voice 25: LTC chair expenses budget amount. Thank you. Do I have a seconder? Trustee Gaborow, thank you.

[3:06:56] Voice 25: you wish to speak to your motions yes thank you um i consider this expense not um uh something that

[3:07:03] Voice 25: is uh discretionary uh if we don't fund the ability for chairs to come to our islands and

[3:07:11] Voice 25: meet with us i i'm not sure what the alternative is uh i have chaired uh islands not not present

[3:07:19] Voice 25: some islands work some islands wouldn't they can't find a less expensive accommodation you can't

[3:07:26] Voice 25: drive your vehicle any cheaper. You can't purchase gas any cheaper.

[3:07:30] Voice 25: So this is really a non-discretion expense as far as I'm concerned. And so that's

[3:07:34] Voice 25: why I put it off the floor. Thank you, Trustee Graham. Any other

[3:07:38] Voice 26: speakers on the motion? Scott and Morrison.

[3:07:44] Voice 5: Yes, I completely agree with what David just said. I mean, if these folks

[3:07:48] Voice 5: got to move around, they've got to cover their expenses. It just seems like a

[3:07:52] Voice 5: no, I won't say what I was going to say.

[3:07:54] Voice 5: it seems like a no-brainer okay i did say it thank you trustee morrison could

[3:08:02] Voice 3: i just get

[3:08:03] Voice 3: clarification um has this amount been historically spent um or has it been like an underspent area

[3:08:10] Voice 3: um

[3:08:13] Voice 15: so this we've been overspent in this area before because we've under budgeted

[3:08:17] Voice 15: so last year we didn't have a great understanding of how much this was going to cost because it was

[3:08:23] Voice 15: new term and we're still trying to understand which chairs are going to be assigned to which

[3:08:28] Voice 15: local trust committee what that travel cost might look like now we've got a good sense of what

[3:08:32] Voice 15: travel costs are looking like for actual chair travel so we are spending to about this level

[3:08:39] Voice 15: if we wanted to action change around this we'd be looking to perhaps procure more economical

[3:08:47] Voice 15: accommodation for trustees in certain locations where possible you know i know that's not always

[3:08:52] Voice 15: possible at certain high times in the year various islands um but yeah those costs are rising can i

[3:09:00] Voice 3: do a quick follow-up on that just okay so um i am not in favor of this motion

[3:09:07] Voice 3: now um but i would

[3:09:09] Voice 3: caution us as a council that this is something that if we want to see it different next year

[3:09:14] Voice 3: then we need to think about our policies around how we appoint chairs and the regional nature of

[3:09:19] Voice 3: it or how far chairs are traveling that's part of our governance work so this is what we have made

[3:09:26] Voice 3: it is the cost trustee

[3:09:29] Voice 31: peterson i'd like to thank my colleague from financial planning

[3:09:35] Voice 31: uh committee for bringing this forward i think my um i think the lack of analysis on how this

[3:09:43] Voice 31: might be uh this this suggested uh reduction 10 000 might be achieved was the part that

[3:09:50] Voice 31: when it came to financial planning committee that I just I didn't the question I asked was how

[3:09:57] Voice 31: and that wasn't really addressed at financial planning committee there certainly wasn't time

[3:10:02] Voice 31: for that if there's ways to reduce it let's have a look at that but arbitrarily throwing this figure

[3:10:09] Voice 31: out there when we don't have analysis on how we might achieve it I think is problematic from my

[3:10:14] Voice 31: point of view um to uh trustee morrison's point i would just say that uh sorry

[3:10:21] Voice 3: i misspoke i'm in

[3:10:22] Voice 3: favor not opposed okay

[3:10:25] Voice 31: just just to trustee morrison's point though i actually would i

[3:10:31] Voice 31: would hate to think that trust council um would be uh considering the cost of chair travel as uh

[3:10:40] Voice 31: as a major factor when deciding who's on executive committee.

[3:10:44] Voice 31: So I just wanted to add to that.

[3:10:47] Voice 26: You're next.

[3:10:49] Voice 26: Apparently I'm next again.

[3:10:52] Voice 26: I just want to speak in,

[3:10:55] Voice 26: acknowledge and speak in support of my colleagues on executive committee.

[3:11:00] Voice 26: I personally actually do much less travel than they do in this most,

[3:11:06] Voice 26: this most recent term.

[3:11:08] Voice 26: There are lots of stresses associated with traveling to islands to be chairs, even before you get to be chair on the island, right?

[3:11:16] Voice 26: And there's travel and all of that associated with it.

[3:11:20] Voice 26: And I just want to acknowledge that the Executive Committee itself and its overall expenses has made every effort to reduce its number of in-person meetings to almost nonexistent.

[3:11:31] Voice 26: And I regret that from time to time.

[3:11:34] Voice 26: And so a lot has been done there.

[3:11:37] Voice 26: there and I want to reduce the stress I want I'm in support hang on yeah so I'm in support of the

[3:11:44] Voice 26: motion don't want to make the same mistake I'm in support of the motion because I want my trustees

[3:11:50] Voice 26: to be confident the council supports them in the work that they're doing for you trustee fast

[3:11:57] Voice 26: thank

[3:11:58] Voice 18: you I'm uh in support of this motion I I agree it's non-discretionary and I just wanted

[3:12:05] Voice 18: wanted to reiterate, as somebody who was on executive committee last year, we were really

[3:12:12] Voice 18: conscious, or we were in that term, and I'm sure it's the same now, we do our best, carpooling

[3:12:19] Voice 18: with staff, traveling as a foot passenger on the ferries, using a motor car co-op, all these kinds

[3:12:27] Voice 18: of things can cut your costs. Then the big storm hits and you're stranded in Nanaimo without a

[3:12:32] Voice 18: reservation and it's nine o'clock at night or whatever and um so we try and we work long hours

[3:12:38] Voice 18: those of us who take up the executive committee role and uh congratulations to everybody who

[3:12:43] Voice 18: stands for that role because it's a ton of work and uh travel um and you can do your best but you

[3:12:50] Voice 18: can still there are expenses thank you

[3:12:56] Voice 27: trustee harris thank

[3:13:01] Voice 8: you sure welcome uh i'm i'm not in

[3:13:07] Voice 8: favor of this motion um you know one of the reasons this is coming to me now after listening

[3:13:13] Voice 8: to um how logistically it's such a an issue with um chairs coming from other islands to um to sit

[3:13:23] Voice 8: um on the ltcs um but you know to me this is a governance issue we had a governance review

[3:13:31] Voice 8: islands trust was deemed dysfunctional in need of a major restructuring so can you

[3:13:35] Voice 8: From what I see here, you know, a chair just in the first place coming from another island

[3:13:44] Voice 8: is an undemocratic representation for the constituents of the island.

[3:13:50] Voice 8: So I'm not in favor of this in any way, shape, or form.

[3:13:54] Voice 8: I look forward to the day when we will not have a chair coming from another island.

[3:13:59] Voice 8: Thank you very much.

[3:14:01] Voice 8: Thank you.

[3:14:02] Voice 8: Trustee Dodds,

[3:14:03] Voice 26: I think, is next.

[3:14:04] Voice 37: I'm trying to speak to the motion I'm somewhat neutral on the motion in general but I do want

[3:14:10] Voice 37: point of information we had two local trust committee meetings January February where our

[3:14:16] Voice 37: chair opted to attend via zoom and so we ran the meetings as zoom meetings that was because of

[3:14:23] Voice 37: course road conditions on the Malahat a wise decision on the part of our chair Toby and I was

[3:14:29] Voice 37: a little bit of trepidatious about not having a chair in person. We had two meetings, both of

[3:14:35] Voice 37: which had difficult topics on them. But I am and was and will always be quite impressed with how

[3:14:42] Voice 37: well a chair can function in a Zoom meeting, even when controversial issues come up. So I guess I

[3:14:49] Voice 37: will be voting against this because I actually think and would suggest that we look within the

[3:14:56] Voice 37: ltcs depending on the agenda that we not be traveling as much as we do i said the same

[3:15:01] Voice 37: thing about trust council we're supposed to be preserving and protecting but we're

[3:15:05] Voice 37: bitty bumping all over the place so that's all i want to say thank you janine

[3:15:10] Voice 6: sam borthwick

[3:15:14] Voice 6: um yeah and i appreciate uh trustee dodds bringing up the the environmental cost of those things um

[3:15:20] Voice 6: That being said, I am in favor of this motion, and I want to speak in a little bit in response to Trustee Harris's comments about the value of having an off-island chair or even just component of the local trust committee.

[3:15:37] Voice 6: I am extremely grateful for our chair.

[3:15:41] Voice 37: Sorry, Chair, point of order.

[3:15:44] Voice 37: This is not the debate we're having.

[3:15:46] Voice 37: I'm

[3:15:50] Voice 26: sorry, I wasn't paying full attention.

[3:15:51] Voice 26: well

[3:15:52] Voice 37: he was talking about local chair not being from your it's not nothing to do with this budget

[3:15:57] Voice 37: or

[3:15:58] Voice 26: this motion that was my point of order with uh trustee harris and so let's carry that let's

[3:16:04] Voice 26: talk to the budget item

[3:16:05] Voice 6: absolutely um i i i really my my point is that i really value having uh

[3:16:12] Voice 6: having our chair be able to attend in person and and i know that uh our chair in particular comes

[3:16:18] Voice 6: a very long way it is a complex journey from saturn or from maine to to denmark i really

[3:16:23] Voice 6: appreciate the value i see the value uh in our meetings and i know that our community really

[3:16:28] Voice 6: values uh david being there in person thank

[3:16:31] Voice 26: you any other speakers on the motion trustee elliott

[3:16:38] Voice 26: who trustee elliott okay and then evans no let's go with the speakers list we'll come to you evan

[3:16:45] Voice 26: um

[3:16:46] Voice 23: so again i put this forward um being intimately involved with the expenses and and how that is

[3:16:53] Voice 23: done in the calculation that we make so in our first year uh we're all new and traveling and

[3:17:00] Voice 23: being in person at your ltc was very important uh the we are the decision-making body we need to be

[3:17:07] Voice 23: there to meet the community members um and and i really value that in our second year

[3:17:14] Voice 23: conditions such as winter travel and the costs associated with that being overnight

[3:17:21] Voice 23: and the other thing that we need to consider is as we engage more with communities in our projects

[3:17:27] Voice 23: we're going to have more community information meetings uh two for instance are scheduled for

[3:17:32] Voice 23: south pender and i've asked the alternate chair who's close by to to be there for those meetings

[3:17:39] Voice 23: so there's proximity and there's cost savings hybrid is not ideal for some meetings what i was

[3:17:47] Voice 23: asking for with this budget cut was that chairs be creative and innovative reach out to their

[3:17:54] Voice 23: alternates if there's a possibility that a community information meeting doesn't need

[3:17:59] Voice 23: that decision-making role that you're hearing from community and somebody else

[3:18:04] Voice 23: can do that or we can do some hybrid beatings so I think there's cost savings

[3:18:08] Voice 23: that can be hacked while being sensitive to the needs of the community and being

[3:18:13] Voice 23: a decision maker there thank you

[3:18:15] Voice 27: trustee Evan thanks

[3:18:20] Voice 17: I'm gonna speak in support

[3:18:22] Voice 17: of this motion I understand that there are a lot of ideas floating around as to

[3:18:27] Voice 17: to how we can make cuts, but until we have a plan

[3:18:30] Voice 17: that has been solidified as to how we can do it,

[3:18:34] Voice 17: arbitrarily cutting it and hoping for the best

[3:18:36] Voice 17: is not the way to do it.

[3:18:38] Voice 17: This is an integral part of how we operate at Islands Trust.

[3:18:42] Voice 17: So those are my comments.

[3:18:48] Voice 39: So

[3:18:50] Voice 26: Grant, I think you had your hand up

[3:18:52] Voice 26: and Trustee Morrison, you're a second speaker to the motion.

[3:18:54] Voice 26: I'd like to go to Grant who has not spoken.

[3:18:58] Voice 26: I just want to say, did you

[3:19:01] Voice 5: speak already? Go ahead.

[3:19:02] Voice 5: Oh, did you say I did not speak?

[3:19:06] Voice 5: Go ahead, Grant.

[3:19:07] Voice 5: Thank you.

[3:19:08] Voice 5: Last term, Sue Ellen was our chair and also chaired on Denman.

[3:19:16] Voice 5: And the meetings were held one day and then the next day.

[3:19:18] Voice 5: And that seemed to make a lot of sense because the efficiency of that, she had to come all the way from Bowen.

[3:19:24] Voice 5: But it seemed like a lot more efficient than the way it is now.

[3:19:27] Voice 5: Now we've got a chair on Hornby, Tim, who comes from Mesquite.

[3:19:31] Voice 5: And then Denman, the chair, comes from Maine.

[3:19:35] Voice 5: So I was quite surprised when I found out.

[3:19:39] Voice 26: So I think we should stick to the budget item, not necessarily how the decisions are made about chairing.

[3:19:44] Voice 5: You're right.

[3:19:44] Voice 26: I'm off the topic here.

[3:19:48] Voice 26: Are you in favor of supporting the inclusion of the expense? Thank you.

[3:19:52] Voice 26: And sorry for cutting you off. Trustee Morrison?

[3:19:55] Voice 26: I think that's right.

[3:19:56] Voice 26: Yeah,

[3:19:57] Voice 3: so to keep on this task and to just speak back briefly to Trustee Peterson, so we are talking budget here, and I am, I think, still in favor, though there's been a lot of really good points made, okay?

[3:20:12] Voice 3: But basically, I think we need to acknowledge that this is the current cost of what's going on, and we need to acknowledge that we need to do it differently.

[3:20:23] Voice 3: and we need to think about what those practices are and we need to do it differently like next

[3:20:28] Voice 3: year not in three years so um i would and when we're thinking about this this is not just about

[3:20:34] Voice 3: the financial cost because a lot of the things that are being talked about here when we're

[3:20:38] Voice 3: slightly off topic are also about climate signature issues so time and fatigue for staff

[3:20:44] Voice 3: for for chairs right safety so those are all things that i think need to be really deeply

[3:20:50] Voice 3: plea considered thank

[3:20:51] Voice 26: you no other speakers julia there

[3:20:57] Voice 15: is an item on the financial planning

[3:20:59] Voice 15: committee's follow-up action list dig into this very topic and see if there's ways that we can

[3:21:05] Voice 15: achieve some cost savings around this um that work has started i think it's about 65 percent

[3:21:11] Voice 15: complete we just haven't finished it yet to bring back to the committee we'll be doing that in the

[3:21:15] Voice 15: coming months thank

[3:21:18] Voice 26: you can i call the vote all right all those in favor of the motion 14 all

[3:21:32] Voice 26: those opposed please raise your hand seven

[3:21:42] Voice 27: and

[3:21:47] Voice 26: so that carries so the motion carries and that was

[3:21:52] Voice 26: seven and nine no there's more yeah

[3:21:58] Voice 26: okay so it carries um thank you very much council um so we're

[3:22:05] Voice 26: I'm sorry. What was the number for the vote?

[3:22:09] Voice 26: David?

[3:22:13] Voice 28: There was nine opposed.

[3:22:15] Voice 28: And then it was carried because there's 20 for the trustee.

[3:22:20] Voice 28: So it's abstain.

[3:22:25] Voice 26: 14 in favor.

[3:22:27] Voice 26: Thank you. I misquoted.

[3:22:35] Voice 26: Thank you. So we're at the...

[3:22:37] Voice 26: Just to give you a status here, we're almost coming up for lunch here.

[3:22:40] Voice 26: We're at the last potential motion here with respect to the budget.

[3:22:44] Voice 26: I have two motions that are outside of the framework of the budget.

[3:22:47] Voice 26: And so I'd like to perhaps get through this budget items here in the last one.

[3:22:54] Voice 26: And I'm just going to point out here, Trustee Boland, because I'm looking at your motion,

[3:22:59] Voice 26: to which you came as a different motion,

[3:23:05] Voice 26: alternative motion to the motion

[3:23:06] Voice 26: that was brought forward earlier.

[3:23:08] Voice 26: And it looks to me that we've got it on the screen here.

[3:23:12] Voice 26: And it looks to me that you're wanting us

[3:23:14] Voice 26: to consider a contractor for this position at the Conservancy.

[3:23:19] Voice 26: And I would suggest that that was discussed.

[3:23:23] Voice 26: We had feedback from staff on that

[3:23:26] Voice 26: and is is not necessarily I think it's revisiting the original motion but if

[3:23:33] Voice 26: the council disagrees it agrees with me then I would like to know I'm seeing one

[3:23:40] Voice 26: or you know actually what we need to do is decide by motion but let me let's

[3:23:46] Voice 26: just roll with this for a moment and ask trustee Boland if you want to make this

[3:23:50] Voice 26: motion or not

[3:23:52] Voice 33: yes I do want to make this motion because

[3:23:57] Voice 26: point of order which takes a priority trustee evans i

[3:24:01] Voice 17: have one more budget um motion that

[3:24:04] Voice 17: hasn't been addressed yet where is that

[3:24:05] Voice 17: i handed it over uh i handed it over a while ago i don't

[3:24:10] Voice 17: know if it's been typed up

[3:24:11] Voice 26: okay well can you guys sort that out and we'll come back to that

[3:24:14] Voice 26: the boland can you make your motion sure

[3:24:20] Voice 33: um i would like to say that this is connected with

[3:24:26] Voice 33: But the other outside the budget issue, strongly connected, in my view, in that, but we'll have to deal with that separately.

[3:24:35] Voice 33: So a variety of people did speak to this as an option, that Trust Council remove the Islands Trust Conservancy protected areas manager staff position and include a one year contractor position for Islands Trust Conservancy.

[3:24:54] Voice 33: I don't know about policy work

[3:24:56] Voice 33: I don't think it's policy work

[3:25:00] Voice 33: but okay in the draft 2024-25 budget

[3:25:05] Voice 33: can somebody tell me

[3:25:07] Voice 33: who put in the policy work

[3:25:08] Voice 33: is that appropriate

[3:25:13] Voice 33: is it policy work

[3:25:15] Voice 33: if

[3:25:17] Voice 20: you're wanting to contemplate adding a contractor position

[3:25:21] Voice 20: that position would only be able to take on a subset of the scope of the work

[3:25:25] Voice 20: which would only be relating to policy

[3:25:27] Voice 20: a C. I see Director Bob's might want to supplement that answer. Yeah, just I want

[3:25:33] Voice 15: to clarify, we don't

[3:25:34] Voice 15: hire contractor positions. We hire staff into particular positions. We can hire staff on a

[3:25:43] Voice 15: temporary basis, which sometimes people think is a contracted staff, but they are a temporary staff.

[3:25:49] Voice 15: Or we can engage with a contractor to take on particular pieces of work. So this language

[3:25:57] Voice 15: to me it's just a little bit unclear are we wanting to hire a temporary staff person or are

[3:26:03] Voice 15: we want to wanting to engage with a professional external contractor and

[3:26:09] Voice 33: i further i don't

[3:26:11] Voice 33: understand what claire just said that if you hire a contractor there is certain work that they cannot

[3:26:17] Voice 33: do can you explain that please

[3:26:22] Voice 26: it's a new motion but

[3:26:27] Voice 33: it's not exactly what i proposed and i'm happy

[3:26:30] Voice 33: to go with it amended but i want to understand i mean i'm happy to go with a temporary staff

[3:26:36] Voice 33: position if that's better than what i'm proposing certainly

[3:26:43] Voice 20: the proposal and the business solution

[3:26:45] Voice 20: analysis work that i did for the conservancy part of the challenge at the conservancy is

[3:26:49] Voice 20: that the manager has too many direct reports across a broad span of responsibilities and

[3:26:54] Voice 20: the project management activities are getting more varied and complex if we face issues related to

[3:26:58] Voice 20: climate change and risk management and more visitors and so on so part of the proposal was

[3:27:03] Voice 20: to bring in a team lead position that could then supervise a number of staff as such that the

[3:27:08] Voice 20: manager had fewer direct reports and more time for the management work and particularly in the future

[3:27:13] Voice 20: the first nation engagement work so this proposal of a new staff position actually frees up the

[3:27:18] Voice 20: manager to take on for example the first nation engagement work the minister has recently asked

[3:27:22] Voice 20: us to do for the board what i would suggest you go the contractor route really we're just assigning

[3:27:29] Voice 20: project policy projects to a contractor related to wildfire preparedness or risk management

[3:27:34] Voice 20: it doesn't solve the systemic issue that the conservancy is having around the management if

[3:27:39] Voice 20: it's protected areas and the staff supervision piece so if you wanted to pilot bringing in a

[3:27:45] Voice 20: temporary staff person you could do that for one year um it does it does make recruitment

[3:27:50] Voice 20: more difficult we don't find the kind of people we're looking for necessarily with a one-year

[3:27:54] Voice 20: posting but that is an option available to you which would then be more akin to solving the

[3:27:58] Voice 20: problems that i highlighted to the board as being part of the challenges bringing in a contractor

[3:28:04] Voice 20: really is just going to bring this problem back to you at a future council meeting because we're

[3:28:08] Voice 20: still left with the same suite of issues okay

[3:28:11] Voice 33: i am happy to take your recommendation that we

[3:28:15] Voice 33: We have a temporary staff position.

[3:28:18] Voice 33: So could that be amended, please?

[3:28:21] Voice 33: And maybe, Claire, you could make the amendment and we can vote on it now.

[3:28:27] Voice 26: Oh, OK.

[3:28:28] Voice 26: So I don't, although you perhaps move the motion that's up on our screen, we haven't

[3:28:33] Voice 26: seconded it.

[3:28:34] Voice 26: Exactly.

[3:28:35] Voice 26: And so let's just discard that.

[3:28:38] Voice 26: And it was not seconded.

[3:28:40] Voice 26: So it's discarded.

[3:28:41] Voice 26: started. So in light of the information that you've received and the staff for language

[3:28:49] Voice 26: around a motion to move this to a temporary position, I think it's your inclination there.

[3:28:56] Voice 26: Yeah. And then council can consider that. I think that that would be a fine decision

[3:29:02] Voice 26: to consider. And I'm looking at that. Do

[3:29:05] Voice 33: you want to do you want to go to trustee Evans's

[3:29:09] Voice 33: and I'll just quickly, or Claire can reformat this

[3:29:12] Voice 33: and we can come back in a moment or two.

[3:29:15] Voice 33: Would that be a useful thing to do, time-wise?

[3:29:20] Voice 26: No.

[3:29:21] Voice 26: I see no's and I see yes's.

[3:29:24] Voice 26: So I think actually, Trustee Boland,

[3:29:28] Voice 26: the case would be fairly straightforward.

[3:29:31] Voice 26: The Trust Council do whatever it is.

[3:29:38] Voice 33: Okay, a

[3:29:38] Voice 33: one-year temporary staff position for the Islands Trust Conservancy work.

[3:29:51] Voice 26: Okay, I'm going to ask you to work with staff on this and move to the next one.

[3:29:56] Voice 26: Sure, okay,

[3:29:57] Voice 33: I'll do that. I'll just send another one.

[3:30:00] Voice 33: quickly thank you did

[3:30:01] Voice 26: we just did we find the trustee evans motion that's budget related

[3:30:05] Voice 26: and david mauler

[3:30:12] Voice 39: no

[3:30:14] Voice 26: just the evans thank

[3:30:19] Voice 17: you um so on page 220 on 233 um looking at the itc budget

[3:30:24] Voice 17: that has been presented to us i would like to move that the project i must trust conservancy plan

[3:30:32] Voice 17: plan First Nation engagement remain at the 2024. Hold on. No, that's not right. Remain at the

[3:30:46] Voice 17: previous year's budget total by reducing the Islands Trust contribution by the SAR grant

[3:30:56] Voice 17: contribution of $8,000.

[3:31:04] Voice 26: Okay. And have you had a conversation with staff about that reallocation

[3:31:09] Voice 26: of grant funding which may be earmarked or something else no

[3:31:13] Voice 17: it's right in the budget

[3:31:14] Voice 17: line okay it's it's allocated directly to this okay

[3:31:17] Voice 26: you're ahead of the game so that's great

[3:31:21] Voice 26: um all right so then that's moved do i have a seconder i

[3:31:30] Voice 17: can discuss it after well i'm going

[3:31:31] Voice 26: to ask the speaker the mover to speak to the motion and maybe it'll make sense so trustee

[3:31:37] Voice 26: campbell has seconded the motion thank you and trustee evans she was to speak to your motion

[3:31:42] Voice 26: Sure.

[3:31:43] Voice 17: So the previous year's budget was $10,000. This year, Islands Trust is contributing $10,000 as well. And they have a SAR contribution of $8,000, which now makes a total budget of $18,000.

[3:32:00] Voice 17: So if they're getting a SAR contribution, it should offset the Ireland's Trust tax requisition amount is what I'm looking for.

[3:32:09] Voice 17: So they still have the same overall budget as the last year of $10,000.

[3:32:14] Voice 17: It's just the Ireland's Trust contribution via the tax requisition has been reduced by the amount that the SAR has contributed through that grant.

[3:32:28] Voice 15: Not entirely.

[3:32:29] Voice 15: entirely the tax requisition would already be reduced for any work that's paid for by grants

[3:32:36] Voice 15: in the budget as it's drafted so removing the portion of that work funded by grants wouldn't

[3:32:45] Voice 15: impact the tax requisition i do think the intent is to have an elevated dollar value for that work

[3:32:53] Voice 15: So last year's $10,000 that was unspent, plus the new funds, due to increased work that's required on that project, due to some feedback that was received from the minister.

[3:33:04] Voice 15: I think that's fair.

[3:33:05] Voice 15: It

[3:33:06] Voice 17: doesn't say that it was unspent.

[3:33:09] Voice 17: Because it says that it's, I'm looking at the previous year's.

[3:33:14] Voice 17: Okay, so I didn't realize that was unspent money.

[3:33:17] Voice 17: It just looked like it was remaining where it was, plus you're getting the SOC contribution.

[3:33:24] Voice 26: Okay. So we now have a motion on the floor that's moved and seconded. So it's either an amendment to the motion or we can vote in favor or we can vote against it to defeat it.

[3:33:35] Voice 26: Trustee Evans, do you have any further remarks? Motion stands? Okay. And we'll obviously sort that out somewhere along the line. Director Frater.

[3:33:46] Voice 20: Apologies. I'm catching up a little bit having just worked on the motion for Moray.

[3:33:49] Voice 26: Thank you.

[3:33:50] Voice 20: However, we need some clarity here. The species at risk grant funding was not proposed to be used. There might have been an error in an earlier document, but not proposed to be used for Conservancy plan engagement, that's project money.

[3:34:03] Voice 20: So in fact, what's being proposed is the First Nation engagement grant funding provided by the province, and then core taxation, which would be used pulled from surplus is what's being proposed.

[3:34:14] Voice 20: and one of the reasons the amount increased from a year ago when we thought 10,000 would be

[3:34:19] Voice 20: sufficient is the learning we've had through policy statement project at doing trust-wide

[3:34:23] Voice 20: engagement at the number of nations that are actually engaging with us potentially engaging

[3:34:29] Voice 20: with us so we've now got more nations engaging with us than we had at this time last year

[3:34:34] Voice 20: when we proposed 10,000 such that we now think 20,000 is more helpful I would suggest it's still

[3:34:40] Voice 20: a modest amount for a project of that size right

[3:34:42] Voice 26: all right so um we have a motion on the floor

[3:34:46] Voice 26: and is there any further discussion otherwise i'll go to the vote not seeing any discussion

[3:34:55] Voice 26: all those in favor or four in favor please lower your hand all those opposed

[3:35:18] Voice 26: and so that uh motion fails so thank you very much um trustee numbers

[3:35:25] Voice 33: please because i can only see

[3:35:27] Voice 33: see the numbers on the panelists, the hands, I can't see.

[3:35:33] Voice 26: In favor, four in favor, 15 opposed.

[3:35:38] Voice 33: Okay, thank you.

[3:35:40] Voice 26: Thank you.

[3:35:40] Voice 26: So Trussell,

[3:35:42] Voice 8: can you trust me to order?

[3:35:43] Voice 8: I was abstained, should that not be a vote in favor?

[3:35:49] Voice 26: Pardon?

[3:35:50] Voice 28: He said he was abstained.

[3:35:53] Voice 26: You abstained and so that's a vote in favor

[3:35:55] Voice 26: and I believe that was counted, yes.

[3:35:59] Voice 26: Thank you, Trustee Harris.

[3:36:01] Voice 26: council can you bear with me to get us through the final item before we go for lunch there's more

[3:36:11] Voice 3: i i had submitted one earlier like one other one related to the housing toolkit

[3:36:17] Voice 3: but i don't know it wasn't on the list i don't know why

[3:36:19] Voice 26: let's go for lunch thank you

[4:29:54] Voice 30: I just want to give

[4:29:56] Voice 26: you a heads up to think about here.

[4:30:00] Voice 26: two o'clock we have our media social media training session which is intended to run till the end of

[4:30:05] Voice 26: the day um we have two or three motions still outstanding associated with the budget uh approval

[4:30:13] Voice 26: we have not looked at the salt spring island water sustainability or water monitoring or

[4:30:19] Voice 26: proof of water projects which we also need to do to include in the budget and so um we're going to

[4:30:26] Voice 26: to end up running late so this is just heads up we're going to probably work right till dinner

[4:30:30] Voice 26: six o'clock because we need to be able to give julia the information for her to come back to

[4:30:37] Voice 26: us tomorrow with a budget which we are obligated to do so um let's um let's begin with our uh our

[4:30:45] Voice 26: public uh session and i'm just going to actually start for the benefit of members of the public

[4:30:51] Voice 26: that are joining us online and joined us in the audience today thank you very much everybody for

[4:30:55] Voice 26: joining us uh just going to start by doing some introductions and so um my name is peter luckham

[4:31:02] Voice 26: i'm elected on fetus island i'm a chair of trust council uh we are living and working here in

[4:31:08] Voice 26: coast salish territory particularly that's the name of first nation today and um every day that

[4:31:15] Voice 26: i wake up i'm grateful to be here and be able to work in this place and work through reconciliation

[4:31:22] Voice 26: reconciliation which council is committed to um without further ado i'm going to go to the right

[4:31:27] Voice 26: hand oh and i just want to say grant scott has left to uh they just opened up the herring fishery

[4:31:32] Voice 26: grant scott has gone off to uh work uh in that herring fishery space and so aaron campbell i'm

[4:31:39] Voice 26: going to start with you and just go around the table quick introductions just introduce yourself

[4:31:42] Voice 26: aaron campbell over to you for members of the public

[4:31:45] Voice 7: aaron campbell north bender island thank

[4:31:47] Voice 26: Thank you.

[4:31:49] Voice 7: Judy Getty, Bowen Island, La Quetta.

[4:31:53] Voice 14: Lisa Goldroup of Galliano Island.

[4:31:58] Voice 14: Susan Yates, Gabriola Local Trust Area, Traditional Territory and Current Territory of the Sninamik First Nation.

[4:32:06] Voice 17: Christina Evans, Sudea South Penda, Many Coast Salish and Wausau Nation's home.

[4:32:15] Voice 22: Hello, Toby Elliott from Gabriola Islands, Sninamik First Nation Territory.

[4:32:19] Voice 22: And

[4:32:21] Voice 26: I'm just going to slide over to people online here just quickly to kind of make sure that we are always being inclusive here.

[4:32:28] Voice 26: And Trustee Harris.

[4:32:32] Voice 8: Thank you.

[4:32:32] Voice 8: Trustee Harris from Salt Spring Island.

[4:32:36] Voice 26: Do we have others online?

[4:32:37] Voice 26: So Trustee Boland.

[4:32:42] Voice 33: Thanks.

[4:32:43] Voice 33: Maureen Boland from Saterna Island.

[4:32:46] Voice 36: Trustee Falk.

[4:32:49] Voice 36: Jack Falk from South Pender Island.

[4:32:52] Voice 27: Trustee Dodds.

[4:32:58] Voice 26: trustee middleton and trustee laroni um

[4:33:05] Voice 32: matthiola laroni from mesquite island you're

[4:33:08] Voice 26: muted but we

[4:33:08] Voice 26: can see you that's great um

[4:33:11] Voice 30: over to you david hey there we go uh

[4:34:02] Voice 6: san burthwick demon islands

[4:34:03] Voice 6: uh comox first nations deb

[4:34:06] Voice 3: morrison north pender local trust committee space um

[4:34:12] Voice 26: thank you everybody

[4:34:13] Voice 26: everybody. And so we have regrets from Trustee Bernardo, Trustee Maverly, Trustee Allen,

[4:34:19] Voice 26: and there were a couple of folks that were online earlier or not now. Just quickly maybe.

[4:34:26] Voice 26: So I just want to acknowledge our staff that have joined us here today. And CEO, Russ Hotson-Piller,

[4:34:34] Voice 26: Alexander Tripanandes, that's looking after all of our technology and everything else.

[4:34:39] Voice 26: thank you director freighter trust area services director uh cermak uh regional planning services

[4:34:47] Voice 26: and uh renee uh jamarac from the gabriel office regional planning manager and morgana um

[4:34:56] Voice 26: communications thank you for everybody for being here um and uh and and daphne in the back there

[4:35:02] Voice 26: looking after our technology. So let us move on. We do have a delegation. Ian Peace, is he with us?

[4:35:11] Voice 26: No. Okay. So that's unfortunate. But let us move on then into the public comment period. And just

[4:35:20] Voice 26: get, we have, yes. Okay. So maybe we'll just alternate between folks in the room and those

[4:35:29] Voice 26: online to keep it even and so uh who would like to go first and maybe align yourselves up at the

[4:35:36] Voice 26: microphone there and just take yourselves in order and if you could tee up the first person online

[4:35:48] Voice 26: then we'll go with them after uh mr brazier a microphone right there and somebody turn that on

[4:35:55] Voice 26: or or hit the button on the right hand side right in front excellent yeah that's it you got it and

[4:36:06] Voice 26: And two minutes, sir, and please be respectful of the people we're with, your friends and family at home, and talk to the issues, not about individual. Over to you.

[4:36:17] Voice 36: It's regrettable that Ian Peace didn't provide his piece because mine is sort of supplementary to it.

[4:36:27] Voice 36: My name is Graham Brazier. I'm a member of the public and live on Denman Island.

[4:36:34] Voice 36: And I wanted to talk to you this evening and this afternoon about interpreting the mandate.

[4:36:42] Voice 36: I did bring the text of it with me and had planned to be on the screen, but that was apparently not.

[4:36:51] Voice 36: It was a violation of protocol.

[4:36:54] Voice 36: So I will read it to you.

[4:36:58] Voice 36: I'm talking about the interpreting mandate.

[4:37:01] Voice 36: mandate, and I preface my remarks on the subject with the Islands Trust quote from the website,

[4:37:10] Voice 36: and I quote, a guiding principle of the Islands Trust is that open, consultative public participation

[4:37:18] Voice 36: is vital to effective decision making for the trust area, close quote.

[4:37:24] Voice 36: With that in mind, I draw your attention to the fundamental change in the scope of the mandate of the Islands Trust placed on September 26, 2023, when Trust Council met on Bender Island.

[4:37:40] Voice 36: That change was reported in the minutes in the following 37 words, and I quote,

[4:37:48] Voice 36: care luckham reported that trust council discussed in-camera legal opinions on section 3 of the

[4:37:55] Voice 36: islands trust act trust council had come to the conclusions on how it would be interpreted

[4:38:02] Voice 36: and a news release was planned close quote that was it it was reported that first council had

[4:38:10] Voice 36: had come to a conclusion about how the mandate would,

[4:38:14] Voice 36: not should, be interpreted.

[4:38:17] Voice 36: There was no hint of what that conclusion was.

[4:38:22] Voice 36: There was no record of a discussion

[4:38:24] Voice 36: preceding such a conclusion.

[4:38:27] Voice 36: There were no references to a motion being made

[4:38:30] Voice 36: or a vote being recorded.

[4:38:33] Voice 36: And yet, almost four months later,

[4:38:36] Voice 36: when the news release was made public

[4:38:38] Voice 36: on January 14, 2024, it was referred to, and I quote,

[4:38:45] Voice 36: the Press Council's consensus statement, close quote.

[4:38:49] Voice 36: It was titled, Islands Trust Council Statement of the Scope

[4:38:54] Voice 36: and Meaning of Section 3 of the Islands Trust Act.

[4:38:58] Voice 36: In this document, it was revealed that, quote,

[4:39:02] Voice 36: Press Council's view is that unique amenities are broad-ranging

[4:39:07] Voice 36: and may include issues such as, but not limited to,

[4:39:12] Voice 36: housing, livelihoods, infrastructure, and tourism.

[4:39:17] Voice 36: Close quote.

[4:39:19] Voice 36: How, when, where, and by whom these four issues

[4:39:23] Voice 36: were identified and selected for inclusion in the document

[4:39:26] Voice 36: that guides all decision-making throughout the trust area

[4:39:31] Voice 36: is not mentioned.

[4:39:32] Voice 36: It is clear that despite the guiding principle

[4:39:38] Voice 36: it above the public is not consulted furthermore evidence that this is trust council's consensus

[4:39:45] Voice 36: view is lacking there is no record of a motion of trust council to approve the addition of these

[4:39:52] Voice 36: four issues under the umbrella of unique amenities as it is of fundamental importance that the

[4:40:00] Voice 36: process of amending a foundation document be open to the public and chair and trust council offer

[4:40:08] Voice 36: evidence to the public that a consensus of trustees approved the interpretation

[4:40:14] Voice 36: of the unique amenities as quoted okay

[4:40:19] Voice 26: thank you Graham for coming today that

[4:40:24] Voice 26: uses up your a lot of time by quite a bit but I apologize for not having the

[4:40:28] Voice 26: opportunity to display material on the screen or circulate it so trustees

[4:40:32] Voice 26: earlier and I'd like to request that this be reflected in the in the minutes

[4:40:39] Voice 26: Well, the absence of it not being in the minutes, what I would ask is, and you have, you provided

[4:40:47] Voice 26: your submission to staff, and that could certainly be included in the minutes, I think.

[4:40:54] Voice 26: Thank you, sir.

[4:40:56] Voice 26: So the first speaker online, Alexandra, do you have that person teed up for me?

[4:41:02] Voice 26: able

[4:41:04] Voice 34: to speak and oh i

[4:41:07] Voice 26: see all

[4:41:08] Voice 34: right

[4:41:10] Voice 26: so the name of the person online is

[4:41:11] Voice 26: oh okay uh ms mack so ms mack margason um you have the floor for two minutes please

[4:41:23] Voice 4: yes um i'm not seeing myself here but um are you able to hear me uh

[4:41:31] Voice 26: yeah your screen is blacked out

[4:41:32] Voice 26: so your video must be turned off but we can hear you

[4:41:35] Voice 4: okay well i won't waste time trying to get my

[4:41:38] Voice 4: video up then um good afternoon to all members of trust council trust staff and members of the

[4:41:45] Voice 4: public um i am speaking for friends of the gulf islands society in reading your new communication

[4:41:52] Voice 4: strategy in the agenda package the second sentence states and i quote the intent of a communication

[4:42:00] Voice 4: strategy is to foster engagement with island communities and improve public trust in the

[4:42:08] Voice 4: organization through awareness and education, unquote. Friends of the Gulf Islands support

[4:42:15] Voice 4: this intent. However, Chair Luckham announced at the executive meeting yesterday morning

[4:42:22] Voice 4: that the Tuesday session on the strategic plan goals and priorities session that occupied most

[4:42:30] Voice 4: most of yesterday afternoon, would not be live streamed to the public because there would be

[4:42:35] Voice 4: breakout groups. I heard Trustee Elliott express concern about this, referring to the fact that

[4:42:43] Voice 4: there has been much criticism directed towards the Trust Council recently for lack of public access

[4:42:49] Voice 4: and that the public now expects live streaming. It seemed that even the Executive Committee did

[4:42:58] Voice 4: not know that this significant part of tuesday's meeting would not be viewable by the public unless

[4:43:05] Voice 4: they attended in person further that this portion of the meeting would not be live streamed was not

[4:43:12] Voice 4: indicated in the published schedule which says and i quote the public are welcome to attend all

[4:43:20] Voice 4: sessions excluding the closed meeting if the trust council truly supports the intent of this

[4:43:29] Voice 4: communication strategy to foster engagement with island communities and improve public trust in

[4:43:36] Voice 4: the organization, I believe Trust Council should consider whether breakout groups are more valuable

[4:43:43] Voice 4: than the public hearing a discussion of goals and priorities, especially following clearly

[4:43:51] Voice 4: stated concerns from the public about a discussion and decision about the interpretation of the

[4:43:58] Voice 4: the trust object being made in an in-camera session,

[4:44:02] Voice 4: leaving the public unable to hold their trustees accountable

[4:44:07] Voice 4: in terms of their positions on this issue.

[4:44:10] Voice 4: And the previous speaker referred to this matter.

[4:44:15] Voice 4: Our delegation submission

[4:44:17] Voice 4: to this trust council meeting was denied,

[4:44:19] Voice 4: and you have this submission in your agenda package.

[4:44:22] Voice 4: We failed to receive any response to a letter

[4:44:26] Voice 4: and to a follow-up letter with questions

[4:44:29] Voice 4: about the September Trust Council in-camera session

[4:44:33] Voice 4: on the reinterpretation of the trust object.

[4:44:38] Voice 4: Consequently, I'm almost finished,

[4:44:41] Voice 4: have had no alternative but to file a Freedom of Information request,

[4:44:46] Voice 4: a regrettable use of time and money for all concerned.

[4:44:50] Voice 4: One practice that could improve the trust communication

[4:44:53] Voice 4: would be to reply to letters and emails from constituents

[4:44:57] Voice 4: constituents and answer the questions asked within.

[4:45:01] Voice 4: Words on paper, as in this communication strategy briefing,

[4:45:05] Voice 4: are useless if there is no understanding of the actions

[4:45:08] Voice 4: that actually do foster engagement

[4:45:12] Voice 4: and improve public trust.

[4:45:14] Voice 4: The public deserves better.

[4:45:16] Voice 4: Thank you very much.

[4:45:18] Voice 26: Thank you, Ms. Margerson.

[4:45:21] Voice 26: We'll go to the next speaker in the room,

[4:45:24] Voice 26: BC Hydro, perhaps, if you...

[4:45:27] Voice 27: Yeah.

[4:45:39] Voice 24: Thank you. I think I've talked to a few of you, probably more than you would like sometimes.

[4:45:43] Voice 24: I'm Ted Holnick. I'm the Community Relations Manager for BC Hydro for Vancouver Island and the Sunshine Coast.

[4:45:49] Voice 24: I was hoping to have done a presentation for the Trust in a while yet.

[4:45:53] Voice 24: I was hoping to be here, but I was not tardy in my application for a presentation.

[4:45:59] Voice 24: And considering your agenda and the 600 pages I think you had to read before the meeting, that's probably not a bad thing.

[4:46:04] Voice 24: So unfortunately, I have to go to Salt Spring in June.

[4:46:06] Voice 24: So for your next meeting, that's okay with me.

[4:46:10] Voice 24: What I hope to do, I just want to introduce myself and let you know you can call me anytime for any issues.

[4:46:15] Voice 24: I've left my business card with Russ.

[4:46:17] Voice 24: I know you're not going to call me because Fluffy's up a power pole.

[4:46:20] Voice 24: You're going to call me because it's something important in your area that has impact and is a concern to your community.

[4:46:27] Voice 24: So when I do the presentation in June, I hope to go over work we've done to improve reliability on the Gulf Islands,

[4:46:34] Voice 24: work that we hope to do and we were planning to do in the Gulf Islands.

[4:46:39] Voice 24: And I know in some areas it can be a bit of a challenge.

[4:46:42] Voice 24: There is a conflict between meeting the demands of a growing population on the Gulf Islands

[4:46:46] Voice 24: and our infrastructure that we have to put in place to meet those demands.

[4:46:51] Voice 24: So talk about reliability, meeting the growing demand, meeting the expectation of residents.

[4:46:56] Voice 24: They have a right to expect reliable power, and we want to make sure we're able to deliver that.

[4:47:01] Voice 24: just a quick one one of the biggest projects we're working on now is

[4:47:06] Voice 24: just redoing a distribution line that connects salt spring to pender realigning that and if you

[4:47:13] Voice 24: haven't been in contact someone will be in contact with you i know with regards to that work and a

[4:47:17] Voice 24: new line from salt spring to pender to improve reliability along the circle route that was in

[4:47:23] Voice 24: the last 15 20 years that was developed to ensure there's reliable service if there's something you

[4:47:28] Voice 24: would like to include that i should include the presentation or if you ever have any questions

[4:47:32] Voice 24: um again it left my business card with russ i think you can look up ted bc hydro and online and

[4:47:38] Voice 24: my name comes up so don't hesitate to give me a shout for any issues at any time so thank you

[4:47:43] Voice 24: very much thank you very much sir

[4:47:45] Voice 26: thanks for coming and we'll see you on salt spring okay

[4:47:49] Voice 26: Okay. The next speaker online is

[4:47:51] Voice 30: Dan

[4:47:53] Voice 26: Rogers. Is that right?

[4:47:57] Voice 38: Okay. Well, Dan, online there.

[4:48:00] Voice 38: Can you hear me?

[4:48:02] Voice 38: Yes.

[4:48:03] Voice 38: Okay. Again, my camera doesn't seem to be on, but that's okay. Some of you probably are okay with not having to see me.

[4:48:11] Voice 38: Anyway, nice to see you all. I just wanted to say two things very briefly.

[4:48:15] Voice 38: one thank you for your thoughtful discussions this morning I was quite I was following the

[4:48:22] Voice 38: the budget discussion this morning and found many of the comments and and the decision making to be

[4:48:29] Voice 38: very thoughtful and and I appreciate all the hard work of the trustees and the financial planning

[4:48:35] Voice 38: committee in doing that could I make just one further comment however particularly I know it's

[4:48:41] Voice 38: always challenging having done it many myself many times uh setting the the agenda and where to have

[4:48:48] Voice 38: a public comment period uh i would say particularly in the absence of a any kind of a public discussion

[4:48:55] Voice 38: regarding the budget it would be uh quite uh it would be a useful exercise to have the public

[4:49:01] Voice 38: comment period related to the budget and the budget discussions prior to your discussions

[4:49:06] Voice 38: related to the budget it's it I know you haven't finished yet and there are still

[4:49:13] Voice 38: some decisions to be made however I would think that the planning would be I

[4:49:18] Voice 38: would suggest the planning would probably more appropriate if those just

[4:49:22] Voice 38: the commentary from the public could occur prior to the the trustees

[4:49:26] Voice 38: decisions having said that good luck with the rest of your deliberations over

[4:49:31] Voice 38: the budget and as always good luck in putting the budget together for tomorrow morning to the

[4:49:37] Voice 38: director and thank you again for all your work thank you dan um

[4:49:43] Voice 26: next speaker in the room is

[4:49:45] Voice 26: are we nobody else wishing to speak here today okay so let's go to the last person online thank

[4:50:00] Voice 26: you good afternoon michael you have the floor uh

[4:50:11] Voice 2: am am i the michael you're referring to michael

[4:50:15] Voice 2: sketch because i didn't put up my hand but that's for you ah well i um hadn't intended to speak um

[4:50:23] Voice 2: but i and i didn't raise my hand but nonetheless thank you for the opportunity um my overarching

[4:50:30] Voice 2: thought as i watch the proceedings of trust council is that we are in a a very scarce

[4:50:39] Voice 2: opportunity to sit down and take a careful look at governance and the trust policy statement.

[4:50:47] Voice 2: We have a governance committee, we have a trust programs committee, and we have

[4:50:51] Voice 2: a senior policy analyst working hard. But I just wonder whether a trust council itself

[4:51:00] Voice 2: is prepared to question the tenets of our present governance as of 1993.

[4:51:09] Voice 2: When a trust policy statement was written, which delegates the decisions of trust area, the policies addressed at the trust area to the local trust committee for implementation or not, as the local trust committee sees fit.

[4:51:28] Voice 2: And then for trust counsel to ask, is this the most reasonable way of implementing the trust object, which is the requirement of all decision makers and, in fact, staff advice?

[4:51:44] Voice 2: I don't think it is the most reasonable.

[4:51:47] Voice 2: The trust policies, trust area policies, should remain with council, with the upper federation

[4:51:57] Voice 2: level of the Islands Trust.

[4:52:00] Voice 2: Those two failures, the failure to implement a federation and the failure of the trust

[4:52:07] Voice 2: policy statement to give policies binding upon the entire trust area really need a careful

[4:52:18] Voice 2: assessment are they the most reasonable way for council to implement the islands trust act and i

[4:52:26] Voice 2: leave that with you i've given my own answers in submissions but i don't hear any discussion of it

[4:52:33] Voice 2: Thank you.

[4:52:34] Voice 26: Thank you very much, Michael.

[4:52:38] Voice 26: I'm going to now go to the delegation.

[4:52:42] Voice 26: Ian Peace has joined us.

[4:52:44] Voice 26: And so if you take the microphone and we'll turn it over to you.

[4:52:49] Voice 26: And I'll just ask you to be respectful of the space you're in and the people that you're with and your friends and families online.

[4:52:54] Voice 26: And speak to the issues, not about individuals.

[4:52:57] Voice 26: And so over to you, sir.

[4:52:59] Voice 26: And you have 10 minutes as your allocated time.

[4:53:03] Voice 26: uh red button on the bottom right hand side of the little pod there

[4:53:12] Voice 35: you go thank you chair luckham

[4:53:15] Voice 35: uh that's

[4:53:15] Voice 26: daphne i'm here on behalf

[4:53:17] Voice 35: of the gulf islands alliance and the gulf islands alliance

[4:53:20] Voice 35: mission is to support the islands trust council implement the object we recognize that natural

[4:53:28] Voice 35: systems govern societies civilizations communities and economies not the other way around

[4:53:37] Voice 35: That is that all the things that we depend on

[4:53:39] Voice 35: come first from natural systems.

[4:53:43] Voice 35: So the Gulf Islands Alliance acknowledges and appreciates

[4:53:47] Voice 35: Trust Council's January 18th, 2024 publication

[4:53:52] Voice 35: that states unanimous support for the island's trust object.

[4:53:56] Voice 35: And we also appreciate the clarity expressed

[4:53:59] Voice 35: by the use of old typeface.

[4:54:02] Voice 35: That is, Trust Council reached consensus

[4:54:05] Voice 35: on the island's trust object

[4:54:08] Voice 35: only after the consensus statement there are three paragraphs of largely amorphous guidance

[4:54:14] Voice 35: and concepts about how trust council plans to determine decisions and these last three

[4:54:20] Voice 35: paragraphs should not be part of the islands trust council statement on the scope and meaning of

[4:54:26] Voice 35: section 3 of the islands trust act had trust council debated the meaning and implementation

[4:54:33] Voice 35: of the object in public, then their decisions about how housing is a unique amenity and that

[4:54:41] Voice 35: communities must be preserved and protected would carry more weight. In other words,

[4:54:47] Voice 35: if trustees believe they should more or less reverse the meaning of the preserve and protect

[4:54:52] Voice 35: object, then the motion, their debate, and who voted for what should be on the record.

[4:55:00] Voice 35: This requirement for transparency aligns with trust principles, quote,

[4:55:06] Voice 35: a guiding principle of the Islands Trust is that open, consultative, public participation is vital to effective decision-making for the trust area, unquote.

[4:55:18] Voice 35: In the meantime,

[4:55:19] Voice 35: existing documents describe what a unique amenity is with relative clarity.

[4:55:25] Voice 35: For example, the 1986 government of BC and Islands Trust Council agreed,

[4:55:31] Voice 35: On 12 examples of what unique amenities and environment are, notably previous trustees

[4:55:37] Voice 35: consider unique amenities and environment together.

[4:55:42] Voice 35: Now, here's a few examples that illustrate the meaning.

[4:55:46] Voice 35: Almost a continuous tree cover and large undeveloped areas, solitude, scenic beauty, and a clean

[4:55:53] Voice 35: environment, compact marine-oriented settlements, a unique water supply situation, i.e.

[4:56:02] Voice 35: small watersheds shallow soils and heavy reliance on groundwater sources islands trust council and

[4:56:09] Voice 35: the bc government further agreed defining the income defining the unique amenities and

[4:56:14] Voice 35: environment of the trust area is the focus of the trust's program special areas such as the

[4:56:19] Voice 35: most outstanding beaches the most significant landscapes featuring unusual grassland and wild

[4:56:25] Voice 35: wildflower areas or attractive open stands of Gary Oak, Arbutus, or Douglas Fir, and intertidal

[4:56:32] Voice 35: and subtidal zones, especially rich in a variety of marine life, may be of national or provincial

[4:56:37] Voice 35: importance and may require special attention, perhaps through preservation as a park or

[4:56:43] Voice 35: ecological reserve. Areas such as smaller, attractive sand beaches, promontories providing

[4:56:49] Voice 35: providing superior views and major bays, providing protection for boats from open water are of

[4:56:56] Voice 35: regional or local significance and may warrant special zoning or regulation to avoid loss or

[4:57:03] Voice 35: disturbance. Residential, commercial, or tourism development appropriate to the services and

[4:57:10] Voice 35: lifestyle of the islands can in this way be steered to the most suitable areas. A benefit

[4:57:18] Voice 35: The benefit must be sustained and long-term

[4:57:21] Voice 35: and must not be at the expense of the amenities

[4:57:24] Voice 35: or environment of the islands, unquote.

[4:57:29] Voice 35: The above quotes from the seven page position paper

[4:57:32] Voice 35: and the position paper itself serve as an exemplar

[4:57:35] Voice 35: of guidance about how trustees should fulfill

[4:57:38] Voice 35: and implement the trust object.

[4:57:41] Voice 35: Trustees and the public deserve this caliber of guidance

[4:57:45] Voice 35: when determining land use outcomes.

[4:57:48] Voice 35: The idea that a few paragraphs of text divined from a secret meeting could take precedence over 40 years of open governance is a non-starter.

[4:57:57] Voice 35: Shortly after Richard Nixon founded the United States Environmental Protection Agency, Canada, in 1971, became the second country in the world to establish a formal Department of the Environment.

[4:58:11] Voice 35: Three years later, the B.C. government passed the Islands Trust Act, which included the mandate to preserve and protect the Gulf south of Campbell River.

[4:58:24] Voice 35: In the early days of governmental action to protect the environment from degradation, politicians and the public understood the concept of environmental protection.

[4:58:36] Voice 35: And I think we can all agree that protecting the environment is easier said than done.

[4:58:41] Voice 35: To quote Justina Ray's article, The Biodiversity Crisis in Canada, negative biodiversity trends are evident in Canada, in spite of its ecological and economic wealth and high governance capacity.

[4:59:01] Voice 35: In 2019, a United Nations panel reported on the condition of biodiversity, which is the

[4:59:10] Voice 35: variety of life on Earth at all levels from genes to ecosystems.

[4:59:15] Voice 35: According to the assessment, the overall trends as they relate to the health and functioning

[4:59:23] Voice 35: of species and ecosystems and the Earth's support systems are overwhelmingly negative

[4:59:30] Voice 35: and permeate the world everywhere.

[4:59:33] Voice 35: These deteriorating trends have been accelerating and intensifying since about the 1970s at a remarkable pace and rate of change relative to the last 10 million years and are projected to continue or worsen into the future under business as usual scenarios.

[4:59:56] Voice 35: Again.

[5:00:01] Voice 35: Negative biodiversity trends are evident in Canada in spite of its ecological and economic wealth and high governance capacity.

[5:00:14] Voice 35: The Islands Trust Act provides trustees with a powerful tool to focus on preserving and protecting unique amenities within the trust area, which is the object.

[5:00:24] Voice 35: The object aligns with our reality that natural systems govern societies, civilization, communities, and economies, not the other way around.

[5:00:37] Voice 35: The Gulf Islands Alliance urges Trust Council to leave aside efforts to dilute the meaning of the object.

[5:00:43] Voice 35: Instead, Gaia urges Trust Council to implement the trust object to preserve and protect.

[5:00:51] Voice 35: Thank you.

[5:00:52] Voice 35: Thank

[5:00:53] Voice 26: you for joining us, Ian, and for your message. Appreciate it. Thank you.

[5:01:01] Voice 26: All right. I'm just going to go back to the public comment period for a moment here.

[5:01:11] Voice 26: Jen from Margerson, I note that your hand is up again. You have spoken. I think that maybe you

[5:01:18] Voice 26: didn't drop it oh actually there we go okay so thank you um let us uh then now return to our

[5:01:27] Voice 26: agenda and um our council as i indicated earlier we've got quite a bit of work ahead of us remaining

[5:01:34] Voice 26: in the budget that we need to conclude today i'm not going to talk any longer now we had some work

[5:01:40] Voice 26: happening over the break associated with a motion from trustee Boland and maybe

[5:01:48] Voice 26: David you get you to help me out I think we had a motion on the table moved and

[5:01:53] Voice 26: seconded at this point there was some reconsideration of what that motion

[5:01:58] Voice 26: would be and this juncture can we withdraw that motion and start afresh

[5:02:07] Voice 26: with the new motion i think that we've come to realize that we can do that

[5:02:11] Voice 28: right

[5:02:12] Voice 26: so general

[5:02:14] Voice 26: consent then i'll look around the room and online are there any objections to and from the mover and

[5:02:21] Voice 26: seconder that that original motion although it's owned by council so are there any objections to

[5:02:26] Voice 26: withdrawing the earlier motion in order to make room for a new uh motion and that motion the new

[5:02:34] Voice 26: motions up on the table on the screen at the moment. Are there any objections to withdrawing

[5:02:38] Voice 26: the motion? I'm not seeing any. So then I'm going to return to Trustee Boland and ask you to make

[5:02:47] Voice 26: your new motion.

[5:02:50] Voice 33: Yeah, in fact, the motion that was up before lunch wasn't seconded. So I think

[5:02:56] Voice 33: that's fine. So I spoke with Claire and took some advice and I removed the constriction of it being

[5:03:04] Voice 33: for one year and it is a temporary staff position which is more suitable for the work that's needed

[5:03:11] Voice 33: um i'm sorry i sent uh i sent an edited version of this and it was acknowledged by removing the

[5:03:21] Voice 33: one year from it all

[5:03:24] Voice 26: right so let's remove that and of course you can speak motion as you see

[5:03:28] Voice 33: Okay. So, so basically, in my, in my view, this is inextricably linked with going to the province. And I think we should keep this position as temporary until that discussion is held with the province. And I would want that to happen, like urgently, there's no reason to delay, we have plenty of material created to inform that discussion.

[5:03:55] Voice 33: And, you know, the province is familiar with the Islands Trust work, Islands Trust Conservancy

[5:04:02] Voice 33: work and plans.

[5:04:04] Voice 33: So it makes sense that we should do that.

[5:04:09] Voice 33: So I'll read this.

[5:04:10] Voice 33: I move that Trust Council remove the Islands Trust, sorry, go ahead.

[5:04:16] Voice 33: Are you speaking, Peter?

[5:04:18] Voice 26: Yeah, for quite a bit.

[5:04:20] Voice 26: Sorry,

[5:04:21] Voice 33: I can't hear you because I'm online, so it's not that straightforward.

[5:04:24] Voice 33: forward apologies okay

[5:04:26] Voice 26: um i thank you um so just before you make the motion um i just want to

[5:04:34] Voice 26: understand here because i don't want us to reconsider a previous motion and so i'm looking

[5:04:40] Voice 26: to david and the staff here david particularly the council removed the onshares conservancy

[5:04:45] Voice 26: protected areas manager strikes me as reconsidering the motion that was made earlier

[5:04:50] Voice 26: It strikes me that what would be more appropriate, and I don't disagree with the motion that's on the table, that Trust Council provide for the protected areas, manage a staff position to be a temporary, like to spell that out rather than change the intent of the original motion.

[5:05:11] Voice 26: David, what do you think there?

[5:05:13] Voice 26: Yeah,

[5:05:14] Voice 28: no, I'd agree that the Trust Council debated and decided to continue with the position.

[5:05:21] Voice 28: I think this is just reminding that to a temporary position.

[5:05:24] Voice 28: So I think

[5:05:25] Voice 28: we should have that discussion.

[5:05:27] Voice 26: So could we just simply remove that first reference to the manager position and change that to that the position be a temporary position?

[5:05:40] Voice 33: I'm trying to avoid the fact that the Alice Trust Conservancy might end up with two positions

[5:05:45] Voice 33: if we're not careful. What about do replace instead of remove? How about that? Would that

[5:05:52] Voice 33: work?

[5:05:52] Voice 26: That works for me. Thank you.

[5:05:57] Voice 33: And then it would be with a temporary staff position at the end. No, sorry, replace and

[5:06:04] Voice 33: then move on to the comma and instead at the end of the line?

[5:06:08] Voice 33: yes and

[5:06:12] Voice 33: it would be with a temporary staff position yeah

[5:06:16] Voice 26: so delete the words and include a

[5:06:18] Voice 26: or and include yeah

[5:06:21] Voice 33: excellent

[5:06:23] Voice 26: thank you for working with me trustee boland so please make

[5:06:26] Voice 33: okay so i move that trust council replace the islands trust conservancy protected areas manager

[5:06:34] Voice 33: staff position with a temporary staff position for the islands trust conservancy in the draft

[5:06:40] Voice 33: 20, 24, 25 budget.

[5:06:43] Voice 26: Perfect. Do I have a second

[5:06:44] Voice 26: motion? Trustee

[5:06:46] Voice 26: Morrison.

[5:06:49] Voice 33: All

[5:06:51] Voice 26: right. Trustee Morrison

[5:06:52] Voice 26: seconded. So who wants to speak to your motion?

[5:06:56] Voice 33: I think

[5:06:57] Voice 33: I've spoken enough, and I

[5:06:59] Voice 33: have taken advice, and I

[5:07:01] Voice 33: accept that

[5:07:03] Voice 33: the position is

[5:07:05] Voice 33: probably needed,

[5:07:07] Voice 33: but I would argue that it should

[5:07:09] Voice 33: be temporary. Thank you.

[5:07:10] Voice 26: Thank you. Now, are there speakers

[5:07:13] Voice 26: on the motion trustee peterson is first and you've got all kinds of hands going oh

[5:07:18] Voice 31: thank you chair

[5:07:19] Voice 31: and um some more of a question uh i understand where the mover is coming from and and and i

[5:07:27] Voice 31: appreciate that but i would um just want to check back in with the director freighter

[5:07:32] Voice 31: i think that i heard um the director earlier state that uh recruiting for temporary positions

[5:07:41] Voice 31: is it can be problematic and and then the other question would be I think also

[5:07:51] Voice 31: what I heard is that this the protected area manager position is is one that is

[5:07:59] Voice 31: the need for that is not temporary and so I just like to sort of get clarity if

[5:08:07] Voice 31: if I heard those things correctly, because I think if we're going to need the position

[5:08:13] Voice 31: a long term, and that by making it temporary, it impedes the ability to recruit and perhaps

[5:08:22] Voice 31: find the best candidate, then I might be against the motion.

[5:08:28] Voice 31: Okay.

[5:08:28] Voice 31: Director Frager.

[5:08:31] Voice 20: Yes, when we're recruiting for temporary positions, obviously we limit the pool of

[5:08:35] Voice 20: candidates that's interested in that role.

[5:08:38] Voice 20: So you generally get a broader pool of candidates when you're able to offer a permanent position.

[5:08:42] Voice 20: With relating, that was one part of your question.

[5:08:46] Voice 20: I'm afraid, sorry, I lost the second.

[5:08:49] Voice 31: Yeah, that was, is the position going to be needed on an ongoing basis?

[5:08:56] Voice 20: Yes, so I think this is the crux of the issue for Trust Council.

[5:08:59] Voice 20: To what extent, you know, do you want to support the Conservancy continuing to acquire properties and to manage to the current standard?

[5:09:07] Voice 20: I think that's the decision before you. Funding it temporarily just means that same question comes back to your table at a future meeting. So I think that is the question of the hour. What I would also note, while I have the floor here with this question, is the notion of temporary. Temporary until when? What would I put on a job posting?

[5:09:23] Voice 20: As I understand from Trustee Boland, she is hoping that it's temporary until such time

[5:09:28] Voice 20: as this body has asked the province to fund the Conservancy and they've received an answer,

[5:09:34] Voice 20: but there's no such ask at this time, so it'd be difficult for me to post it with this guidance

[5:09:41] Voice 20: right now.

[5:09:43] Voice 31: Okay.

[5:09:43] Voice 31: Thank you for the clarity, and based on that, I'm not in support of the motion.

[5:09:52] Voice 31: Trustee Elliott.

[5:09:53] Voice 26: Thank you.

[5:09:56] Voice 23: To be brief, I'm not in support of the motion. It's not going to solve the problem. It will just create more work for the manager. It's a temporary position that has to be trained. The person will probably be in position, I think, in August, I was told. It's just not going to solve the problem.

[5:10:12] Voice 23: so if council wants to give direction that we can no longer accept protected

[5:10:19] Voice 23: areas because we don't have the capacity to manage them perhaps starting this

[5:10:24] Voice 23: year we need to make that decision with this kind of motion this does not solve

[5:10:29] Voice 23: the problem so I don't support the motion thank you

[5:10:33] Voice 26: trustee morrison no next speaker uh getty trustee

[5:10:37] Voice 27: getty no okay trustee stanford trustee stanford

[5:10:44] Voice 19: i will not be supporting this motion uh we keep going back to the island's press conservancy

[5:10:53] Voice 19: um asking to um i hate to use the word nickel and dime their strategy in order to move ahead

[5:11:01] Voice 19: head as an organization um we yesterday in our strategy strategy session islands trust

[5:11:09] Voice 19: conservancy in order to advance our priorities was put above the line it is a priority it

[5:11:16] Voice 19: helps us advance our mandate and it does it well and the public is very um supportive of it

[5:11:26] Voice 19: this what we're doing is trying to hollow out one of our our star programs we need to be able

[5:11:35] Voice 19: to support it and support it strategically so this is just something we just keep going back

[5:11:43] Voice 19: to the same thing finally if we do do an ask it's not something that's going to happen quickly

[5:11:49] Voice 19: and then the answer we get may not be what we want to hear it is a way forward but it isn't

[5:11:56] Voice 19: necessarily a guarantee thank

[5:11:58] Voice 26: you thanks now trustee morrison thank

[5:12:02] Voice 3: you for your thank you

[5:12:03] Voice 3: for the thoughts shared so far so this is a difficult issue for me i'm i'm really fiscally

[5:12:09] Voice 3: conservative um and the issue that we're having is not about conservancy this is actually i think

[5:12:15] Voice 3: not a specific question here is about the conservancy but frankly the tension we're

[5:12:21] Voice 3: having is not about the conservancy it's about our budget overall and so and about how we're

[5:12:28] Voice 3: asking our local taxpayers to pay to pay that budget for things that are for the benefit of

[5:12:33] Voice 3: british columbia so um i i'm struggling with whether i think the temporary thing pressures

[5:12:40] Voice 3: us all to get our house in order in a more timely fashion in a way to deal with our governance

[5:12:45] Voice 3: issues to deal with our other things without hobbling the amazing

[5:12:49] Voice 3: work that the Conservancy does. And so I am

[5:12:52] Voice 3: really struggling. If somebody can help me figure out how to say yes

[5:12:57] Voice 3: to this motion, or no or yes or whatever you think, that would be great

[5:13:01] Voice 3: because I am struggling on what to do here.

[5:13:03] Voice 3: Yeah,

[5:13:05] Voice 27: I

[5:13:08] Voice 6: want to speak. I think I

[5:13:10] Voice 6: would not support this motion, but I want to qualify that slightly.

[5:13:14] Voice 6: lately. It seems pretty clear to me that this is a position that we all broadly agree is

[5:13:22] Voice 6: beneficial and needed. We recognize that there's a challenge in onboarding temporary staff

[5:13:28] Voice 6: on a temporary basis. Ideally, if we can get someone into this position, we want to keep

[5:13:33] Voice 6: them and we want to have an alternate way of funding that position in the future. But

[5:13:38] Voice 6: But onboarding that person as a temporary hire is only going to impact our ability to get them into the position in the first place.

[5:13:46] Voice 6: How we choose to fund that next year could be pursuant to an ask from the province to assist with that funding that could come further down the line, if I understand correctly.

[5:13:56] Voice 6: But in order to get that person into that position, it's better to set them up to succeed from the very beginning, and then subsequently look for ways to fund that that might be different. I really completely understand where Trustee Boland is coming with this, and I share that concern. I'm concerned about adding staff, you know, the staff costs, you know, to our budget. That is an issue.

[5:14:22] Voice 6: But if this is something that we recognize broadly is valuable, we can answer that question of how it gets funded for next year in the intervening year.

[5:14:34] Voice 6: We don't need to hobble that ability to get that person in the position in the meantime.

[5:14:40] Voice 26: Thank you. Any other speakers?

[5:14:42] Voice 26: Trustee Harris, online.

[5:14:46] Voice 8: Thank you.

[5:14:49] Voice 8: I'm in support of this motion.

[5:14:51] Voice 8: and I'm still not sure what the Island Trust Conservancy role is

[5:14:55] Voice 8: or why it's presented as part of the Island's Trust.

[5:14:58] Voice 8: That hasn't changed for me.

[5:15:00] Voice 8: It seems the Conservancy largely operates as its own entity,

[5:15:07] Voice 8: and I'll look forward to more conversations about the Island's Trust Conservancy in the future.

[5:15:12] Voice 8: Thank you.

[5:15:15] Voice 25: Trustee Graham, last speaker.

[5:15:17] Voice 25: Thank you.

[5:15:17] Voice 25: you. Having the province pay for the work of the Islands Trust Conservancy is a brilliant idea,

[5:15:24] Voice 25: but I do rely on the very complete business cases, and this was considered an alternate,

[5:15:30] Voice 25: and I'll just read the last paragraph of risk. This approach does address research and policy

[5:15:37] Voice 25: analysis for property management, but not oversight of the components. The approach

[5:15:42] Voice 25: doesn't solve the issue of the IPC manager having too many direct reports I

[5:15:47] Voice 25: will be voting against the motion all

[5:15:50] Voice 26: right I'm going to go to the vote then

[5:15:55] Voice 26: I'm going to call for the vote all those in favor of the motion on the screen to

[5:16:01] Voice 26: make this a temporary staff position those in favor and online so that's four

[5:16:13] Voice 26: in favor so I'm going to ask for those opposed please raise your hand 14 in

[5:16:29] Voice 26: favor so or opposed and so that fails and so thank you very much for the effort there trustee boland

[5:16:36] Voice 26: and let us continue on with our agenda if you don't mind council we got 13 remaining minutes

[5:16:42] Voice 26: before the end of this session uh where we need to go to that session so i want to go with one

[5:16:48] Voice 26: more motion that's uh on our list here and then we are going to pick up after the session and we're

[5:16:54] Voice 26: going to work until we've got a budget ready for julia to take away so trustee morrison your motion

[5:17:01] Voice 26: all

[5:17:02] Voice 3: right i move that trust council removed thirty thousand dollars from the budget for

[5:17:05] Voice 3: the housing strategy and housing options toolkit project by the regional planning committee okay

[5:17:10] Voice 26: do i have a second there for that motion trustee campbell thank you so that's moved and seconded

[5:17:17] Voice 26: trustee morrison over to you to speak to it

[5:17:19] Voice 3: thank you um we added a lot to our budget today like we

[5:17:24] Voice 3: We added back various pieces, and I looked through the business cases.

[5:17:28] Voice 3: I felt good about what we added back.

[5:17:31] Voice 3: I have had a number of conversations on the side.

[5:17:35] Voice 3: I've had it read through this.

[5:17:37] Voice 3: I cannot justify this.

[5:17:39] Voice 3: I just can't understand what this money is specifically for that is not already covered by staff time.

[5:17:46] Voice 3: And I heard a number of pieces.

[5:17:49] Voice 3: I need a more substantive business case.

[5:17:52] Voice 3: and i do understand all the things i heard i don't need to hear them again um but that is why i would

[5:17:58] Voice 3: suggest removing this at this point and i would greatly support if you know the regional planning

[5:18:03] Voice 3: committee wants to come back to us with an ask later on to draw from wherever or figure that

[5:18:08] Voice 3: out but i just don't this is too much just a number out of the air thank you

[5:18:12] Voice 26: um thank you

[5:18:15] Voice 26: so speakers on the motion i think trustee patrick so

[5:18:20] Voice 16: you're going to have to hear it again because

[5:18:21] Voice 16: because others didn't get to hear our conversation at lunch.

[5:18:25] Voice 16: I understand, but in December,

[5:18:28] Voice 16: this trust council approved a strategic plan for housing.

[5:18:32] Voice 16: They included a whole phase two

[5:18:34] Voice 16: in the multi-family process.

[5:18:38] Voice 16: We also, in December, within days of our meeting,

[5:18:41] Voice 16: they approved almost a total rewrite

[5:18:44] Voice 16: of the housing legislation in this province.

[5:18:48] Voice 16: So it's been a moving target.

[5:18:50] Voice 16: and having a i know it's a parking lot number but this gives us a chance to to respond and be

[5:18:58] Voice 16: active and help our communities who desperately need it just two days ago most of our islands

[5:19:06] Voice 16: received news of did they get bc housing funding for their multi-family housing projects i heard

[5:19:12] Voice 16: Bowen did, but

[5:19:14] Voice 16: Main Island didn't,

[5:19:17] Voice 16: Galeano didn't,

[5:19:18] Voice 16: Salt Spring didn't. They all got, nope, sorry,

[5:19:20] Voice 16: no funding. So

[5:19:22] Voice 16: these organizations struggle, and these are

[5:19:24] Voice 16: things that we can do to help. We don't know

[5:19:26] Voice 16: in particular what we're going

[5:19:28] Voice 16: to do until we have budget

[5:19:30] Voice 16: to work with it and sit down as a committee

[5:19:32] Voice 16: to figure out what to do, but this is so

[5:19:34] Voice 16: important to our communities.

[5:19:40] Voice 17: Thank you. I appreciate your

[5:19:42] Voice 17: talking to this.

[5:19:45] Voice 17: I'm going to vote in favor of

[5:19:47] Voice 17: of this. In the business plan, I don't see anything broken out as to how that money is

[5:19:53] Voice 17: going to be used. Right now, it's a bucket amount. We need areas to cut. If you had something

[5:20:00] Voice 17: specific that you already had plans to do, such as a roundtable that you discussed, I don't know

[5:20:08] Voice 17: how long it would take to organize a roundtable with various government agencies, but I don't

[5:20:12] Voice 17: think it's swift. That's my opinion. I have no basis for it. But the business case for this

[5:20:23] Voice 17: money is light. The money request is, at this point, one of the higher items that we've been

[5:20:30] Voice 17: discussing here today. And like Trustee Morrison said, if a need comes up during the course of

[5:20:37] Voice 17: this fiscal year then we can look to draw from surplus to offset that because right now it's not

[5:20:44] Voice 17: in the business case what this money is going to be allocated to it's just a bucket amount to draw

[5:20:49] Voice 17: from as needed this is a nice to use not an imperative already identified item and as such

[5:20:57] Voice 17: i can't support it so i i will vote in favor of the motion on the floor trustee

[5:21:05] Voice 26: fast i think i

[5:21:06] Voice 26: I suppose Trustee Borswick as well, Trustee Fath.

[5:21:09] Voice 18: Thank you, and I'm going to be speaking

[5:21:12] Voice 18: not as a community that contributes to this budget item,

[5:21:17] Voice 18: but as your compatriot in the Federation,

[5:21:21] Voice 18: Owen Island Municipality,

[5:21:25] Voice 18: we see this as a fast emerging issue.

[5:21:29] Voice 18: The announcement was just made about housing.

[5:21:31] Voice 18: The federal government's making announcements too.

[5:21:34] Voice 18: it's come upon us very quickly since christmas there hasn't been time to do detailed preparation

[5:21:42] Voice 18: because the situation is still in flux i think it's still changing i wouldn't be surprised if

[5:21:48] Voice 18: bowen's situation changes as well i think it's a one in 30 years or 50 year opportunity

[5:21:58] Voice 18: opportunity to make headway. I'm seeing waving. Are you waving at me? I think it's urgent that

[5:22:11] Voice 18: money be set aside for the Islands Trust to take advantage of this in something that we've

[5:22:17] Voice 18: identified together as a housing crisis situation. The environment is changing around us in terms of

[5:22:25] Voice 18: of legislation and funding.

[5:22:27] Voice 18: And I would urge trustees, all of us in the Federation,

[5:22:33] Voice 18: to put some resources aside to be spent

[5:22:40] Voice 18: on addressing this opportunities that are just opening up.

[5:22:45] Voice 18: They're kind of in bud before us.

[5:22:47] Voice 18: How can we tell exactly how they will be spent?

[5:22:50] Voice 18: If it's not spent, it'll go into surplus.

[5:22:52] Voice 18: plus and i think it's better um for our federation and for our housing crisis to

[5:22:58] Voice 18: uh set some resources in place um now thank you so i'll be moving um i won't be supporting this oh

[5:23:08] Voice 18: no i won't be supporting this motion thank you

[5:23:11] Voice 7: yeah trustee campbell um i'm gonna i would be

[5:23:17] Voice 7: in support of this um i think one of the things that we have heard locally for ourselves and then

[5:23:23] Voice 7: And that we are hearing here on the larger scale is that people want to know why we're making the decisions that we're making and what we're spending their money on.

[5:23:34] Voice 7: And to vote to include something where I can't tell them what that spend is for, I can't do.

[5:23:45] Voice 7: Trustee Borswick?

[5:23:50] Voice 6: So I am going to speak in support of the motion.

[5:23:53] Voice 6: And I want to speak a little to the rationale here.

[5:23:56] Voice 6: here. So I have had the privilege of, I'm on the Regional Planning Committee. We have

[5:24:02] Voice 6: a housing project happening on Denman. The housing toolkit has been an integral part

[5:24:06] Voice 6: of this. And I've had the privilege of working with Director Cermak and with Planner Chadwick

[5:24:11] Voice 6: on this. And I don't want to undersell their contributions and work on this. That being

[5:24:20] Voice 6: said, I think we may be in danger of conflating housing as an issue and a priority with the

[5:24:25] Voice 6: housing toolkit entirely and i think it's uh and and director may want to correct me on this but

[5:24:34] Voice 6: this is not going to stop the development of this tool altogether um there is funding within the

[5:24:41] Voice 6: housing projects which supports the development of this tool is being implemented it is certainly

[5:24:45] Voice 6: going to slow it down it's certainly going to impair it i think that's really unfortunate

[5:24:51] Voice 6: it's deeply frustrating and I also recognize that this tool is not in and of itself a panacea for

[5:24:57] Voice 6: the housing problem there's that's going to be a lot of hard work and we do have a finite budget

[5:25:03] Voice 6: and with loose definitions that's tricky now that said I want to be supporting this we have

[5:25:12] Voice 6: a housing project on them and that's very near and dear to my heart this tool by in in and of

[5:25:18] Voice 6: itself and this funding in and of itself is not going to build houses directly it's part of us

[5:25:23] Voice 6: developing our methodology that method that plan that development of the methodology is not going

[5:25:28] Voice 6: to stop from from this funding thing i it will slow it down and that that's hard um but i want

[5:25:35] Voice 6: to not invite that conflation unduly um thank you first speakers gabriel

[5:25:41] Voice 27: trustee gabriel i will be

[5:25:46] Voice 21: we will not be voting in favor of this motion.

[5:25:50] Voice 21: The housing options toolkit is a tab

[5:25:52] Voice 21: that is always open on my computer

[5:25:54] Voice 21: and it's discussed quite a bit at my meetings.

[5:25:57] Voice 21: Town hall a couple of weeks ago

[5:25:59] Voice 21: turned into a beautiful discussion

[5:26:01] Voice 21: where community members were like,

[5:26:03] Voice 21: what can we do around housing?

[5:26:05] Voice 21: Like, well, take a look at the housing toolkit.

[5:26:07] Voice 21: I think cutting the budget in this area,

[5:26:11] Voice 21: whereas if it is not used and there is surplus,

[5:26:14] Voice 21: sorry, it'll go into surplus later.

[5:26:16] Voice 21: so the money will stay there.

[5:26:18] Voice 21: While it's not specifically earmarked for anything,

[5:26:21] Voice 21: I can't wait to see what it does,

[5:26:23] Voice 21: as I think it'll be great benefit.

[5:26:25] Voice 21: That is the intention of this money.

[5:26:27] Voice 21: I have no doubt we'll see some good things.

[5:26:35] Voice 26: Briefly, Director Cermak.

[5:26:39] Voice 11: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[5:26:41] Voice 11: You know, for those of you interested,

[5:26:42] Voice 11: I'm sorry that you don't have this information

[5:26:44] Voice 11: in front of you.

[5:26:45] Voice 11: On page 63 of the Regional Planning Committee

[5:26:47] Voice 11: has an implementation plan itemizing a lot of things

[5:26:51] Voice 11: that are proposed for the next fiscal

[5:26:52] Voice 11: and how does things they want to accomplish,

[5:26:55] Voice 11: this funding would accomplish some of those things.

[5:26:58] Voice 11: The key funding sources that jump out to me anyways

[5:27:02] Voice 11: is the hosting of a regional, oh my God,

[5:27:07] Voice 11: regional round table, elected officials and whomever.

[5:27:10] Voice 11: This has been the wish of council since before you got here.

[5:27:13] Voice 11: It was an outstanding issue.

[5:27:14] Voice 11: That will not happen without this funding.

[5:27:17] Voice 11: There's also science layers that would go into the database

[5:27:20] Voice 11: database that we that's part of the the housing toolkit that we may not be able to secure those

[5:27:25] Voice 11: funding and those are just the first two things that we would have to drop off staff would continue

[5:27:30] Voice 11: to work without the funding without a doubt but those are the two key things i can think that

[5:27:34] Voice 11: would not happen

[5:27:38] Voice 26: trustee harris and then i we need to decide if we're going to go into the

[5:27:46] Voice 26: session or we're going to vote so trustee harris over to you thank

[5:27:50] Voice 8: you um i will be voting in

[5:27:53] Voice 8: favor of this for the reason being that um when i hear housing strategy and housing options toolkit

[5:28:00] Voice 8: i you know my eyes glaze over we've known on salt spring i'm not sure what other islands are like

[5:28:05] Voice 8: but our workforce housing crisis has been going on for years and years and years we were warned

[5:28:09] Voice 8: over 20 years ago that we better address it now the islands trust will not be building houses

[5:28:13] Voice 8: um but what we can easily do and it's in the purview of our power is to amend our ocps

[5:28:20] Voice 8: to create zoning that will allow for densities higher densities and we can ease up on restrictions

[5:28:28] Voice 8: for adus trailers tiny homes and that kind of that kind of thing so i don't see this money

[5:28:34] Voice 8: as doing any of that i think it's very simple what we need to do and for that reason i will

[5:28:40] Voice 8: be voting in favor of this motion how

[5:28:45] Voice 26: many speakers do we have left we have four speakers

[5:28:50] Voice 26: I don't think I can do you justice and want to do justice to Jan and to join us to do a session today.

[5:28:56] Voice 26: I want to move. I want to recess this conversation and pick it up after Jan has assisted us with her work.

[5:29:04] Voice 26: And so I'm going to leave it to staff to do introductions here, but certainly warmly welcome you to council.

[5:29:11] Voice 26: You've got a taste of our discussions here.

[5:29:36] Voice 30: We just need a minute to set up.

[5:30:04] Voice 20: So, Council, while Jan's getting herself ready here, maybe I'll just take the time to take a moment to introduce her and thank her for coming.

[5:30:11] Voice 20: Jan Enns is coming to us as our facilitator of today's session, and she brings a wealth of experience and expertise in training local governments, and the Islands Trust now, in proper use of communications and social media and working with the media.

[5:30:28] Voice 20: I met Jan about six years ago, and it's been a long-held desire to have someone of her caliber and experience and knowledge.

[5:30:36] Voice 20: And really, she's been in the trenches with so many leaders, helping them learn how to be effective communicators on behalf of the organizations they represent.

[5:30:44] Voice 20: So I'm really thrilled to have her here with us today.

[5:30:47] Voice 20: I think there'll be a lot to learn, and really I'm grateful.

[5:30:50] Voice 20: So with that, we're going to ask Jan to move into this as a training session for council, so you have the opportunity to learn some skills.

[5:30:58] Voice 20: and this is part of your continued orientation as trustees. Ideally we would have got this to

[5:31:03] Voice 20: you earlier in the term but so thrilled to be able to offer it to you now. So with that I welcome Jen

[5:31:08] Voice 20: Innes to us this afternoon and I'll let her take over from here.

[5:31:12] Voice 9: Great thank you Claire and it's an

[5:31:14] Voice 9: honor to be here. We've been talking about communications of course forever. How's my

[5:31:19] Voice 9: volume there? Too much? Okay all right thank you. First off thank you for having me. I'm very

[5:31:25] Voice 9: very grateful to be back. I'm very grateful to be on your traditional territory. I hail from West

[5:31:30] Voice 9: Kelowna, the traditional ancestral and unseated territory of the Okanagan Selks Nation up in West

[5:31:36] Voice 9: Kelowna, where I have a home temporarily. So thank you. Today, we're going to talk about

[5:31:43] Voice 9: communications. We're going to talk a little bit about media, social media. I'm going to get us

[5:31:47] Voice 9: all into that. Now, I did hear your introductions as we went around the room, but I do want to do

[5:31:53] Voice 9: one quick shout out, because I want to know if we could just say, and first off, may I go with

[5:32:01] Voice 9: first names today? Great, thank you. I'm going to get into the agenda, what we're going to talk

[5:32:06] Voice 9: about, and we have a jam-packed day today as well. But what I'd like to do is just for you to tell me

[5:32:13] Voice 9: where you're from. So if you say first name, where you're from, and one word, one word that describes

[5:32:21] Voice 9: what excites you, what's important to you, or what you value or your favorite thing is about your place.

[5:32:30] Voice 9: Now, shall we start with the online folks first?

[5:32:33] Voice 9: I wonder if that's...

[5:32:36] Voice 7: The place that we live?

[5:32:38] Voice 9: Yes, so

[5:32:39] Voice 26: the place, yeah.

[5:32:41] Voice 26: Thinking that we're not actually spending new money, it's old money that's in the budget that we're going to do this.

[5:32:47] Voice 26: There's definitely a motion there that needs to be handled in order to advance that work.

[5:32:54] Voice 26: I'd like to address that.

[5:32:55] Voice 26: And I think that'll give us enough time.

[5:32:57] Voice 26: I pushed dinner out 15 minutes.

[5:33:00] Voice 26: Apologies.

[5:33:01] Voice 26: But that'll give us enough breathing room that you can get some fresh air and relax for a moment before you enjoy the fine dining at the Coast Bastion Hotel here.

[5:33:11] Voice 26: So is that all right with everybody?

[5:33:14] Voice 26: Awesome.

[5:33:15] Voice 26: All right, then.

[5:33:16] Voice 26: so we've got hey look at this it's beautiful the motion uh up on the uh the screen there

[5:33:22] Voice 26: i've got four speakers and i have six now okay maybe a couple are less enthusiastic but let's

[5:33:30] Voice 26: start off with the speaker's list

[5:33:31] Voice 30: trustee elliot

[5:33:32] Voice 26: trustee elliot short

[5:33:35] Voice 23: and sweet we would not have

[5:33:37] Voice 23: the housing options toolkits if we hadn't put thirty thousand dollars into the budget

[5:33:42] Voice 23: last term that was able to hire a, I don't know what you call it, a planning, former staff,

[5:33:50] Voice 23: planning staff person, Jason Yeomans, who was able to put the work into it. And so not having

[5:33:57] Voice 23: any budget for RPC to work with means we might just be spinning our wheels and talking about

[5:34:04] Voice 23: strategy and we can't move anything ahead. There's really significant items. Trust Council approved

[5:34:10] Voice 23: approve this in December. If you look at that agenda, there's a list of probably 80 items

[5:34:16] Voice 23: that we can do, but we can't do anything without funding. Thanks.

[5:34:24] Voice 25: Trustee Graham. Thank you. I'm in favour of the motion. If it's... Oh, hang on. No, I'm not.

[5:34:32] Voice 25: I'm against the motion after I've read it. Particularly, and again, from the business

[5:34:38] Voice 25: proposal here. It reads, the strategy and toolkit require resources to be implemented.

[5:34:44] Voice 25: As most planning staff time allocated, the regional planning team doing regional planning

[5:34:50] Voice 25: is allocated to LTC projects. So they're busy. And if any LTC or if the regional planning committee

[5:34:58] Voice 25: finds a way to put some work into the strategy, we're going to have to hire someone to do that.

[5:35:05] Voice 25: And it seems silly to not finish this, all the work that has preceded it.

[5:35:11] Voice 25: It's a high priority on all the islands, for crying out loud.

[5:35:15] Voice 25: Let's move it forward if we can.

[5:35:18] Voice 25: And I appreciate that putting money back into the budget is difficult always, but I think this is really important.

[5:35:26] Voice 25: Trustee Getty?

[5:35:29] Voice 10: I'm sure I had a great idea, but I can't remember what it was.

[5:35:32] Voice 10: I'll pass.

[5:35:33] Voice 26: Thank you very much.

[5:35:34] Voice 10: Patrick

[5:35:36] Voice 30: no you're you're you're these are all first round people you're second well

[5:35:43] Voice 16: I'm I'm

[5:35:44] Voice 16: I'm second talking but the the regional planning committee supports the planning function of this

[5:35:50] Voice 16: body which was 51 percent of the staff resources and our responsibilities are for promoting

[5:35:58] Voice 16: meaningful public processes to establish long-term community planning perspectives

[5:36:02] Voice 16: perspectives, responding to local trust committee planning needs applicable throughout the trust

[5:36:06] Voice 16: area, advising on the provision and allocation of resources to deliver local planning services

[5:36:11] Voice 16: to the sideline communities. We were above the line for the OCPs and supporting that those be

[5:36:17] Voice 16: updated. And if this goes to zero, we'll have nothing. All the other committees have money for

[5:36:24] Voice 16: this year and we will have zero.

[5:36:30] Voice 27: Trustee Peterson.

[5:36:32] Voice 31: Thank you. Speaking against the motion,

[5:36:34] Voice 31: Looking at the business case, there is in the alternative section, there's the non-fund thing.

[5:36:40] Voice 31: And it says risks, minimal to no resources applied to addressing the housing equity and workforce shortage crisis.

[5:36:49] Voice 31: That is, to me, that's a non-starter.

[5:36:52] Voice 31: That's not an option.

[5:36:54] Voice 31: I recognize that precisely what would be done with this money is not entirely spelled out.

[5:37:00] Voice 31: um however if we if we cut this then precisely what will be done is nothing and i don't think

[5:37:06] Voice 31: that's acceptable justine

[5:37:10] Voice 25: morrison thank

[5:37:11] Voice 3: you um so we're not debating that housing is important

[5:37:15] Voice 3: we're not actually debating that because we have 51 of our allocation for staff is in planning

[5:37:24] Voice 3: department and many of them are working on housing related things that have been identified by

[5:37:30] Voice 3: community. So mine included, just to be clear. Okay. So we're not debating whether housing is

[5:37:38] Voice 3: important. We're debating whether $30,000 in a business case that is ill-defined is something

[5:37:44] Voice 3: that we as elected officials feel comfortable with. We essentially hand over our ability to

[5:37:52] Voice 3: say what is done with that money to regional planning committee, or hopefully they bring it

[5:37:57] Voice 3: it back to us in trust council because we're approving it in the budget for this year without

[5:38:00] Voice 3: knowing what it is okay i am perfectly happy to see that come back to us with a list of specific

[5:38:09] Voice 3: things that regional planning committee wants to have at uh and then we look at that again

[5:38:15] Voice 3: as they develop that um i'm just not comfortable at all with the vagueness in the business plan

[5:38:22] Voice 3: I also don't understand at all why we have, so for instance, we're going to see later on, or it's in the list of things, a North Pender business plan for housing.

[5:38:40] Voice 3: Like we put $15,000 in for our housing.

[5:38:42] Voice 3: It clearly specifies that that is for consultations with First Nations, with community, advertising, and a small contingency fund for like unexpected amounts of things.

[5:38:54] Voice 3: That's clear. I understand what that's for.

[5:38:57] Voice 3: And so my issue here is about process, about transparency, about how we are seen as we pass this budget when we don't have clear, definite items on a business plan.

[5:39:09] Voice 3: It's a problem in communication with our public.

[5:39:16] Voice 30: Trustee Adams.

[5:39:18] Voice 17: Thanks.

[5:39:19] Voice 17: I'm going to raise again that at the December meeting when this got brought forward, we did not have time to discuss or have it, what's the word, not only discussed, but have it explained to us.

[5:39:35] Voice 17: There was zero time.

[5:39:36] Voice 17: We were asked to approve it in principle and that I had requested that it be brought back to have it explained to us at this next meeting, which it hasn't been.

[5:39:48] Voice 17: And here we are now with an allocation of budget with no explanation or understanding of what the housing toolkit accomplishes or what it entails.

[5:40:00] Voice 17: And the people that are sitting on the RPC do understand that the rest of us don't.

[5:40:05] Voice 17: And I think that's where we're having a little bit of a problem.

[5:40:09] Voice 17: So the other part, without it having a clear explanation, what we're asking is that what is a potential here is that we're asking people to to allow the taxes basically to go into to fund surplus, because if it doesn't get used, it's going straight into surplus because there is no defined bucket for it to be used.

[5:40:31] Voice 17: It's not we haven't said it's going to be used for this, that and the other thing.

[5:40:34] Voice 17: it's just here is a bucket that we could potentially use we feel we're going to use it

[5:40:39] Voice 17: but we don't know how or where we're going to use it and if we don't use it we'll just fund surplus

[5:40:46] Voice 17: the next point is we have staff that will still continue to work on this so the monies that are

[5:40:55] Voice 17: being requested are not to fund staff time they are to fund external activities that have not yet

[5:41:01] Voice 17: being defined and i think that's where we're having a little bit of an issue understanding that so

[5:41:08] Voice 17: based on that i would like to propose an amendment that we reduce the 30 000 so that we don't take it

[5:41:16] Voice 17: away in its entirety but we reduce it to 20 000 so that there is still enough money to have a

[5:41:28] Voice 17: a meaningful work, but without it being such a large amount

[5:41:33] Voice 17: that could potentially just be backfilling surplus.

[5:41:38] Voice 17: So I move that the 30,000 be reduced to 20,000.

[5:41:55] Voice 26: So everything before, between budget and before,

[5:41:59] Voice 26: everything between there would be deleted, I'm presuming.

[5:42:04] Voice 26: I'd like to have the motion clearly laid out here.

[5:42:07] Voice 26: Can we get the entire motion as it would be read?

[5:42:11] Voice 17: Okay, so I move that $30,000 be replaced with $20,000.

[5:42:26] Voice 26: So I think what you're saying is reduce the budget from $30,000 to $20,000.

[5:42:32] Voice 30: Yeah.

[5:42:35] Voice 27: So reduce.

[5:42:37] Voice 27: Yeah, thank you.

[5:42:42] Voice 30: Yeah.

[5:42:54] Voice 30: Thank you.

[5:42:58] Voice 26: Trust Council, reduce the budget for the Housing Strategy Housing Options Toolkit.

[5:43:04] Voice 17: From $30,000 to $20,000.

[5:43:06] Voice 26: to $20,000

[5:43:08] Voice 17: project from 20 from 30 to 20,000 point

[5:43:22] Voice 30: of order is

[5:43:24] Voice 17: it

[5:43:26] Voice 30: well no it

[5:43:31] Voice 26: doesn't change

[5:43:35] Voice 26: the intent no necessarily no

[5:43:38] Voice 3: point of order it changes the intent of the motion right

[5:43:46] Voice 27: Right.

[5:43:50] Voice 26: Yep. I agree that this particular wording does indeed change the intent of the motion.

[5:43:57] Voice 17: Okay. Then instead of it being from $30,000 to $20,000, I move that the $30,000 be replaced

[5:44:08] Voice 17: with $10,000. Yes.

[5:44:25] Voice 26: That doesn't change the intent to lower or eliminate the budget for that item, I think.

[5:44:32] Voice 26: and

[5:44:34] Voice 3: so just to be clear my intent is not about the fact that this should or shouldn't go forward

[5:44:39] Voice 3: it's that we should have clarity i

[5:44:41] Voice 26: got it okay um yeah okay so uh you know quite honestly uh

[5:44:50] Voice 26: your options here are to i haven't had that seconded yet uh there's obviously conversation

[5:44:56] Voice 26: you've heard i i'm not agreeing with the mover because it's owned by council now i agree with

[5:45:04] Voice 26: the notion that the intent is a different intent so your options here to vote this down or not

[5:45:10] Voice 26: um and and to come forward with a new resolution that's really where it's at and and indeed you

[5:45:19] Voice 26: can determine whether or not you want to make a new motion so council are you comfortable at

[5:45:27] Voice 26: this juncture with advancing the motion that's on the table i think that we we we completed the

[5:45:35] Voice 26: speaker's list sorry the

[5:45:38] Voice 17: 20 000 speed changed to 10 000 yeah

[5:45:41] Voice 26: um no i i don't think that this

[5:45:45] Voice 26: amendment uh the amendment is changing the intent of the motion because the intent of the motion

[5:45:50] Voice 26: is to not fund this because it's not uh it's nothing to do with the amount it's to do with

[5:45:58] Voice 26: the fact that there's not enough information for us to make a decision and i would lean in that

[5:46:03] Voice 26: that direction um so are there questions yes hasn't been seconded and so at this point uh

[5:46:17] Voice 26: trustee campbell

[5:46:18] Voice 7: question my question was how do we own it if we haven't seconded the motion we

[5:46:23] Voice 7: we

[5:46:24] Voice 26: don't own the amendment we own the first motion which you seconded so we own that one

[5:46:30] Voice 26: nobody has seconded the amendment and i think that's a a good place to be and so we can vote

[5:46:37] Voice 26: on this if it fails then the option exists for somebody to make another

[5:46:43] Voice 26: motion that's up to council all right council are we ready to vote on the

[5:46:49] Voice 26: original motion

[5:46:51] Voice 3: sorry chair Luckum I feel there's been a lot of process

[5:46:53] Voice 3: conversation can I can I just have one sentence to restate the intent of the

[5:46:59] Voice 3: motion please go ahead thank

[5:47:00] Voice 3: you so the intent of the motion or is the my

[5:47:04] Voice 3: my reasoning behind this motion is because we don't have a clear case for why it's not staff

[5:47:12] Voice 3: time that's already doing this work in housing. I don't understand clearly how to support this

[5:47:19] Voice 3: case, this budgetary case. I am happy to see it brought forward at another trust council in June

[5:47:25] Voice 3: with a more robust case, and we can absolutely look at it at that time. It does not have to be

[5:47:31] Voice 3: within this budget cycle we've done that before thank you agreed

[5:47:36] Voice 26: and with all due

[5:47:37] Voice 26: respect that is your point of view absolutely because there are also other

[5:47:42] Voice 26: voices in the room that have are supportive of the business case

[5:47:47] Voice 26: articulating that so I just want to be clear about that so council are you

[5:47:51] Voice 26: ready to vote okay all those in favor of the motion to remove $30,000 from the

[5:47:59] Voice 26: budget for housing strategy six

[5:48:09] Voice 25: so those opposed

[5:48:19] Voice 29: and one online

[5:48:23] Voice 26: okay

[5:48:25] Voice 27: so

[5:48:26] Voice 26: that fails

[5:48:31] Voice 27: regardless it fails the numbers

[5:48:32] Voice 27: should yeah yes so

[5:48:35] Voice 26: that failed all right council if i'm not hearing

[5:48:40] Voice 26: another motion then i'm going to continue with the rest of the agenda trustee evan if

[5:48:46] Voice 17: we can put

[5:48:46] Voice 17: that same motion up again and and make it to ten thousand right

[5:48:51] Voice 27: so

[5:48:54] Voice 17: just change it to ten thousand

[5:48:56] Voice 17: yeah just

[5:48:59] Voice 30: reconsidering no no okay

[5:49:01] Voice 26: okay okay it's a different intent yeah

[5:49:07] Voice 30: thank you okay

[5:49:09] Voice 26: so do i

[5:49:11] Voice 26: i'll let you read the motion um

[5:49:15] Voice 17: i'm just gonna say uh i move that trust council reduce

[5:49:19] Voice 17: Reduce the budget for the housing strategy.

[5:49:28] Voice 17: No, no, you don't have to type it all out again.

[5:49:30] Voice 17: That's okay.

[5:49:32] Voice 17: So I move that the Trust Council reduce the budget.

[5:49:36] Voice 17: So remove $10,000 and from.

[5:49:43] Voice 17: Remove from.

[5:49:46] Voice 17: I move that Trust Council reduce the budget for the housing strategy

[5:49:49] Voice 17: and housing options toolkit project by $10,000, period.

[5:50:03] Voice 27: Thank you.

[5:50:04] Voice 27: Do I have a seconder?

[5:50:11] Voice 21: I second that.

[5:50:12] Voice 27: All right.

[5:50:13] Voice 27: Right. Is

[5:50:14] Voice 26: that Trustee Boland?

[5:50:17] Voice 26: Boland, yeah.

[5:50:18] Voice 26: Okay, thank you. Trustee Boland, second. Thank you.

[5:50:21] Voice 26: Any further discussion on this item?

[5:50:24] All

[5:50:29] Voice 26: right, let's call the vote. All those in favor?

[5:50:40] Voice 27: Five.

[5:50:42] Voice 27: So, please, all six.

[5:50:45] Voice 27: Those opposed?

[5:50:57] Voice 27: So, then, so there's a

[5:51:00] Voice 26: couple of abstentions.

[5:51:01] Voice 26: Ten. Yeah. No.

[5:51:03] Voice 26: It fails.

[5:51:05] Voice 26: What?

[5:51:05] Voice 27: What?

[5:51:06] Voice 28: There's 21 people here.

[5:51:10] Voice 28: Yes. So that means that there's 10 opposed.

[5:51:14] Voice 28: That means it's 11 votes now. So there have been

[5:51:17] Voice 29: abstinence.

[5:51:18] Voice 29: Yeah.

[5:51:26] Voice 27: So

[5:51:29] Voice 26: I don't know about a roll call, but those of you that are online,

[5:51:34] Voice 26: you can turn on your cameras and vote electronically

[5:51:39] Voice 26: So that we know that you're there and I'm going to call the vote a second time.

[5:51:47] Voice 26: All those in favor of the motion to reduce the housing strategy by $10,000.

[5:52:01] Voice 28: All

[5:52:02] Voice 26: right, please lower your hand.

[5:52:06] Voice 26: Now those opposed to reducing the budget for the housing strategy by $10,000.

[5:52:32] Voice 29: I'm

[5:52:32] Voice 3: asking for a total count of trustees present in the meeting, please.

[5:52:37] Voice 29: There are, we have 21 trustees.

[5:52:43] Voice 29: So

[5:52:45] Voice 3: there's 21 trustees present and the opposed was 11.

[5:52:49] Voice 3: Is that what we're understanding?

[5:52:50] Voice 3: Thank you.

[5:52:51] Voice 3: Could that be recorded, please?

[5:52:53] Voice 3: Yeah.

[5:52:53] Voice 3: Yeah.

[5:53:05] Voice 26: Okay. Well, he hasn't spoken either, or raised his hand. But he hasn't spoken or raised his hand. It's not going to make it'll make a difference to the numbers. It won't make a difference to the outcome. All right. Okay, Council. Thank you very much.

[5:53:23] Voice 26: sorry

[5:53:24] Voice 33: how can it not make a difference to the outcome if he's in the total count i'm not

[5:53:30] Voice 33: following what's going on dag was involved in the media so if he's not there now um he's not

[5:53:37] Voice 33: participating is so could you run through those numbers again i find this just that we're

[5:53:44] Voice 33: sometimes david yeah

[5:53:47] Voice 28: if people are online not telling me that they're leaving the room we have

[5:53:52] Voice 28: after seeing her in the meeting.

[5:53:54] Voice 28: There's 11 against, and there's 21 trustees,

[5:53:59] Voice 28: so it would fail on that basis by one vote.

[5:54:03] Voice 28: Right, okay,

[5:54:07] Voice 26: I'm gonna move on.

[5:54:09] Voice 26: This takes us to the next section of the agenda,

[5:54:12] Voice 26: 7.2.19, Salt Spring Water Sustainability Project.

[5:54:17] Voice 26: This is a request for decision.

[5:54:20] Voice 26: Is there somebody that wishes to speak to this, Julia?

[5:54:23] Voice 26: Leah or okay Stefan Cermak just a really quick synopsis on why this motion is here if I may

[5:54:32] Voice 15: chair yes before

[5:54:34] Voice 15: we move on is council interested in a summary of the changes that have been made

[5:54:38] Voice 15: to the budget that I will be amending overnight or do we trust I've got them correct I think

[5:54:44] Voice 26: there's a lot of trust in your abilities thank you

[5:54:47] Voice 26: trustee

[5:54:52] Voice 27: uh spice uh gosh whatever your role is

[5:54:55] Voice 27: Mr. Cermak.

[5:54:57] Voice 27: What

[5:55:03] Voice 11: happens when you've been here for 14 years,

[5:55:04] Voice 11: Mr. Chair? Well,

[5:55:05] Voice 30: I'm glad you're all laughing

[5:55:06] Voice 11: with me.

[5:55:07] Voice 11: Okay, thank you, Trust Council.

[5:55:10] Voice 11: So this is a funding request

[5:55:14] Voice 11: for

[5:55:14] Voice 11: using unspent

[5:55:17] Voice 11: special property taxes

[5:55:18] Voice 11: collected on Salt Spring Island

[5:55:20] Voice 11: local trust area.

[5:55:22] Voice 11: This has been going on for

[5:55:25] Voice 11: well over a decade, I believe,

[5:55:27] Voice 11: or darn near a decade.

[5:55:29] Voice 11: So you have a proposal here

[5:55:31] Voice 11: to fund three specific projects on salt spring island all from these unspent property taxes that

[5:55:39] Voice 11: can be used for no other local trust area other than salt spring island it's been already paid

[5:55:43] Voice 11: for so you would think that'd be easy enough but i'm here to explain a little bit more to you and

[5:55:49] Voice 11: that the reason you're being asked to make a resolution here is because the funding can be

[5:55:54] Voice 11: only allocated in very specific ways according to bylaw 154 which is a trust council item

[5:56:00] Voice 11: And in this circumstance, two of the projects fall neatly within that, or at least one falls neatly, one pretty neatly, the other one not so neatly.

[5:56:09] Voice 11: So this resolution is for you to assess your policy, which says that's okay.

[5:56:15] Voice 11: And that okay, if you've read the three business cases, they're all watershed resilience related.

[5:56:23] Voice 11: They're all on the same topic.

[5:56:24] Voice 11: It's just a little nuance of interpreting the policy.

[5:56:27] Voice 11: So you're being asked to help Salt Spring Island do the work that they've already been

[5:56:30] Voice 11: attached to.

[5:56:31] Voice 26: Great.

[5:56:32] Voice 26: Thank you.

[5:56:32] Voice 26: Are there any questions for the director?

[5:56:35] Voice 26: Otherwise, I'll turn to Trustee Patrick for the motion.

[5:56:39] Voice 26: I'm not seeing any questions.

[5:56:41] Voice 26: Sure.

[5:56:41] Voice 26: I'll

[5:56:42] Voice 16: make a motion.

[5:56:42] Voice 16: I move that trust council despite policy 632 authorize Salt Spring Island Local Trust Committee

[5:56:53] Voice 16: to use unspent special property tax requisition funds from previous fiscal years to undertake

[5:56:59] Voice 16: take water sustainability projects under the delegated authority of bylaw

[5:57:02] Voice 16: 154 and under the land use planning powers of section 29

[5:57:06] Voice 16: of the Islands Trust Act. Seconded by

[5:57:10] Voice 26: Trustee Peterson. Thank you. Any discussion? Who wants to speak to it?

[5:57:16] Voice 26: Stefan's done a good job.

[5:57:18] Voice 16: I know there was

[5:57:19] Voice 16: some question earlier why this is delayed. We had the staff

[5:57:23] Voice 16: that had been on this file departed

[5:57:26] Voice 16: started, but was brought back by contract almost a year and a half later. So that's

[5:57:33] Voice 16: why these are kind of all late, but he did an excellent job pulling together. I think

[5:57:37] Voice 16: the business cases speak for themselves.

[5:57:43] Voice 27: Okay. Any further discussion? All those in favor? Please put

[5:57:52] Voice 26: your hands up. Okay. And

[5:57:56] Voice 26: And lower your hand.

[5:57:58] Voice 26: Any opposed?

[5:58:01] Voice 26: None opposed.

[5:58:02] Voice 26: Excellent.

[5:58:04] Voice 26: Now there's three business cases here,

[5:58:07] Voice 26: South Spring Island, water protection plan,

[5:58:10] Voice 26: monitoring proof of water.

[5:58:14] Voice 26: Julia, do you need any motion in order to include these

[5:58:18] Voice 26: or they're just being included

[5:58:19] Voice 26: or we're just looking for questions?

[5:58:22] Voice 15: Those business cases are the work that will be funded

[5:58:25] Voice 15: from the Swiffer Reserve Fund.

[5:58:27] Voice 15: and so the motion that was just passed relates to those

[5:58:30] Voice 26: supports all right so then out of fairness

[5:58:33] Voice 26: i'll just ask are there any questions about those three business cases no all right then julia are

[5:58:40] Voice 26: we done for today awesome um trustee evans when

[5:58:44] Voice 17: are we going to go back to uh 5.2 which one 5.2

[5:58:49] Voice 17: those were the discussion items that bylaw compliance stuff that we didn't discuss yesterday

[5:58:54] Voice 26: Oh, I see. I'm planning on picking up where we left those items tomorrow. Yeah, absolutely.

[5:59:02] Voice 26: As well as trust area services and other items that we've missed, but I'll be doing an assessment.

[5:59:09] Voice 26: We're going to pick up everything. We'll go in camera right at the get go. That's when

[5:59:14] Voice 26: it's scheduled. And then depending on when we come out of camera, we'll conduct some

[5:59:18] Voice 26: business if possible otherwise we'll do financial bylaws approval um at 9 45 because the public will

[5:59:25] Voice 26: be joining us for that um and then we'll continue with the remainder of the items as necessary is

[5:59:31] Voice 26: that satisfactory okay let's recess and enjoy your dinner you've worked hard today i thank you very

[5:59:39] Voice 26: Thank you very much.