Islands Trust Council regular meeting, November 8, 2024

[0:00:00] Trustee Patrick: Okay, I guess we're up and ready. Good morning. I'd like to call this regional planning committee

[0:00:07] Trustee Patrick: of the Islands Trust Council to order. Always begin with acknowledging how grateful we are

[0:00:16] Trustee Patrick: to be holding this meeting in the territories of many First Nations. I, yesterday, was flying

[0:00:25] Trustee Patrick: flying back from Ottawa and I watched the movie The Burial. Very interesting movie. There's a scene

[0:00:35] Trustee Patrick: where they're talking with an elderly man about a slave cemetery and how there were no headstones

[0:00:46] Trustee Patrick: when it was first created or used because they didn't have money to have markers for it.

[0:00:53] Trustee Patrick: But there's a scene where he talks about the layering on top of that cemetery of other things, and how it buries it deeper and deeper in the memory, making it irrelevant.

[0:01:10] Trustee Patrick: relevant and it really at that scene was it's a poignant scene but it really made me think of

[0:01:15] Trustee Patrick: of the issue same thing with first nations here that through the practices that we do through

[0:01:25] Trustee Patrick: land use from what people do we're adding layers on top of what was here in the past and the deeper

[0:01:32] Trustee Patrick: it becomes we are forgetting it and i just thought that was really important because that to me is

[0:01:39] Trustee Patrick: is what reconciliation is,

[0:01:40] Trustee Patrick: is we have to try to peel back those layers

[0:01:43] Trustee Patrick: and recognize what we've done in the past

[0:01:47] Trustee Patrick: to allow that to happen.

[0:01:48] Trustee Patrick: How did that happen?

[0:01:51] Trustee Patrick: And I don't have to look very far back in history,

[0:01:54] Trustee Patrick: even here on Salt Spring.

[0:01:55] Trustee Patrick: Grace Islet, a house was built.

[0:01:57] Trustee Patrick: The foundations were poured around Karen's

[0:02:02] Trustee Patrick: as if that was okay.

[0:02:04] Trustee Patrick: Now it got undone because it was not okay.

[0:02:08] Trustee Patrick: But how did that ever even begin?

[0:02:09] Trustee Patrick: And I think that's just something we all have to be aware of and not allow us to bury layers of layers of disrespect on what's so important and the value of the people who were here before.

[0:02:28] Trustee Patrick: Okay, we have an agenda before us today. Are there any additions or changes that need to be made to the agenda?

[0:02:35] Trustee Patrick: agenda. If not, we will then approve the agenda through general consent. We do have this meeting

[0:02:47] Trustee Patrick: is scheduled to go to three o'clock. So I will look to everyone as we finish items of, you know,

[0:02:53] Trustee Patrick: do we need to break when we break for lunch? So, you know, be as participants in this meeting,

[0:03:00] Trustee Patrick: jump up and wave and say, I need a break now. This is a good time. You know, don't wait to

[0:03:05] Trustee Patrick: to be asked, please, I encourage you to jump in and remind me because I'll keep plowing forward

[0:03:11] Trustee Patrick: as I usually do. Okay, then. We have three items of correspondence on this agenda package. The

[0:03:21] Trustee Patrick: first item is from Rich Brooks from Mudge Island. Appreciate the suggestions and feedback that they

[0:03:31] Trustee Patrick: are giving to us. I think this is something we could consider later in the agenda when we are

[0:03:35] Trustee Patrick: talking about the bylaw enforcement policy. Peter Luckham, I see your hand raised.

[0:03:41] Trustee Luckham: Yeah, sorry, I got distracted on an urgent phone call there. Thanks for speaking to that Micah

[0:03:48] Trustee Luckham: thing. I just thought as a way by way of an update, I would like to tell the committee

[0:03:52] Trustee Luckham: that the Gabriola LTC met yesterday. And in fact, the first item we rejigged the schedule to do it.

[0:03:59] Trustee Luckham: we passed the bylaw amendments or adopted the bylaw amendments to the Gabriela

[0:04:07] Trustee Luckham: bylaw enforcement policy and added a section specifically about Mudge Island. We had at least

[0:04:15] Trustee Luckham: 25, maybe more members of the Mudge Island community with us yesterday. And that was

[0:04:23] Trustee Luckham: terrific. And I had words with them at the beginning to jig the schedule and all that

[0:04:29] Trustee Luckham: sort of stuff. And they are very pleased and happy with the outcome. In fact, we got a round of

[0:04:38] Trustee Luckham: applause, which doesn't happen every day. And there were certainly maybe two issues that they

[0:04:45] Trustee Luckham: raised that they would like to see some changes for. And we admitted that over time, we might

[0:04:50] Trustee Luckham: consider those but let's move the bar at this time and adopt this bylaw so it's in force and

[0:04:57] Trustee Luckham: um we can consider the other uh suggestions as time goes on if it seems that there's really

[0:05:02] Trustee Luckham: problems or the necessity to make those changes but i'd say in the long run real a lot of gratitude

[0:05:08] Trustee Luckham: from the ltc to warren dingman and the staff and the mica community and their and the newly formed

[0:05:14] Trustee Luckham: armed, well, Micah, for turning this into a success. So that worked out really well.

[0:05:22] Trustee Luckham: Just thought you would be pleased to know that.

[0:05:25] Trustee Patrick: All right. Well, thank you. And like I said,

[0:05:27] Trustee Patrick: I think it's important and it's grateful to have people who have experienced our pilot

[0:05:34] Trustee Patrick: enforcement be there and ready to be giving us feedback as we make our way forward because

[0:05:41] Trustee Patrick: it's important feedback. The next two items were from me. The first one being just bringing your

[0:05:48] Trustee Patrick: attention to a conference and saying that's something that, you know, we can talk about

[0:05:52] Trustee Patrick: later. We have an item on tiny homes, but I think we have to look at our overall strategy and

[0:05:57] Trustee Patrick: priorities when we look at that item to make sure we have the resources going to the right

[0:06:03] Trustee Patrick: directions. So I think we could consider something like that. But it's important that we keep

[0:06:09] Trustee Patrick: ourselves current and getting out there and understanding what's going on, especially with

[0:06:14] Trustee Patrick: community land trusts. I think they're quite exciting as we go forward. The next item was

[0:06:20] Trustee Patrick: just, again, I shared this is related by law enforcement. It was a good paper, and I hope

[0:06:23] Trustee Patrick: you had a chance to take a look at it. And again, it will be looking at our bylaw enforcement.

[0:06:27] Trustee Patrick: So going on there, we have minutes from our September 4th meeting that I really am grateful for Trustee Borthwick for chairing that meeting.

[0:06:40] Trustee Patrick: And are there any corrections or changes that need to be made to those minutes?

[0:06:44] Trustee Patrick: Not seeing any, we can approve the minutes by general consent then. Thank you.

[0:06:54] Trustee Patrick: Getting right down to our items of business.

[0:06:58] Trustee Patrick: The first item, 7.1, I ask that this item be put on the agenda.

[0:07:05] Trustee Patrick: I thought, one, it's good for us to always take a look at our terms of reference, but

[0:07:09] Trustee Patrick: also wanted to make sure we looked at our terms of reference in terms of process.

[0:07:13] Trustee Patrick: How do we communicate and advise or provide our advice back to the Trust Council?

[0:07:21] Trustee Patrick: And I see Trustee Graham, your hand's raised.

[0:07:24] Voice 6: Thank you, Chair.

[0:07:25] Voice 6: Just a request if we get the font bumped up for those of us who are eyesight challenged.

[0:07:32] Voice 6: Thank you.

[0:07:33] Trustee Patrick: Ah, thank you very much.

[0:07:35] Trustee Patrick: So if we could increase the font on this, that would be greatly appreciated.

[0:07:42] Trustee Patrick: It's also on page 19 in your package.

[0:07:45] Trustee Patrick: I know that's hard when you're trying to work on one computer.

[0:07:49] Trustee Patrick: We

[0:07:50] Trustee Luckham: could also lose the sidebars.

[0:07:52] Trustee Luckham: Some suggested this.

[0:07:54] Trustee Patrick: there you

[0:07:55] Trustee Luckham: make it bigger

[0:07:56] Trustee Luckham: one

[0:07:57] Trustee Patrick: of the key is one of the reasons i asked that this be on the agenda is that in september

[0:08:08] Trustee Patrick: at trust council after only seeing the policy for the first time on september 4th that we had

[0:08:17] Trustee Patrick: a motion that there was a recommendation to trust council to endorse the amendments to the to the

[0:08:23] Trustee Patrick: policy um which uh i want to understand i've been trying to understand how that occurred and um

[0:08:34] Trustee Patrick: really be cognizant of um you know going forward that we're very clear on the recommendations and

[0:08:41] Trustee Patrick: when we send something to trust council you know we are doing it purposefully and um and so

[0:08:48] Trustee Patrick: that's what i'm looking at i see trustee boland your hands raised

[0:08:56] Voice 10: Trustee Elliott had her hand up ahead of me and it's really a comment on

[0:09:01] Voice 10: some of the content coming along later that I'd just like to raise.

[0:09:06] Voice 10: Okay. Trustee Elliott, was your hand raised?

[0:09:10] Voice 12: Yeah, I think because my video's not on it, it might be hard to see.

[0:09:15] Voice 12: I just wanted to go back to the follow-up action list maybe when you're done with this.

[0:09:18] Trustee Patrick: Yes, I noticed I buzzed past it, yes.

[0:09:22] Trustee Patrick: Why don't we finish this item and we'll go back and apologize for that.

[0:09:29] Trustee Patrick: Okay. I know I've combed through all of this, and I was grateful for staff, including Policy 231, which I reread again. If it's in the agenda package, I read it.

[0:09:41] Trustee Patrick: And it was interesting in Trust Council Policy 231, which is Trust Committee Systems, it does mention that all of our recommendations and proposals need to be referred through the Executive Committee to go to Trust Council.

[0:09:58] Trustee Patrick: So, I know I'm going to be recommending today that we, when we are having conversations on material, and we believe it's ready to go to Trust Council that we add additional resolution that very clearly refers what we're recommending through executive committee so that they put their eyes on it in the role that they play by sitting on this committee as well.

[0:10:21] Trustee Patrick: um to make sure that all of our work aligns and ends up in the um the uh agenda in as good a way

[0:10:33] Trustee Patrick: as it can trustee boland thanks

[0:10:39] Voice 10: i read it all as well and um you know generically it's fine

[0:10:43] Voice 10: i have one question which is i am not entirely clear and maybe i'm missing something how the

[0:10:52] Voice 10: the regional planning committee um you know discusses or plans local planning service

[0:11:00] Voice 10: delivery i can understand the growth management chose community planning but local planning

[0:11:06] Voice 10: service delivery i don't feel that we really have a hand in that correct me if i'm wrong

[0:11:15] Voice 10: um

[0:11:17] Trustee Patrick: well first of all i'll give an example is the conversation we're going to have on the

[0:11:21] Trustee Patrick: project business cases and the feasibility report that's there is an example of how we would have

[0:11:27] Trustee Patrick: our hand, I guess, in recommendations on the allocation of resources in particular. And I'll

[0:11:34] Trustee Patrick: look at, I don't know, Director Cermak, if you wanted to provide some more examples.

[0:11:40] Trustee Patrick: Sure. Yeah,

[0:11:40] Voice 10: I suppose I'm going right. Sorry for interrupting you. Just let me finish with

[0:11:45] Voice 10: and then carry on. I'm thinking of the actual, you know, delivery of services around the

[0:11:55] Voice 10: applications, subdivision development applications that the local planners work on. Maybe I'm being

[0:12:02] Voice 10: too picky about it. Go ahead, Director. Thank

[0:12:06] Voice 9: you, Trustee Boland. I don't think you're being

[0:12:08] Voice 9: too picky it's just a matter of you know ongoing orientation last term and i put this continuously

[0:12:15] Voice 9: in reports for the last two years just to remind all of trust council that last term the regional

[0:12:22] Voice 9: planning committee uh guided policy amendments to the delivery the best management the best practices

[0:12:29] Voice 9: of delivery of planning services and you'll see that in several policy amendments that were that

[0:12:35] Voice 9: took a couple years to do that the regional planning committee shepherded it through and

[0:12:39] Voice 9: those are um i don't have all the numbers but if you give me a second i could probably find a

[0:12:45] Voice 9: wealth of them but it is it was a comprehensive look at how we we created new teams the regional

[0:12:52] Voice 9: planning team which you've heard a lot about that was new that was created in the policy local

[0:12:56] Voice 9: planning team uh a current planning team so we divide we what we did is we spread the resources

[0:13:02] Voice 9: versus across the whole region,

[0:13:04] Voice 9: as opposed to where we used to be just office specific,

[0:13:07] Voice 9: if you know what I mean.

[0:13:08] Voice 9: So the best example I can give is say someone like Narissa,

[0:13:11] Voice 9: went to Planner Chadwick, sorry,

[0:13:13] Voice 9: went to be, she would have been stuck on Main Island

[0:13:16] Voice 9: or the Southern Gulf Islands

[0:13:17] Voice 9: because that was her office in Victoria,

[0:13:19] Voice 9: but we created the team so that they can work.

[0:13:22] Voice 9: She's now working out of Gabriola in the Northern office.

[0:13:24] Voice 9: And before the regional planning committee

[0:13:26] Voice 9: made those policy amendments

[0:13:27] Voice 9: and trust council approved them,

[0:13:29] Voice 9: that wouldn't have happened.

[0:13:30] Voice 9: And similarly, we updated application processing.

[0:13:33] Voice 9: And it was an allocation of resource time and how we do so.

[0:13:38] Voice 10: Does that feed into that TA, temporary assignment thing that you have in the organization chart?

[0:13:47] Voice 9: No.

[0:13:48] Voice 9: Temporary assignment is really when staff members are temporarily filling a position that's vacant for one reason or another.

[0:13:58] Voice 9: So, for example, if somebody goes on leave, they're on mat leave or maternity leave, or if they're on long-term leave or a position becomes vacant and we try to fill it through the usual, we put out a posting, but we're not successful in filling that position,

[0:14:15] Voice 9: then we can temporarily assign somebody either from a similar position or from a junior position into a more senior role.

[0:14:24] Voice 9: and that's just an ongoing adaptation to the realities of work especially post-cav

[0:14:28] Voice 9: covert whereby in the younger workforce they're a little bit more mobile in terms of where they

[0:14:34] Voice 9: go coming and going so the temporary assignment is generally seen as a good thing opportunity for

[0:14:40] Voice 9: staff to temporarily fill a vacancy such that they gain experience and and then that helps

[0:14:46] Voice 9: them when the position becomes a full-time opportunity they've got more experience to

[0:14:50] Voice 9: to fill that permanently.

[0:14:53] Trustee Patrick: I don't want to go down this, this, we

[0:14:56] Voice 9: don't want to

[0:14:57] Trustee Patrick: try to do this job

[0:14:58] Trustee Patrick: today. We have a lot of items on the agenda package. I think what's important, and this is a

[0:15:03] Trustee Patrick: good point, Trustee Boland, would be, you know, what policies do fall, are there, and I think we

[0:15:09] Trustee Patrick: could identify, and I don't think this needs to be a staff exercise, but I think we could just,

[0:15:14] Trustee Patrick: I'm happy to pull those together and report on those next week, which policies fall under,

[0:15:20] Trustee Patrick: under, you know, this committee's purview of paying attention to. And so I'm happy to do that,

[0:15:29] Trustee Patrick: because there are a number of policies, not just the ones that Director Cermak just mentioned. So

[0:15:35] Trustee Patrick: there's a group that you should all be aware of reading and, and from time to time. I think the

[0:15:41] Trustee Patrick: important thing is, is, you know, as we are an advisory committee to Trust Council, and we make

[0:15:47] Trustee Patrick: make recommendations um you know that's really the the main purpose of um this committee uh

[0:15:55] Trustee Patrick: and if no one i mean at this point i don't know if there's any any suggestions that need to be

[0:16:00] Trustee Patrick: made i see another hand raised by trustee elliot um

[0:16:05] Voice 12: yeah i i um i'm thankful for this actually

[0:16:08] Voice 12: because uh still learning about the council committee relationship and uh i admit it was

[0:16:14] Voice 12: Definitely due to my lack of understanding that we, you know, advanced work and expanded the scope of the bylaw enforcement charter at this committee before going back to council and asking, did they want to do this?

[0:16:30] Voice 12: So looking at page four of policy 2.3.1, it's on page 24, 7.1.3, the top three priorities strategies that a committee is working on, this is regarding the work program, as approved by Trust Council and must include any of Trust Council's priorities that it has assigned.

[0:16:52] Voice 12: signed. So I guess I'm asking, in staff's experience, and other trustees who've been

[0:17:00] Voice 12: around for a long time, how big does the bucket get? And, you know, when Trust Council,

[0:17:09] Voice 12: you know, we brought forward that work on tiny homes through a working group, and then council

[0:17:13] Voice 12: endorsed it and said, yes, we want to work on this angle of the housing, affordable housing strategy.

[0:17:23] Voice 12: That is now sort of, you know, taking on a life of its own. And so it's expanding our work program, but it's within the bucket of this priority of addressing affordable housing in the trust area.

[0:17:37] Voice 12: um you know how do we balance that uh i guess and when we're short on resources and we can't

[0:17:47] Voice 12: um direct staff's time and uh and money to everything you know when where do we evaluate

[0:17:56] Voice 12: that um sort of in the fiscal year or um you know we've only got four meetings a year anyway

[0:18:04] Trustee Patrick: It's good that you ask.

[0:18:05] Trustee Patrick: And I can tell you in preparing for this agenda, staff have already asked that when we do talk

[0:18:11] Trustee Patrick: about the tiny home item, that we have to realize that there are work that we will not

[0:18:15] Trustee Patrick: be doing by putting attention here.

[0:18:18] Trustee Patrick: So we'll talk about that during that item.

[0:18:20] Trustee Patrick: And I think it's important that we are clear when something adds, what are we doing?

[0:18:24] Trustee Patrick: What are we not doing?

[0:18:25] Trustee Patrick: And that we all have that very clear that we don't assume staff are off doing work when

[0:18:31] Trustee Patrick: they're not.

[0:18:32] Trustee Patrick: so I think clarity is critically important and your item is very important and I know when we

[0:18:40] Trustee Patrick: always get to the end of the meeting and we're at our priorities checklist we're always like

[0:18:43] Trustee Patrick: approve it send it up to trust council we should really dwell on it for a few minutes and make sure

[0:18:51] Trustee Patrick: we are in full understanding of the work that we are doing and what's you know the expectations

[0:18:56] Trustee Patrick: as you are correct. We only have four meetings. So I am asking every one of us as members to be

[0:19:05] Trustee Patrick: responsible that the more that we understand and the better. And the lack of understanding

[0:19:12] Trustee Patrick: will get to trust counsel if we're all in clear agreement when things arrive there.

[0:19:19] Trustee Patrick: All right. I'm not seeing any changes. I'll just look to staff. Since it's in policy 2.3.1 that

[0:19:26] Trustee Patrick: we're supposed to be referring things through EC, I guess you could argue that it's kind of

[0:19:29] Trustee Patrick: happening because it leaves here, but I'd like to make sure we're clear and that we have a referral

[0:19:34] Trustee Patrick: that, you know, this committee has looked at the language that, you know, what are we asking EC to

[0:19:40] Trustee Patrick: do as well or bring to their attention when we have a package of work that we're sending up to

[0:19:45] Trustee Patrick: Trust Council or a question on what we're doing, that we be cognizant and make sure we actually

[0:19:50] Trustee Patrick: use those words either in a resolution or an additional resolution in that package that says

[0:19:55] Trustee Patrick: we're referring the material to ec i think they need to receive it as a referral um

[0:20:04] Voice 9: go ahead is that a question madam chair yes

[0:20:06] Trustee Patrick: i want to know if you can phrase

[0:20:07] Voice 9: it in a question for me

[0:20:08] Voice 9: well

[0:20:09] Trustee Patrick: my question was i don't we don't really need to have a resolution to record that because it is

[0:20:14] Trustee Patrick: in the policy that it's supposed to be happening so that

[0:20:18] Voice 9: is correct that i'm sure it you know by

[0:20:20] Voice 9: default of course everything that goes to trust council goes via executive committee and so i

[0:20:26] Voice 9: think that's the way this has been implemented over the years i'm not aware of a different process

[0:20:30] Voice 9: however i think the detail you bring up is whether or not ec is just the go-through

[0:20:37] Voice 9: i you know to trust council or are they pausing to consider that and in my short term as director

[0:20:43] Voice 9: i have not seen them really pause that in terms of because a regional planning committee as far

[0:20:49] Voice 9: as i'm aware has not asked them to so i think that's up to this committee what value would

[0:20:54] Voice 9: the EEC have in sort of putting their mind to it, or is the value of getting it straight to

[0:21:00] Voice 9: trust counsel? And I think that's up to you to decide in your interpretation of that policy.

[0:21:04] Trustee Patrick: Yeah. And that's why I'd like to make sure we talk about that, you know, because timing is

[0:21:08] Trustee Patrick: important. I, you know, see, I have sat on the executive in the past and, you know, they have

[0:21:13] Trustee Patrick: to structure a very large and cumbersome agenda package that goes to trust counsel and they have

[0:21:17] Trustee Patrick: decisions to make. Is this work ready to go? Is this more important? What has to be dropped?

[0:21:22] Trustee Patrick: And I think this committee needs to be, you know, if something is critical, we need to get that across. We need this answer, you know, or we're looking for this in December for purpose, or, you know, we're not.

[0:21:37] Trustee Patrick: So I think we should give that consideration and thought into when we pass it on, because EC has to add that layer of thought to the process. Unless you want 10-day trust council meetings.

[0:21:54] Trustee Patrick: all right then well i think it's just be again constant reading these policies from time to time

[0:21:58] Trustee Patrick: it's good for all of us sure if i could all

[0:22:02] Voice 12: right oh yes go ahead if i could comment on that um

[0:22:06] Voice 12: it is um quite difficult to understand um the prioritization of things if we've got a lot of

[0:22:17] Voice 12: of work coming in from all the different committees and trying to structure Trust Council's

[0:22:23] Voice 12: agenda is always challenging. I think, yes, just from my perspective, I had not really understood

[0:22:32] Voice 12: that executive committee could pause or ask if a piece of work is ready. And so I think we need

[0:22:43] Voice 12: to have a little bit more it would be helpful if the committee could provide more direction

[0:22:50] Voice 12: so for instance with the bylaw enforcement project last september if there was a piece of

[0:23:00] Voice 12: it that was not ready we shouldn't have sent it on right rather than asking council to endorse a

[0:23:09] Voice 12: that we're working on this, should we have just kept working on it,

[0:23:14] Voice 12: not included it in the package, and caused a whole bunch of confusion

[0:23:17] Voice 12: with, well, is this ready or is this not?

[0:23:22] Voice 12: Well,

[0:23:22] Trustee Patrick: no, that is a good point, because this committee did not

[0:23:25] Trustee Patrick: pass a resolution. If we look in the minutes, there was no resolution

[0:23:30] Trustee Patrick: asking for the policy to, it wasn't recommended

[0:23:33] Trustee Patrick: to go to Trust Council for it to be endorsed.

[0:23:35] Trustee Patrick: so that's

[0:23:39] Voice 10: i think the project charter sorry for interrupting oh uh go ahead trustee ball

[0:23:44] Voice 10: sorry there was a resolution to forward the project charter i believe that was it correct

[0:23:51] Voice 10: and

[0:23:52] Voice 12: that was that was important because this was catching up on the mistake from april of this

[0:23:58] Voice 12: past year of of changing the project charter without going back to council the part that i'm

[0:24:04] Voice 12: I'm questioning is sending on the plain languaging, sorry, by law enforcement best practices manual, saying that we're working on this and sending it to trust counsel saying, do you endorse us continue working on this and plain languaging it? That was unnecessary.

[0:24:22] Voice 12: necessary. We should have left it off if it's not ready to go to council and say, now we're behind

[0:24:30] Voice 12: this draft and we ask you to endorse it. It's our recommendation that you endorse it. That's a

[0:24:36] Voice 12: pointless exercise. So I think we need to be cognizant that what we are sending forward has to

[0:24:43] Voice 12: be a product that this committee is confident is ready for council's approval. And that will just

[0:24:51] Voice 12: make everything much simpler and especially I don't want EC to be in the position of questioning

[0:24:57] Voice 12: is this ready for council or not we have enough work honestly trying to fit in all the pieces

[0:25:03] Voice 12: together so this committee needs to take responsibility I think I'm realizing for

[0:25:08] Voice 12: sending on work that's only work that's ready so thank you for bringing this up

[0:25:12] Trustee Patrick: yes and I think

[0:25:14] Trustee Patrick: it's important and like I said when I read these resolutions there isn't a resolution that sent

[0:25:19] Trustee Patrick: sent that work to trust counsel so i think this is what all i'm bringing this is we do have a

[0:25:23] Trustee Patrick: process we all have to pay attention to the roles that we have on this process for this committee

[0:25:27] Trustee Patrick: we need to be crystal clear and make sure the resolutions state that so all right i think we've

[0:25:34] Trustee Patrick: spent enough time on this issue i did go buzzing past the follow-up action um lists which are on

[0:25:40] Trustee Patrick: page 17 of your agenda package were there questions on the follow-up action list

[0:25:50] Voice 12: justy elliott yes

[0:25:52] Voice 12: Yes, thank you. So bottom of page 17, the eelgrass mapping and exploration of partnerships.

[0:26:01] Voice 12: It actually occurs to me, I'm wondering if this is actually better passed off to the Conservancy.

[0:26:09] Voice 12: I'm not sure where we ended up with this and maybe Director Sirmacki can give us an update. Thanks.

[0:26:17] Voice 12: Sure,

[0:26:19] Voice 9: through the chair. So the eelgrass mapping, I have been in regular contact with various

[0:26:26] Voice 9: eelgrass mapping groups, really whittled down this resolution. It took a while, but

[0:26:32] Voice 9: mainly because there's a lot of communications. So I have some unfinished communications from

[0:26:39] Voice 9: this week, even furthermore refining the opportunity to pursue eelgrass mapping.

[0:26:46] Voice 9: So I haven't forgotten about it by any means, and I thought I updated this a bit

[0:26:49] Voice 9: to reflect that. Yes, I did. Oh, interesting. Nonetheless, the, so how did it come from what

[0:26:58] Voice 9: you would, last time it was with the Islands Trust Conservancy, the last time eelgrass mapping was

[0:27:05] Voice 9: conducted, and then it fell to Regional Planning Committee. I don't quite know that story other

[0:27:11] Voice 9: than to know that Islands Trust Conservancy has expressed being very full and busy and they were

[0:27:18] Voice 9: hoping that planning services via our regional planning committee could help them out because

[0:27:24] Voice 9: essentially the best use of this information is through application into your local planning or

[0:27:29] Voice 9: into your LTC official community plans and bylaws. So it was a hope that we would be more integrating

[0:27:37] Voice 9: creating biological information

[0:27:38] Voice 9: and into the local decision-making.

[0:27:40] Voice 9: That's my understanding of the history of it.

[0:27:43] Voice 9: But all I know is really is when we got here,

[0:27:45] Voice 9: it was on your to-do list and it was not advanced

[0:27:50] Voice 9: beyond which this resolution says,

[0:27:52] Voice 9: which I've nearly completed.

[0:27:53] Voice 9: I mean, I do have a substantial terms of reference

[0:27:56] Voice 9: for mapping if there's fiscal opportunities.

[0:27:59] Voice 9: And what I'm trying to do is pursue

[0:28:00] Voice 9: those fiscal opportunities through some societies

[0:28:02] Voice 9: that I'm in conversations with.

[0:28:04] Voice 9: awesome

[0:28:07] Voice 12: great thank you thank you trustee forthwick yeah

[0:28:13] Voice 7: just and sort of following up on

[0:28:15] Voice 7: that uh director sermac um so yeah i mean i can totally understand the the the applicability of

[0:28:22] Voice 7: that data gathering to planning um um but the transition from the conservancy to uh rpc

[0:28:35] Voice 7: takes it from one body to the other and and in terms certainly and i and i totally understand

[0:28:41] Voice 7: the conservancy is very busy um but that also means that it's different funding sources uh if

[0:28:47] Voice 7: i'm correct um we're drawing from different different pots and and i know that you know

[0:28:53] Voice 7: this this committee is not opposed to uh you know the eelgrass eelgrass mapping happening and i

[0:29:00] Voice 7: think there you know there was some communication stuff when we first started about

[0:29:03] Voice 7: about, you know, the cost that was going to go along with supporting this work. And that's why

[0:29:10] Voice 7: we're in the situation we're in. And so I think, and this is not necessarily a question for right

[0:29:16] Voice 7: now, but it might be really helpful for us to understand a little bit more of the rationale

[0:29:21] Voice 7: for why it was transferred from the Conservancy, which, you know, it's a little more clearly in

[0:29:28] Voice 7: scope, and I think that was the confusion for trustees in the beginning, was that this felt

[0:29:34] Voice 7: like it was a large purse, and it is a little outside of the other work that we were otherwise

[0:29:43] Voice 7: faced with. I totally see its application. I want to support this work going forward. I want to make

[0:29:48] Voice 7: sure that we are supporting it, but I also want to make sure that fundamentally it needs to get

[0:29:53] Voice 7: done i like i want to see it get done and if it's going to uh you know

[0:30:00] Voice 7: starve for lack of attention in RPC, then I feel like we're harming the project.

[0:30:08] Voice 7: And it may be appropriate to see if Conservancy is willing to take it on if they are able to

[0:30:13] Voice 7: prioritize their resources towards it more quickly. Mostly, it's just about getting that,

[0:30:17] Voice 7: wanting to see that work get undertaken. And I don't want it to starve for lack of attention here.

[0:30:24] Voice 13: Thank you, Trustee Borthwick. Trustee Boland.

[0:30:27] Voice 10: So, Director Surma, could you answer this? In other local government areas, the equivalent project to do a large, you know, essential data layer gathering exercise, how is that funded?

[0:30:45] Voice 10: it because i feel that you know the equivalent in the honest tract is mapping eelgrass mapping kelp

[0:30:52] Voice 10: whatever but we do not have access to funds or i i mean if you know if you go to sandwich or you go

[0:30:59] Voice 10: to whatever and they think oh my goodness we need to do this huge data gathering exercise count all

[0:31:06] Voice 10: the trees count the bushes measure all the roads whatever you know what what exactly how do they

[0:31:14] Voice 10: refund those projects? Do they go to the taxpayers and say, oh, this year, we need to raise your

[0:31:21] Voice 10: taxes by X, because we have this very large project to do? Thank you.

[0:31:29] Trustee Patrick: Lloyd, Director Cermak.

[0:31:31] Voice 9: Thank you, Madam Chair. I am going to feign ignorance, because that was such a massive

[0:31:36] Voice 9: question. I don't think I could answer it. I think it's a combination of many things. I think

[0:31:41] Voice 9: the key answer to that question is if it's a strategic priority of that government they find

[0:31:45] Voice 9: funding to get it done whether whichever way they can find it so all right that's as good an answer

[0:31:52] Voice 9: i can give you trustee poland

[0:31:53] Trustee Patrick: i it made me start to think um director cermak of all of the data

[0:31:58] Trustee Patrick: gathering activities that we have and i think of the of our development permit areas and things

[0:32:06] Trustee Patrick: where there's layers that do change over time

[0:32:10] Trustee Patrick: that we need to update and go out and get.

[0:32:14] Trustee Patrick: And we have like the strategic,

[0:32:17] Trustee Patrick: we have our freshwater plan we tried to bring together.

[0:32:23] Trustee Patrick: Are we missing some way of tracking all of this data

[0:32:31] Trustee Patrick: and sort of the expectation of how long is it good for?

[0:32:34] Trustee Patrick: So that trust councils aren't surprised when we do come forward and say, well, this mapping needs to be done or it needs to be updated and needs to be factored into our budgeting.

[0:32:46] Trustee Patrick: It might be five years from now, two years, three years or any thoughts on how we might be able to put that forward more clearly?

[0:32:54] Voice 9: Absolutely, Madam Chair.

[0:32:55] Voice 9: I think adoption of a strategic plan, a new strategic plan.

[0:32:59] Voice 9: I think the one that we're working on is a bit, I don't want to say tired, but a lot of things have been accomplished on it, and a lot of things haven't, or some things haven't.

[0:33:10] Voice 9: But I think, again, the focus is Trust Council knows their strategic priorities, and then that's a chance for directors and other staff to answer that very question.

[0:33:19] Voice 9: Okay. Let's say eelgrass or shoreline protection is a priority. What do we know? What don't we don't know? What more information do you need to make effective decisions? And then therefore, we'll go out and sort of answer those questions about data gathering.

[0:33:33] Voice 9: I think to answer your question on a broader scope, I think information services and the various departments, you know, doing kind of an audit on what we know and what we don't know is an interesting exercise.

[0:33:45] Voice 9: Again, that would take resources for us to do, but I think would be a very intelligent thing to do.

[0:33:50] Voice 9: and perhaps something to ask the new CAO

[0:33:53] Voice 9: if how that person is going to help the trust council

[0:33:57] Voice 9: achieve the strategic priorities.

[0:33:59] Voice 9: Is that one of the things we should do

[0:34:00] Voice 9: is auditing what we know, what we don't know

[0:34:02] Voice 9: and what, you know, those kinds of things.

[0:34:05] Trustee Patrick: Oh, thank you for that idea.

[0:34:07] Trustee Patrick: When you think committee members,

[0:34:08] Trustee Patrick: maybe when our next meeting or soon

[0:34:11] Trustee Patrick: we should invite our new CAO to come have a sit down with us

[0:34:16] Trustee Patrick: and have a chat about how we can look forward

[0:34:20] Trustee Patrick: and be useful.

[0:34:21] Trustee Patrick: So all exciting.

[0:34:22] Trustee Patrick: I think the more structure we can bring, the better.

[0:34:27] Trustee Patrick: So any other questions on the follow-up action list?

[0:34:33] Trustee Patrick: All right.

[0:34:33] Trustee Patrick: Well, thank you, Trustee Elliott, for reminding me to go back there.

[0:34:37] Trustee Patrick: So now we will go forward once again to item, where are we?

[0:34:44] Trustee Patrick: 7.2.

[0:34:45] Trustee Patrick: Let's get into budget materials.

[0:34:47] Trustee Patrick: It starts on page 29 of the agenda package.

[0:34:51] Trustee Patrick: Director Cermak, did you want to introduce this?

[0:34:57] Voice 9: Sure, Madam Chair.

[0:34:59] Voice 9: I just want to start off by noting

[0:35:01] Voice 9: you've seen this report at your previous meeting.

[0:35:04] Voice 9: It is unaltered from that time.

[0:35:06] Voice 9: So rest assured it's the same information.

[0:35:09] Voice 9: I wanted to share with you the fact

[0:35:11] Voice 9: that we did not include in here that it's coming back to you

[0:35:15] Voice 9: because Financial Planning Committee

[0:35:16] Voice 9: made a resolution to do so.

[0:35:18] Voice 9: And I know our trustee, Rob Coker,

[0:35:21] Voice 9: are standing by to show you that that resolution look at that so this is the resolution why it's

[0:35:26] Voice 9: coming back to you is that the financial plan committee requested that the rpc review provide

[0:35:31] Voice 9: comments on the feasibility assessment report and include considerations of the feasibility

[0:35:37] Voice 9: of completing the projects this term so i believe actually trustee patrick may have crafted that

[0:35:43] Voice 9: resolution so she's most intimate with it but at least you have it here before you this is why you

[0:35:48] Voice 9: have it and i'm sorry we didn't provide a covering briefing to say that but now you know this is why

[0:35:53] Voice 9: you have it and you have the report before you you will see on page 29 of the of the agenda package

[0:36:01] Voice 9: just the the budget breakdown as seen from a financial perspective um so that's pretty much

[0:36:08] Voice 9: my introduction since you've already seen it you've already discussed it and there's not much

[0:36:10] Voice 9: more for me to say. I'll leave the chairing to you. This

[0:36:14] Trustee Patrick: committee did not see your feasibility

[0:36:18] Trustee Patrick: report in September. Oh my

[0:36:20] Voice 9: gosh, I misspoke here. Absolutely. This

[0:36:22] Voice 9: is the same report that the

[0:36:24] Voice 9: financial planning committee saw. I'm so sorry. There we go.

[0:36:26] Trustee Patrick: Oh no, that's

[0:36:27] Voice 9: okay. That's an

[0:36:29] Trustee Patrick: important

[0:36:29] Voice 9: distinction. I'm very sorry.

[0:36:31] Trustee Patrick: Yes. And I think that was why I brought it to the attention

[0:36:34] Trustee Patrick: of this committee is basically, if you've read this report, there's not enough hours to do the

[0:36:41] Trustee Patrick: work that's being requested. And because this committee has interests in the resources of this

[0:36:47] Trustee Patrick: land planning services, I thought it was very important that we look at this. If there's a

[0:36:55] Trustee Patrick: shortfall of hours, is there an option that we believe should be pursued or that we wish to make

[0:37:05] Trustee Patrick: a recommendation for. And I think that would be my question to Director Cermak, assuming,

[0:37:13] Trustee Patrick: well, I guess I'll ask the tougher first question. Are there any of the projects that are being put

[0:37:19] Trustee Patrick: forward by LTCs really not ready to be worked on in the next fiscal year? And then I'll just help

[0:37:30] Trustee Patrick: you with assuming that you know maybe they are all ready to go so we can't just say oh there's

[0:37:37] Trustee Patrick: one opportunity there um what would be the options to um address the shortfall in hours so the first

[0:37:49] Trustee Patrick: question are there any that uh really aren't ready to be worked uh

[0:37:55] Voice 9: madam chair i think they're all

[0:37:56] Voice 9: lined up and ready to go um i'm going to pull oh there he is like magic i'm going to ask our rpm

[0:38:03] Voice 9: PM Kojima to help me. He helped organize this information into digestible data. And he's a

[0:38:09] Voice 9: little more succinct than I am. So over to you, Robert.

[0:38:12] Voice 4: Thanks, Stephan. Through the chair.

[0:38:17] Voice 4: Yeah, I mean, several of the projects are in year two or year three. The projects are ongoing.

[0:38:24] Voice 4: I think for the most part, they are hitting the milestones in their timelines. There's been some

[0:38:29] Voice 4: adjustments here and there different projects of the new ones that are starting yeah i'm not

[0:38:36] Voice 4: yeah i couldn't really say with gambier and liskiti maybe yes if um trustee laroni's here

[0:38:45] Voice 4: she might be able to comment on the um readiness of the liskiti ltc um gambier though it's new

[0:38:55] Voice 4: they've been doing work already salt spring yeah always kind of a question with salt spring

[0:39:03] Trustee Patrick: uh um all right uh trustee boland you have your hand raised yeah

[0:39:11] Voice 10: is this not the table

[0:39:12] Voice 10: where liskiti was missing and it's not there i think and i just have a general comment which

[0:39:21] Voice 10: is i did read through all of the the project charters and the business cases whatever

[0:39:26] Voice 10: um can you imagine a day in which any of those islands will not be on that list because they

[0:39:34] Voice 10: will have finished an ocplub update because when i read the descriptions it's like a rolling forward

[0:39:42] Voice 10: of oh as we updated we discovered further updates that need to happen and you know and it makes you

[0:39:50] Voice 10: know as a project charter it gets messier and messier and messier i think the denman one my

[0:39:56] Voice 10: My eyes started to roll on my head because I couldn't understand whether I was in phase 2A or phase 4 or whatever.

[0:40:03] Voice 10: And that's one question.

[0:40:07] Voice 10: First of all, Iskiti, I think, is missing.

[0:40:09] Voice 10: Secondly, you know, this constant rolling forward.

[0:40:14] Voice 10: Is there any way to kind of draw a line and then say, OK, start fresh again?

[0:40:18] Voice 10: Or is this the nature of it and we have to embed that in what we do?

[0:40:23] Voice 10: and then I had another question which I've forgotten so you spared it okay

[0:40:31] Voice 4: so you used

[0:40:33] Voice 4: the ski business case is missing from the attachments so no

[0:40:37] Trustee Patrick: it's it's there it's in the

[0:40:39] Trustee Patrick: table

[0:40:39] Voice 4: it's in the table yeah but is the was it the attachment trustee Boland was that missing

[0:40:45] Voice 4: for the business case

[0:40:52] Voice 9: trustee Boland you're on mute

[0:40:54] Trustee Patrick: trustee Boland your mic is off and perhaps

[0:40:59] Voice 9: I can take this moment, Madam Chair. I may be wrong, but I believe Trustee Boland is referring

[0:41:04] Voice 9: to comments made at Trust Council about Hornby Island, and

[0:41:08] Voice 9: that was dealt with at Trust Council.

[0:41:10] Voice 9: Yeah.

[0:41:11] Trustee Patrick: Yeah. Thumbs up from her. Yes, Hornby was discussed at the Financial Committee,

[0:41:19] Trustee Patrick: Trustee Allen was asking.

[0:41:20] Trustee Patrick: I

[0:41:20] Voice 10: remembered the other question, and it's just a comment. If you go to the top of the beginning

[0:41:25] Voice 10: of your project's feasibility report,

[0:41:27] Voice 10: you talk about resources as of March the 1st, 2024.

[0:41:32] Voice 10: And is that correct?

[0:41:37] Voice 10: You talk about, yeah,

[0:41:40] Voice 10: there is not sufficient staff resources

[0:41:43] Voice 10: to fully implement and manage as of March the 1st, 2024.

[0:41:48] Voice 10: But should that be 2025 or?

[0:41:50] Voice 4: Yeah, it should.

[0:41:51] Voice 4: Yes, it should.

[0:41:52] Voice 4: So it should be

[0:41:53] Voice 4: April 1st, 2025.

[0:41:54] Voice 4: so that's okay that's an error okay um but your question more generally about project i guess it's

[0:42:02] Voice 4: scope creep perhaps so you're driving some of these things but um you know these it's generally

[0:42:10] Voice 4: different different by the local trust committees it's local trust committees that are prioritizing

[0:42:15] Voice 4: a project or an aspect of a project and then asking staff to develop a project outline a

[0:42:22] Voice 4: project charter a business case to fund that project that that local trust committee considers

[0:42:29] Voice 4: to be a priority for them i guess at some

[0:42:35] Voice 4: point i guess at some point the rpc could recommend

[0:42:38] Voice 4: that no uh ltcx you know you've you've had funding to do this project for the last three

[0:42:46] Voice 4: three years um we don't recommend that trust council fund it for another year

[0:42:56] Trustee Patrick: Well, I can speak for Salt Spring.

[0:42:57] Trustee Patrick: We haven't started the project yet

[0:42:59] Trustee Patrick: and we're in year three.

[0:43:01] Trustee Patrick: But we do have a really good work plan now.

[0:43:04] Trustee Patrick: And I think that's another thing

[0:43:06] Trustee Patrick: I would encourage members to look at

[0:43:08] Trustee Patrick: is so if you have a project charter,

[0:43:10] Trustee Patrick: but we also have a detailed work plan

[0:43:11] Trustee Patrick: that's intended to really explain

[0:43:14] Trustee Patrick: what is to be done

[0:43:16] Trustee Patrick: and more clarity than the detail

[0:43:18] Trustee Patrick: that's in a project charter.

[0:43:20] Trustee Patrick: Trustee Elliott, you had your hand raised.

[0:43:22] Trustee Patrick: I'm going to go.

[0:43:23] Trustee Patrick: I

[0:43:23] Voice 12: know Zoom keeps putting it down

[0:43:25] Voice 12: and stop micromanaging me zoom um so I could speak a little bit for Laskiti um since I've

[0:43:33] Voice 12: I'm chairing and a member of that local trust committee um this one truly seems to have been

[0:43:40] Voice 12: caught in a challenging process in which the good work that was done um I think Peter Luckham

[0:43:51] Voice 12: when you were chair, when they went through a very long engagement, sort of a community-led

[0:43:56] Voice 12: engagement on their OCP. And then a lot of that work was dropped at the beginning of my term,

[0:44:06] Voice 12: sorry, just before the beginning of my term, as they converted from what was essentially a major

[0:44:13] Voice 12: project into a minor project, and the scope had to be reduced. So it was partly because

[0:44:19] Voice 12: because regional planning team, um, was enacted for these major OCP updates. And I think what

[0:44:26] Voice 12: happened was Laskiti's, um, OCP project was taking such a detour. I'll say it's, it's a very unique

[0:44:35] Voice 12: community and they have a very strong sense of ownership over their, um, their OCP and it wasn't

[0:44:44] Voice 12: able to be sort of folded back into as a major project so there was so much that was dropped off

[0:44:49] Voice 12: that essentially the ocp review that we are doing right now and so i'm going to speak to timing of

[0:44:57] Voice 12: starting the next project in a minute um may not even be completed this fiscal um i part of it is

[0:45:08] Voice 12: is because the relationship building with Sana'a's First Nation is taking its time,

[0:45:16] Voice 12: and the nation has not been able to give us feedback on...

[0:45:20] Voice 12: It's basically been sitting with them for, I think, about eight months.

[0:45:26] Voice 12: So we can't advance even the current OCP project with this reduced scope.

[0:45:32] Voice 12: Essentially, work has not been able to move forward.

[0:45:35] Voice 12: And so what you see in this OCP review coming up, which I think is going to start later in the fiscal, depends on when CENOS comes back with comments and when we're able to complete this current very, I'd say it's a very minor OCP review.

[0:45:59] Voice 12: I would say it probably won't start until like this time next year.

[0:46:05] Voice 12: so if we're looking at projects that are delayed i'd say this one is a candidate

[0:46:13] Voice 12: and the focus of this one is relationship building the majority of the project budget

[0:46:18] Voice 12: is capacity funding to to really support sanas and being able to provide comment and they're

[0:46:25] Voice 12: interested in that it's just they haven't been able to get to it so that's my experience with

[0:46:31] Voice 12: with Liskiti. I think there's a lot of work to be done, especially with shoreline values.

[0:46:40] Voice 12: Apparently, this was started almost eight years ago. And various reasons it wasn't completed. So

[0:46:50] Voice 12: we're seeing things come back again, because communities do evolve. And sometimes they're

[0:46:55] Voice 12: They're not ready for what

[0:46:59] Voice 3: we

[0:47:01] Voice 12: think they're ready for.

[0:47:03] Voice 12: And so that piece of work just has to wait.

[0:47:06] Voice 12: So Gabriela, on the other hand, we are rocketing through the different phases.

[0:47:13] Voice 12: Planner Chadwick has done an excellent job.

[0:47:16] Voice 12: We just got an update yesterday with the LTC.

[0:47:20] Voice 12: And we are on track for, we've done our values and our visioning.

[0:47:26] Voice 12: We've set the goals and the principles. So what you see in Salt Springs in layout, we've we've gone through those first two phases and we've staff have produced documents to support discussions on, you know, the different policy aspects of the OCP.

[0:47:44] Voice 12: and we are on target to finish this phase two by the end of the fiscal which is remarkable because

[0:47:50] Voice 12: it's you know the second largest community and um there's a lot to do um but this will set a

[0:47:58] Voice 12: template i believe for the other ocp reviews maybe not salt springs that's a whole different

[0:48:04] Voice 12: kettle of fish but uh they just seem to proceed at different paces a lot of this is depending on

[0:48:11] Voice 12: where relationships are at with the First Nation.

[0:48:14] Voice 12: S'Nanemach is ready to work with us

[0:48:17] Voice 12: and has direction from their leadership

[0:48:19] Voice 12: to establish a framework

[0:48:22] Voice 12: and work with our planners on the aspects of the OCP

[0:48:27] Voice 12: they want to contribute to.

[0:48:28] Voice 12: So it just really, really varies.

[0:48:33] Voice 12: And I don't think you can predict where each one's at.

[0:48:36] Voice 12: But like I said, Liskiti, I think,

[0:48:38] Voice 12: is going to start later next year.

[0:48:44] Trustee Patrick: Thank you for those updates, Trustee Graham.

[0:48:48] Voice 6: Thank you, Chair.

[0:48:49] Voice 6: I just wanted to follow up on Trustee Boland's confusion with Demond's project charter.

[0:48:55] Voice 6: I'll admit that it's challenging.

[0:48:57] Voice 6: I think this is the third iteration of our project charter.

[0:49:00] Voice 6: It continues to be amended primarily due to a couple of things.

[0:49:05] Voice 6: Redirection of staff resources.

[0:49:09] Voice 6: Planner Chadwick is in high demand by a number of local trust committees, and that's unfortunate from Denver's perspective, and it's fortunate for those islands that have captured some of her most excellent time.

[0:49:21] Voice 6: time. It's also, our project charter is also amended with the consultation with Comox as the

[0:49:29] Voice 6: depth of that consultation continues to be amended ever deeper every time. Yes, that's perhaps the

[0:49:40] Voice 6: best way to describe it as just a deeper consultation every time we come back to the

[0:49:44] Voice 6: the table to look at what we're doing as we try to amend our housing policies. At the same time,

[0:49:51] Voice 6: though, I think it's really Regional Planning Committee's role is to champion these projects

[0:49:58] Voice 6: of local trust committees. Whether there is sufficient staff resources or not is really

[0:50:06] Voice 6: the responsibility, in my humble opinion, is the responsibility of financial planning.

[0:50:11] Voice 6: planning. They hold the purse. So regional planning says, look, planning, especially from

[0:50:18] Voice 6: the local trust areas is, in my book, in my opinion, again, should be a priority. This is

[0:50:23] Voice 6: the most on the ground work the trust council can do with regards to preserving and protecting

[0:50:30] Voice 6: natural environment and doing land use planning. So that's where I see our role is championing

[0:50:37] Voice 6: and really supporting these local trust area projects.

[0:50:42] Voice 6: Financial planning's role is to try and figure out how to fund it.

[0:50:45] Voice 6: Now, if there's insufficient staff resources,

[0:50:49] Voice 6: obviously financial planning needs to go,

[0:50:51] Voice 6: well, I guess we need more staff resources.

[0:50:53] Voice 6: This is just a money thing.

[0:50:54] Voice 6: We either get consultants, we either hire more planners,

[0:50:57] Voice 6: or we redirect monies within the budget to support local trust activities.

[0:51:03] Voice 6: It pains me to even contemplate that regional planning committee

[0:51:07] Voice 6: would look at a local trust area project and recommend that it not be funded.

[0:51:12] Voice 6: I just, I cannot even live in that world.

[0:51:15] Voice 6: That's just not, I would not want to be on this committee if that was the role of regional

[0:51:18] Voice 6: planning.

[0:51:19] Voice 6: It would be to stop things so that we can make sure that everything's done with the

[0:51:23] Voice 6: resources we have.

[0:51:24] Voice 6: These are the most important budgetary areas in my book, far more important than upgrading

[0:51:32] Voice 6: upgrading software or painting an office or relocating or doing all the other things, which

[0:51:39] Voice 6: in my book are discretional expenses and not non-discretional. Anyway, that's my little two

[0:51:45] Voice 6: cents.

[0:51:47] Trustee Patrick: Trustee Graham, I appreciate you wanting to not have to get that detailed, but I think

[0:51:54] Trustee Patrick: this committee does need to come up with an option if we support these projects, which I'm not

[0:51:59] Voice 13: not

[0:51:59] Trustee Patrick: suggesting we don't, then we should help the financial planning committee by

[0:52:05] Trustee Patrick: choosing an option. What is that option to fill up that gap for the resources?

[0:52:11] Trustee Patrick: Financial planning committee will decide whether it recommends that option be funded.

[0:52:16] Trustee Patrick: So we need to do that work first. Just to

[0:52:20] Voice 6: follow up, if I may, because you have answered.

[0:52:23] Voice 6: Yes, I agree, but the option of not funding is not one that I would want to entertain.

[0:52:31] Trustee Patrick: I hear you loud and clear.

[0:52:35] Trustee Patrick: Okay, Trustee Luckham.

[0:52:38] Trustee Luckham: Yeah, thank you.

[0:52:39] Trustee Luckham: David raises some good points there.

[0:52:41] Trustee Luckham: I just wanted to double back on apologizing, getting distracted by other business with

[0:52:47] Trustee Luckham: phone calls and stuff, and just going back to Laskiti for a moment and OCPs.

[0:52:53] Trustee Luckham: And just wanting to note that, you know, at the end of that last term, there was some change in the chairing of the Laskiti LTC and indeed, you know, almost three years of work, four years of work had gone into the OCP amendment process there, which was essentially community led.

[0:53:14] Trustee Luckham: and I lost track of it at the end there because I was no longer chairing and it seems to have taken

[0:53:22] Trustee Luckham: a turn in a different direction at this point but just want to note that you know part of our

[0:53:30] Trustee Luckham: mandate is to collaborate with others and that was a fairly serious collaboration with the community

[0:53:38] Trustee Luckham: in the development of their OCP, and for whatever reasons, it's fallen off the track, so to

[0:53:49] Trustee Luckham: speak, but I wouldn't want us to lose sight of the critical importance of engaging and

[0:53:58] Trustee Luckham: involving the community in their OCP amendments, as opposed to it being, as characterized by

[0:54:03] Trustee Luckham: by them, an Islands Trust-led OCP amendment, because, of course, it needs to be owned by

[0:54:11] Trustee Luckham: the community in the end. And so there's lessons to learn from how that process has evolved. And

[0:54:17] Trustee Luckham: it's unfortunate it's taking a lot more time. And what I'm hearing may not be completed even

[0:54:21] Trustee Luckham: this term. So that's an eight-year process that certainly stalls the implementation of other OCPs.

[0:54:29] Trustee Luckham: And I think the idea was that there was some efficiencies and that could actually be progressed in a good way.

[0:54:35] Trustee Luckham: But that seems to have not worked out well.

[0:54:37] Trustee Luckham: But just think that that's important to note that let's not lose sight of collaborating and working with others in maybe new and different ways than we've done in the past.

[0:54:47] Trustee Patrick: Thank you, Trustee Leckham.

[0:54:49] Trustee Patrick: And coming from Laskini with those heritage or feral sheep in the picture, Trustee Laroni.

[0:54:57] Voice 11: Yes, there's the sheep.

[0:54:58] Voice 11: we even have um bumper stickers there that say don't don't scapegoat our heritage sheep

[0:55:05] Voice 11: anyway um yes hotbed op it um topic i'm really glad that the trust islands trust doesn't really

[0:55:11] Voice 11: have a lot of um jurisdiction there um anyway i just wanted to just quickly thank um trustee

[0:55:18] Voice 11: because it's coming in halfway through this project it's really i can see it's taking seems

[0:55:23] Voice 11: to be taking for absolutely forever but not really understanding how the whole thing has

[0:55:28] Voice 11: progressed over time so um yes thank you i just want to thank him for the for clarifying that

[0:55:33] Voice 11: because i think i'm understanding better and it's my own community now oh thank you

[0:55:38] Trustee Patrick: trustee forthwick

[0:55:42] Voice 7: yeah um and i i wanted to sort of echo i mean i think there's a lot of this has been a good

[0:55:48] Voice 7: discussion and i think it's important for us to sort of think about these things and and yeah i

[0:55:53] Voice 7: mean i i like trustee graham i would be really hesitant like how do you turn back to an ltc and

[0:55:59] Voice 7: say well not you guys um and also i really take uh chair patrick's perspective of you know if there

[0:56:06] Voice 7: are if there are places for us to to to be realistic about things you know being able to at

[0:56:12] Voice 7: least provide some perspective uh which i and and i mean trustee graham is on the fbc so perhaps he

[0:56:19] Voice 7: has a better understanding of both sides of this question right now that seems to be sitting between

[0:56:24] Voice 7: between the committees, but, um, you know, it's from, from this, uh, request and with a little

[0:56:32] Voice 7: bit of extra context that we now have, which we didn't have in the agenda, which has helped for

[0:56:36] Voice 7: me, uh, you know, understanding that this is a question of like trying to get some more context

[0:56:40] Voice 7: around which projects may be feasible and which ones aren't, uh, and that it's, it's a request

[0:56:45] Voice 7: for sort of comments on that. Um, you know, yeah, I think there it's important for us to be clear,

[0:56:51] Voice 7: But I also just think it's important for us to be clear as a committee, you know, what the status of our projects are and where and why they might be falling by the wayside.

[0:57:00] Voice 7: And I think the Liskiti OCP review is a really good sort of case in that example.

[0:57:07] Voice 7: And obviously, I'm very sensitive to, you know, what's happening with the Dem and Housing Project, which has already been referred to.

[0:57:14] Voice 7: And Trustee Boland, believe you me, the phase two, step two, tier 2A approach is very difficult to track, which is not supposed to be a criticism of staff's numbering system.

[0:57:33] Voice 7: It needs to make sense for them, not necessarily for me at all times.

[0:57:37] Voice 7: Um, but, uh, you know, the, the pursuit of those efficiencies, and I know we're certainly seeing, uh, the pursuit of efficiencies being used as a, as a, or being brought up as a reason for, um, delays in, in our project, uh, in terms of, you know, and I have no doubt, like we, and, and I think trust you, Graham and I have both, you know, uh, trying to temper our enthusiasm for the project by trying to support that, you know, laying that groundwork that will hopefully help.

[0:58:07] Voice 7: future ltcs but also i'm really keen that uh you know as a trustee i think it's really important

[0:58:13] Voice 7: for us to continue to reflect back um you know to to the wonderful people in our planning departments

[0:58:20] Voice 7: that you know those efficiencies can't be the end result um the end result needs to be the

[0:58:26] Voice 7: conclusion of projects and where those projects are being stymied uh in the pursuit of of

[0:58:34] Voice 7: somewhat nebulous efficiencies um it becomes a problem and this is why we see these projects

[0:58:41] Voice 7: drag on in this way um and and in part you know uh and and i'm sure that like i would love to get

[0:58:48] Voice 7: to the other side of those things but also at this point you know it's been two years that that

[0:58:53] Voice 7: trustee graham and i have been working on this this housing project with with staff and we're

[0:58:58] Voice 7: we've had a lot of buy-in and consult consultation from community and we're seeing you know we're

[0:59:05] Voice 7: seeing not a lot of movement so it's i think it's really important for us to have this context as

[0:59:09] Voice 7: rpc uh and and to be able to like work with with you know we are the the body that most closely

[0:59:17] Voice 7: has ties to the the regional planning department and i you know i really appreciate the work that

[0:59:22] Voice 7: that everyone in that that body is doing um and it's really important for us to all be on the

[0:59:27] Voice 7: the same page and be, you know, clear-eyed about what's happening with these projects and why are

[0:59:32] Voice 7: we struggling to get them across the finish line.

[0:59:35] Trustee Patrick: Right. Thank you very much. Well, with that,

[0:59:39] Trustee Patrick: I'm going to turn back to staff. We're not taking projects off the table,

[0:59:44] Trustee Patrick: so we have not enough resources to do that work. What are our options? I would say let's park the

[0:59:53] Trustee Patrick: special tax requisition. I don't think that's an option at this late juncture, nor do what I

[1:00:00] Trustee Patrick: ask any of those uh local trust committees to try to go through that process uh right now so what

[1:00:05] Trustee Patrick: are our options to fill in the gap of resources who wants to take a stab at that i can't share

[1:00:13] Voice 4: go for it it's in uh it's in the final paragraph of the briefing so um you know assuming there are

[1:00:24] Voice 4: are still, as of April 1st, still a shortage of a few hundred hours of staff time. The options are

[1:00:32] Voice 4: to defer the start of one of the major projects, and that's been talked about for Liskiti as maybe

[1:00:40] Voice 4: being actually a realistic option. And that's also assuming that one of the other projects will wrap

[1:00:46] Voice 4: up as the Liskiti project starts. So that would free up that time from that project. And a couple

[1:00:52] Voice 4: of the projects are scheduled to be finished before the end of the next fiscal year. I know

[1:00:58] Voice 4: Maine is, for example. The other option is to utilize the island planners more or exclusively

[1:01:07] Voice 4: to manage a project. That would, of course, detract from the work they do for the local

[1:01:13] Voice 4: trust committees, major rezonings, major subdivisions, so on, minor projects, for example.

[1:01:20] Voice 4: example um or they try and uh bring in an outside uh person to fill that point for

[1:01:27] Voice 4: an auxiliary or consultant all

[1:01:36] Trustee Patrick: right do staff have a preference well

[1:01:39] Voice 4: i think delaying the start of

[1:01:41] Voice 4: one of the major projects would be would be the preferred approach or the most logical approach

[1:01:48] Voice 4: As

[1:01:50] Trustee Patrick: long as that doesn't include Salt Spring, I'd be okay. I think we've heard from Laskini that a delay is highly likely. Am I seeing that we have the chair and one person here? Are we hearing protests, if that is the approach that's recommended? Trustee Elliott?

[1:02:19] Trustee Patrick: uh

[1:02:19] Voice 12: thanks no protests i think it's uh realistic um i actually wanted to also discuss maine

[1:02:30] Voice 12: and its housing project because there's been quite a lot of work done um and i'm wondering

[1:02:38] Voice 12: if that one actually might wrap up sorry i can't find a page um for this phase

[1:02:46] Voice 12: is it phase three of the housing review can anyone find mains here too

[1:02:54] Voice 10: i'm not sure it's

[1:02:57] Voice 10: there because it was already forwarded i think is that am i right go ahead

[1:03:05] Trustee Patrick: trustee katima yes i always elevate

[1:03:08] Trustee Patrick: everybody according to the project

[1:03:09] Voice 4: charter um the main

[1:03:13] Voice 4: Maine Housing Review is scheduled to be substantially complete anyway, October 2025.

[1:03:21] Voice 12: Right. So that's the one that's pretty much going to wrap up, I think.

[1:03:30] Voice 12: I have questions about Maine.

[1:03:32] Voice 12: And so we were talking about Planner Resources and Planner Chadwick's work.

[1:03:38] Voice 12: I kind of wonder if the work that has been done on Maine on housing is essentially, you know, it's set a template, we've got a good model to follow. And that was the intention. It hasn't necessarily translated into housing options yet.

[1:03:58] Voice 12: yet. We just had a fantastic community workshop on housing. CRD director or planning services

[1:04:07] Voice 12: manager Justine Stark was there, Habitat for Humanity. And it feels like the community is

[1:04:12] Voice 12: galvanized around the housing options they have. So I would say that if there's going to be work,

[1:04:20] Voice 12: work like Planner Chadwick's really good at setting templates and establishing sort of a new

[1:04:27] Voice 12: flow and getting things done. She's really good at scoping what can be done with available

[1:04:34] Voice 12: resources and doing it. So if there was to be redirection of regional planning team resources,

[1:04:42] Voice 12: I'd say, would there be a potential of putting a more junior planner who needs the experience

[1:04:49] Voice 12: experience um to sort of run with the end of that project and then redirecting minor chadwick to

[1:04:56] Voice 12: say finish finish denman's housing project and and or work on other ones that need um more attention

[1:05:05] Voice 12: so it's just a thought yes

[1:05:07] Voice 4: through the chair yes that's an option we've we've talked about and

[1:05:12] Voice 4: haven't actually implemented it yet would be to when a project reaches a certain phase like the

[1:05:17] Voice 4: legislative phase where the bylaws are drafted and it's readings and public hearing and so on

[1:05:21] Voice 4: that might shift to say the island planner for that community and free up the regional

[1:05:28] Voice 4: planning team planner um to start um another project earlier than would otherwise be the case

[1:05:38] Voice 12: great except that narissa is the island planner yeah

[1:05:43] Voice 4: so it could be denman for example or is

[1:05:44] Voice 4: denman gets its draft bylaws um for housing um it could be the island planner that picks up the kind

[1:05:52] Voice 4: of the legislative uh steps in that process and i understand one of the sort of three tracks that

[1:05:57] Voice 4: the denman housing project is on uh one of them which is the routine amendments or minor amendments

[1:06:04] Voice 4: to the land use bylaw have been picked up by the island planner okay

[1:06:15] Trustee Patrick: if there are no further

[1:06:17] Trustee Patrick: discussion we probably need to have a resolution back to financial planning committee along the

[1:06:27] Trustee Patrick: lines that the regional planning committee is supporting the projects and that staff

[1:06:37] Trustee Patrick: resource or the the whatever you want to call it the resources could be managed through through

[1:06:47] Trustee Patrick: through delaying the start of some of the projects,

[1:06:52] Trustee Patrick: something along those lines?

[1:06:53] Trustee Patrick: Does that make sense?

[1:06:57] Trustee Patrick: Yeah, I

[1:06:57] Voice 12: think we could specifically say

[1:06:59] Voice 12: that it is realistic to project

[1:07:05] Voice 12: that the start of the Liskiti OCP review

[1:07:10] Voice 12: might be delayed,

[1:07:12] Voice 12: that the main island or the main housing project

[1:07:16] Voice 12: project would be wrapped up earlier. Yeah, so I see in the project charter, that's going to be

[1:07:24] Voice 12: October 2025. So that essentially leaves a whole half year without a major project. So I think

[1:07:37] Voice 12: those two, is that going to save the 300 hours that are needed?

[1:07:47] Trustee Patrick: I'm seeing a regional planning

[1:07:51] Trustee Patrick: Planning Manager Kojima shaking his head, yes.

[1:07:54] Voice 4: Yes, I'm nodding my head, yes.

[1:07:57] Trustee Patrick: So could we have, what would be a suggested resolution?

[1:08:02] Trustee Patrick: Trustee Boland, do you have a brilliant answer for that?

[1:08:05] Voice 10: I'm suggesting that instead of the specifics,

[1:08:09] Voice 10: that we just make a resolution that the planning staff

[1:08:19] Voice 10: staff will come to Trust Council with the rescheduled list of projects which allows

[1:08:28] Voice 10: them to accommodate the staff that they have, staff resources they have. Would that work

[1:08:36] Voice 10: rather than us going shift main resources and, you know, do

[1:08:42] Trustee Patrick: you need to look to Director

[1:08:43] Trustee Patrick: as a brilliant drafter of uh suggested language here for us uh any suggestions

[1:08:52] Voice 9: thank you madam chair you know i think we're trying too hard to tell them what you're talking

[1:08:57] Voice 9: about i think what i'm hearing is that the regional planning committee supports the work

[1:09:01] Voice 9: as proposed and uh staff will work you know um to implement it based on what the report says

[1:09:09] Voice 9: as resources become available.

[1:09:12] Voice 9: So I don't, personally,

[1:09:13] Voice 9: I think less is more in this circumstance.

[1:09:15] Voice 9: I don't think financial planning committee

[1:09:16] Voice 9: needs to know all your thinking.

[1:09:18] Voice 9: I think they just,

[1:09:19] Voice 9: that the regional planning committee

[1:09:20] Voice 9: has considered the feasibility report

[1:09:23] Voice 9: and recommends that all projects be supported going forth

[1:09:28] Voice 9: due to discussions.

[1:09:29] Voice 9: And if

[1:09:30] Trustee Patrick: you want to list them all, that's great, but.

[1:09:31] Trustee Patrick: I don't think we have to have the detail, I agree,

[1:09:34] Trustee Patrick: but I know that the financial planning committee

[1:09:37] Trustee Patrick: just saw that the you know that there was more work than hours and so we're saying that can be

[1:09:46] Trustee Patrick: solved um so

[1:09:49] Voice 9: go ahead respect trustee oh

[1:09:51] Trustee Patrick: sorry director sir may it

[1:09:53] Voice 9: like i said the report does

[1:09:55] Voice 9: say the difference can be made up by deferring the start of one of the major projects several

[1:09:59] Voice 9: months utilizing island planners to lead projects or complete legislative phase of minor projects

[1:10:04] Voice 9: And so I think the report has the options, and as long as Trust Council approves all these projects and funding for them, the staff will implement based on the tools that we have available, which are listed.

[1:10:16] Voice 9: So I don't wish to be argumentative, I'm just thinking that as long as RPC supports all these projects going forward and recognizes that we do have resources and we will stagger things as needed based on the resources we have available as discussed, I think we're in good territory.

[1:10:31] Voice 9: But perhaps I'm not being as thoughtful as what FPC needs to hear.

[1:10:36] Voice 9: Perhaps somebody from the FPC can say what they need in order to feel secure in making their recommendation to trust counsel.

[1:10:42] Trustee Patrick: I think we're there.

[1:10:44] Trustee Patrick: I think we just have to say that the staff resources can be scheduled to do the work.

[1:10:53] Trustee Patrick: I think that's all.

[1:10:54] Trustee Patrick: So that we're not saying there's a shortfall is what I think is important.

[1:10:58] Trustee Patrick: that you know we're comfortable the shortfall can be addressed as recommended by just delaying

[1:11:04] Trustee Patrick: projects uh a project so um so trustee boland did you have your hand raised yes

[1:11:14] Voice 10: i i fully support

[1:11:16] Voice 10: what you've said but i think it needs to be more explicit or you will go around this particular

[1:11:21] Voice 10: maypole again with financial planning and trust council because you have said it rather tentatively

[1:11:28] Voice 10: that you believe that you might be able to and I think you know we're saying okay go and do that

[1:11:34] Voice 10: so we either need a resolution to say that we support all of the projects and we believe

[1:11:40] Voice 10: that you you're as indicated you can manage resources to accomplish them um or you need

[1:11:49] Voice 10: to update the report to be very explicit about how you're going to solve it because otherwise

[1:11:54] Voice 10: Otherwise, you will have this discussion again at Financial Planning and Trust Council.

[1:12:00] Trustee Patrick: Good point.

[1:12:02] Trustee Patrick: And I think when there's options presented to Trust Council, they like to linger on them.

[1:12:08] Trustee Patrick: So I think that's true.

[1:12:10] Trustee Patrick: So anyway, let's work on drafting a motion and see if we can get to it.

[1:12:14] Trustee Patrick: Just don't anyone jump up and second it.

[1:12:15] Trustee Patrick: So we're looking at a, I see Rob's ready to go.

[1:12:19] Trustee Patrick: Regional planning, regional plan, advise.

[1:12:23] Trustee Patrick: I think it's advised the Financial Planning Committee that it supports the local, what is it we're supporting?

[1:12:37] Trustee Patrick: Local Planning Committee projects as submitted?

[1:12:45] Trustee Patrick: Is that?

[1:12:47] Trustee Patrick: Anyone jump in with brilliant words as we're going?

[1:12:49] Trustee Patrick: I'm just trying to talk.

[1:12:51] Trustee Patrick: And that we're satisfied that

[1:13:00] Voice 12: due to likely delays and comma projects wrapping up earlier than the end of the fiscal, there will be adequate staff resources.

[1:13:21] Voice 12: I

[1:13:26] Voice 10: think we should leave it to the planning team to make that judgment that we support the briefing as presented and the recommendation or the assumption that resources will become available through the year, through rescheduling.

[1:13:48] Voice 12: Good one. I support that wording.

[1:13:52] Voice 12: Okay.

[1:13:53] Voice 12: Try to repeat that again.

[1:13:54] Voice 12: We

[1:13:55] Voice 10: support the staff briefing as submitted, including the assumption that resources

[1:14:04] Voice 10: will become available through the year due to rescheduling. How about adequate resources?

[1:14:24] Trustee Patrick: that's fine and but you're just missing and so after as submitted and we support the i guess we

[1:14:36] Trustee Patrick: probably needed date the what was it the planning services project feasibility assessment staff

[1:14:53] Trustee Patrick: report i don't know if you want to date which date you would recommend would be the right one to use

[1:15:01] Trustee Patrick: is there, Director Cermak?

[1:15:03] Trustee Patrick: Is that the September 27th one?

[1:15:09] Trustee Patrick: Yes, so the report of September 27th.

[1:15:13] Trustee Patrick: Okay, folks, how does that read?

[1:15:17] Trustee Patrick: Trustee Graham.

[1:15:19] Voice 6: Thank you, great, great motion.

[1:15:23] Voice 6: I'm telling, just from a financial planning committee

[1:15:26] Voice 6: perspective, the fact that you've assured the committee

[1:15:29] Voice 6: that they don't have to hire anybody,

[1:15:31] Voice 6: steal money from some other pot etc etc that that's gold right there and we'll be able to

[1:15:37] Voice 6: move on from that topic thank you that's good

[1:15:40] Trustee Patrick: yes and that's uh that's going to be your and my job

[1:15:43] Trustee Patrick: when we sit on the committee there and uh and trustee elliott and uh trustee lockman we know

[1:15:48] Trustee Patrick: we have a crowd uh that we can um support this okay does this make sense any other

[1:15:55] Trustee Patrick: probably just need the september 27 2024 just that's all there rob and then i think that would

[1:16:00] Trustee Patrick: would be fine.

[1:16:01] Trustee Patrick: Who would like to make this motion?

[1:16:04] Trustee Patrick: We've crafted it.

[1:16:06] Trustee Patrick: I see Trustee Morthwaite, go for it.

[1:16:09] Voice 7: Sorry, sorry, Mairead.

[1:16:13] Trustee Patrick: She's standing

[1:16:13] Trustee Patrick: ready to second.

[1:16:16] Voice 7: I move that the Regional Planning Committee

[1:16:19] Voice 7: advise Financial Planning Committee

[1:16:21] Voice 7: that it supports the Local Trust Committee

[1:16:23] Voice 7: major projects as submitted

[1:16:24] Voice 7: and supports the Planning Services Feasibility Assessment

[1:16:27] Voice 7: Staff Report of September 27th, 2024,

[1:16:30] Voice 7: including the assumption that adequate resources

[1:16:33] Voice 7: will become available through the year

[1:16:35] Voice 7: due to rescheduling.

[1:16:37] Trustee Patrick: Excellent.

[1:16:38] Trustee Patrick: Is there a seconder?

[1:16:40] Voice 7: If

[1:16:40] Trustee Patrick: I could just...

[1:16:41] Trustee Patrick: Go ahead.

[1:16:42] Voice 7: I just want to make a very quick request.

[1:16:44] Voice 7: Just after 2024, Rob,

[1:16:48] Voice 7: if you could put another comma.

[1:16:52] Voice 7: And actually, I don't know that it needs to be a comma

[1:16:54] Voice 7: after September 27.

[1:17:02] Voice 7: That date is all one thing, is it not?

[1:17:05] Voice 7: on but i don't know anyways as long as there's a cop after 2024 i'm happy okay

[1:17:08] Trustee Patrick: i think we can let

[1:17:09] Trustee Patrick: that go all right is there any discussion i'll second it if not i hopefully uh seconded by

[1:17:17] Trustee Patrick: trustee bolin any discussion if not i will call the vote all those in favor raise your hand or

[1:17:28] Trustee Patrick: wave at me all right lower your hands i think that was unanimous but was there anyone who whoops

[1:17:39] Trustee Patrick: Lower my hand. Anyone that voted against? Nope. So that carries. Excellent job. We can face the Financial Planning Committee and get through the next lengthy meeting of theirs. Okay. Moving back on to the agenda. How are we doing, folks? It's 1120. Keep going up until lunch hour. Director Cermak.

[1:18:07] Trustee Patrick: Thank

[1:18:08] Voice 9: you, Madam Chair. For the next item, which is bylaw enforcement, we only have bylaw enforcement manager Warren Dingman until noon. So I'll leave that up to you if you want to do this now, or I think he said he can come back around 1.30.

[1:18:23] Voice 9: so well

[1:18:25] Trustee Patrick: let's get started and see where we go then so we're on to item number 7.3 which begins

[1:18:32] Trustee Patrick: at page 75 in the agenda package bylaw compliance enforcement policy review and who's going to

[1:18:38] Trustee Patrick: deliver this report I

[1:18:43] Voice 9: will start madam chair and I know we have I haven't seen him online yet but

[1:18:48] Voice 9: I know he's he's aware of this meeting hold on let me get to the page oh my goodness I

[1:18:53] Trustee Patrick: see he's

[1:18:54] Trustee Patrick: is online all

[1:18:55] Voice 9: right so i'll start um so as as already previously discussed i won't rehash what

[1:19:00] Voice 9: happened at trust council and the process how we got there um you know i took responsibility for

[1:19:06] Voice 9: helping conduct that that process i know it was uncomfortable and led to some difficult

[1:19:10] Voice 9: conversations and frankly it felt like an unprofessional moment on my part so i take that

[1:19:15] Voice 9: i admit that and i'm happy to move forward and make it better so what you have before you kind

[1:19:20] Voice 9: of a result of that trust council meeting is they really only supported a couple things one they

[1:19:25] Voice 9: said please go forth and they supported rpc's direction to create a plain language version of

[1:19:31] Voice 9: the best practices manual you have the first edit of that before you we don't pretend that that's

[1:19:37] Voice 9: just something for you to start to sink your teeth into and they supported adding the local trust

[1:19:42] Voice 9: committee enforcement policy to the business charter i know some of you are aware that has

[1:19:47] Voice 9: been making its rounds somewhat around the um around the region everything else uh didn't quite

[1:19:53] Voice 9: make the muster didn't quite cut it with the policy 551 we haven't made any amendments to it

[1:19:58] Voice 9: policy 712 we haven't made any amendments to it and so they are all attached for your consideration

[1:20:06] Voice 9: but staff have forwarded you a request for decision really focusing on those two things

[1:20:11] Voice 9: that trust council supported at this time and that was the plain language creation of a plain language

[1:20:17] Voice 9: uh business best practices manual and that of the local chess community enforcement policy

[1:20:21] Voice 9: which has had some slight amendments to it so we have those attached uh manager dingman has

[1:20:27] Voice 9: been helping with those things and a great shout out to our communications advisor

[1:20:36] Voice 9: morgana who's helped create the document you see attached this report so that's all i have to to

[1:20:42] Voice 9: to say, I can't quite walk you through the document because I didn't craft it.

[1:20:47] Voice 9: Perhaps Manager Dingman would like to do that, or perhaps the Chair

[1:20:50] Voice 9: would like to just have a general discussion.

[1:20:53] Trustee Patrick: Well, I believe in

[1:20:54] Trustee Patrick: preparing for this agenda package that we were going to focus on the plain language

[1:20:58] Trustee Patrick: manual today. I just want to make sure we're on the same page with staff.

[1:21:02] Trustee Patrick: So our focus is on that. I think it's going to

[1:21:08] Trustee Patrick: I really appreciate that I think

[1:21:10] Trustee Patrick: the table on page 81 actually would be a table, whatever it is, the drawing, I think is a good

[1:21:20] Trustee Patrick: place because I think it'll, if we have some conversation along this flow, because I think

[1:21:26] Trustee Patrick: this also gets us into some of the conversations that do lead us back to the policy and so forth.

[1:21:33] Trustee Patrick: Did Warren do want to walk us through the document a bit and then we could structure

[1:21:39] Trustee Patrick: sure our conversation to be useful or yes

[1:21:42] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: chair i can do that please do um

[1:21:45] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: so with this document

[1:21:46] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: it was actually a combination of staff working on it myself rob croker and uh morgana from

[1:21:53] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: communications and especially a lot of work uh by morgana especially with this uh chart that you see

[1:22:00] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: right now, the Bylaw Enforcement Pathway.

[1:22:05] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: We took the previous comments from Trust Council

[1:22:11] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: and the concerns about this document

[1:22:16] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: and how it was worded, basically,

[1:22:20] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: and tried to make it more user-friendly,

[1:22:24] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: readable, take out the acronyms,

[1:22:28] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: and i would term it take out the inside baseball terms that the general public is not going to

[1:22:36] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: understand uh the original document was actually created for staff only and that's what was you

[1:22:44] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: know we were working with moving forward is an internal staff document and now we've done a

[1:22:50] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: considerable amount of work on producing a forward-facing public document to try and explain

[1:22:56] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: explain the process from start to finish. Right now, I think it's an excellent job that's been

[1:23:06] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: done to try and create that. But I acknowledge there may be additional questions and concerns

[1:23:16] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: about, you know, whether or not it communicates everything that the trustees want it to

[1:23:21] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: to communicate to the general public.

[1:23:25] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: So over to you, chair.

[1:23:28] Trustee Patrick: All right, thank you.

[1:23:30] Trustee Patrick: So trustees, I don't know what,

[1:23:33] Trustee Patrick: it's always hard to take a big document

[1:23:35] Trustee Patrick: and talk about it when we have,

[1:23:37] Trustee Patrick: and I do have, I forgot to mention,

[1:23:38] Trustee Patrick: Aaron Campbell provided his comments to me,

[1:23:41] Trustee Patrick: so I have some additional comments from him.

[1:23:44] Trustee Patrick: I thought looking at this table

[1:23:47] Trustee Patrick: that's up on the screen right now

[1:23:48] Trustee Patrick: is a good way to look at it

[1:23:49] Trustee Patrick: because it sort of flows through the process

[1:23:51] Trustee Patrick: process and I don't know if anyone has comments that they want to start who wants to start this

[1:24:01] Trustee Patrick: conversation I see trustee Bolin's hand up yeah

[1:24:07] Voice 10: thanks this is a huge improvement to me thank you

[1:24:10] Voice 10: for doing this it's it really answers a lot of my concerns around just the tone and the flavor

[1:24:18] Voice 10: and the readability and the impression that anybody would get in reading it.

[1:24:25] Voice 10: So thank you.

[1:24:27] Voice 10: I have a couple of comments, specific ones throughout the document,

[1:24:33] Voice 10: if we just flipped page by page.

[1:24:36] Voice 10: But generally what I still lack a little bit, and I'd like to see its alignment

[1:24:44] Voice 10: with the content in the other documents, because I recognize that, you know, as you go further

[1:24:52] Voice 10: into the document, there is some detail around process. And that's also covered in the other

[1:24:59] Voice 10: procedural document. And it comes back to one of the things I raised, I believe, Stephen,

[1:25:07] Voice 10: with you by email, but I don't see a kind of an overarching document compendium, like this

[1:25:15] Voice 10: document will contain this, that document will contain the other, because you kind of started

[1:25:20] Voice 10: with the ones that existed already. And even in the project charter, there was a public facing

[1:25:26] Voice 10: document to be created. But now you're describing this best practices manual as the public facing

[1:25:33] Voice 10: document. So I would like to see just some sort of high-level overview of when we finish, we will

[1:25:40] Voice 10: have these documents in answer to the ombudsman's requirements, and they will contain, broadly

[1:25:49] Voice 10: speaking, this content. And where the content is repeated, that care is taken to make sure

[1:25:57] Voice 10: that the content is aligned so that's my most general comment other than that i think this is

[1:26:03] Voice 10: great and i have some very specific things just on page x etc etc but i'll leave it to later to

[1:26:11] Voice 10: do those thank you all

[1:26:17] Voice 13: right trustee graham thank

[1:26:19] Voice 6: you chair um i i uh echo uh trustee borland's uh

[1:26:26] Voice 6: commendation that this is really an excellent document for the use of the public. And I

[1:26:31] Voice 6: apologize, Manager Dingman, I didn't understand that the first iteration was a staff-directed

[1:26:37] Voice 6: document. I kind of assumed that it was for the public. And obviously, my concern was that

[1:26:44] Voice 6: it was very technical, which of course, now that I know that it was aimed at the staff,

[1:26:48] Voice 6: makes perfect sense. So perhaps this whole miscommunication and misunderstanding really

[1:26:56] Voice 6: was perhaps not by design, but by fault of not being clear as to who is this document aimed at.

[1:27:06] Voice 6: So anyway, having said that far too complicatedly, I do appreciate how this document flows. It looks

[1:27:13] Voice 6: good. I'm sure the content can be tweaked a little bit here and there. I'm not a tweaker.

[1:27:17] Voice 6: I'm a high-level person and so well done I think my our public will really appreciate how clear

[1:27:23] Voice 6: this is and they'll really start to understand how violent enforcement works thank you any

[1:27:32] Trustee Patrick: other

[1:27:34] Trustee Patrick: comments no I have some um you know me I go out and I look at other people's policies and

[1:27:43] Trustee Patrick: I lost this because who I am we're not the first ones to be going uh I

[1:27:48] Voice 3: see

[1:27:49] Trustee Patrick: trustee Elliott's there

[1:27:50] Voice 3: There you go.

[1:27:51] Trustee Patrick: Yep.

[1:27:51] Trustee Patrick: Thank you.

[1:27:52] Trustee Patrick: It's all good.

[1:27:53] Trustee Patrick: But trustee Elliot, go for it.

[1:27:56] Voice 12: Yep.

[1:27:56] Voice 12: I think this is great.

[1:27:58] Voice 12: I would hope that the best practices manual for staff is also going to be looked at at some point.

[1:28:07] Voice 12: So getting into the nitty gritty, I guess the first bit of feedback that I have is that all the related policies should be linked in some way, but I don't think within the document, I think that would clutter it up and make it messy.

[1:28:25] Voice 12: But what about a table at the end? So if you are, for instance, talking about the roles and responsibilities, right up top, page 83, trustees' roles and responsibilities, that has a link, of course, to policy of how much involvement trustees have in bylaw enforcement.

[1:28:50] Voice 12: um and so i'm not sure how to do that i i don't want to make it more academic

[1:28:58] Voice 12: by having footnotes and things um i know that there are links to you know trust council policy

[1:29:06] Voice 12: 5.5.1 section 5.1 um that's great i'm just wondering how we can make it easy for people

[1:29:15] Voice 12: to find specifically where the policies relate to. One piece that I think should be better linked is

[1:29:22] Voice 12: page 90, communications with trustees. That bit of information at the top there, that trustees

[1:29:35] Voice 12: are not involved in any aspect of the investigation of a complaint or the preparation of any bylaw,

[1:29:40] Voice 12: compliance and enforcement report. I think that should be actually right up top in roles and

[1:29:48] Voice 12: and responsibilities, because distinguishing who does what work and what trustees are not

[1:29:55] Voice 12: involved with should be understood off the bat.

[1:30:00] Voice 12: So I think that's a little buried there, and it could be articulated more clearly. But great work. This is a fantastic start. Thank you so much to everyone who worked on this.

[1:30:14] Voice 12: Yes.

[1:30:16] Trustee Patrick: Just Trustee Elliott, that was Aaron Campbell's comment was similar because under

[1:30:22] Trustee Patrick: roles and responsibilities on page 83 under trustees, it says that we are the community

[1:30:27] Trustee Patrick: representations as trustee represents the interests and concerns of their constituents

[1:30:31] Trustee Patrick: and matters related to bylaws and their enforcement acting as a liaison between the

[1:30:36] Trustee Patrick: community enforcement officers. And then that conflicts with that later statement

[1:30:39] Trustee Patrick: that we just had up on the screen. So the two don't match. So the roles and responsibilities

[1:30:45] Trustee Patrick: if we are from that later statement so that third bullet under trustees doesn't match

[1:30:54] Trustee Patrick: what's written later in there uh trustee worthwick all

[1:31:06] Voice 7: right yeah and and sorry if i've missed a

[1:31:08] Voice 7: thing i had a cat that was screaming at me um the i think i thought two things that were on my sort

[1:31:16] Voice 7: of list of things um the first was uh yeah i mean i want to say that i think a lot of this is really

[1:31:22] Voice 7: good. Flowchart is really useful. I think a lot of that stuff is really, really very helpful.

[1:31:28] Voice 7: One of the things that I wanted to just sort of flag was this document is, as a lot of our

[1:31:35] Voice 7: sort of modern documents are, meant to be a resource for someone who is connected to the

[1:31:42] Voice 7: internet. And the utility of the links within is absolutely very, very useful. However,

[1:31:51] Voice 7: However, I did want to make sure that there was a potential for this document to also be something that exists in a hard copy or that still has utility for people who are not necessarily always connected or are very comfortable with being connected.

[1:32:09] Voice 7: And there's a lot of, there's a couple of places where I noticed like, you know, a link is a link is a link and that's good and someone can pull that out and connect to it at their leisure.

[1:32:18] Voice 7: um but there are there are a couple places where it's like you can find this thing here and it

[1:32:25] Voice 7: doesn't actually tell you necessarily where to go directly and it assumes that you're going to be

[1:32:29] Voice 7: online and i just know that that's not always a reality for everyone it's not always possible for

[1:32:34] Voice 7: someone in the moment um and there may be moments when someone would like to have a hard copy of

[1:32:38] Voice 7: this and be able to go through it and i just want to make sure that that um that that use is

[1:32:44] Voice 7: reflected because not everybody is is always online um it's just feedback that i've had

[1:32:50] Voice 7: about some other bits and pieces over the last couple years um the other thing was we were just

[1:32:57] Voice 7: talking about oh yeah communications with trustees uh yeah i had also sort of um uh

[1:33:04] Voice 7: sort of clocked that the i did have a question and this is sort of a question for um director

[1:33:11] Voice 7: director Cermak, um, how within this, and I would like to see this, and I say this because I've had

[1:33:19] Voice 7: this happen a couple of times over the term. Um, when you have a, uh, a resident of your island

[1:33:27] Voice 7: who, uh, either has, uh, a contravention or is concerned about having a contravention as a

[1:33:36] Voice 7: a trustee, you know, I would hope that we would be able to be one of their first steps in, you

[1:33:43] Voice 7: know, determining, you know, how to deal with that and how to come into compliance or, you know,

[1:33:49] Voice 7: get some clarity around what their situation is. And I have certainly had people come to me

[1:33:54] Voice 7: with stuff where they knew that they were either outside the law and were concerned about

[1:33:58] Voice 7: prosecution or, and were looking to get on the other side of it or, you know, trying to find out

[1:34:04] Voice 7: where they sit in the landscape um and i think that a big part of certainly i see it as a big

[1:34:11] Voice 7: part of my work is sort of trying to be part of that process and sort of you know helping people

[1:34:16] Voice 7: understand no you're not this is not going to necessarily be an issue or yes you should

[1:34:19] Voice 7: sort of work on those things um it would i think it would be really helpful if this is a document

[1:34:24] Voice 7: that's going out to the public to lay out uh but i wanted to check yeah i guess i wanted to check

[1:34:30] Voice 7: like uh my perception like you know what are our responsibilities as trustees to bylaw enforcement

[1:34:38] Voice 7: in terms of as soon as we you know it says in here that we can uh file a complaint um

[1:34:48] Voice 7: you know we were able to file bylaw violation complaints just as any other member of the public

[1:34:52] Voice 7: um is there a higher burden on us to report things uh because we are members of the organization

[1:35:00] Voice 7: conversation um and you know how does that interface with our ability to talk with people

[1:35:06] Voice 7: who maybe want to like you know test the waters find out if if what they're doing is is okay or

[1:35:12] Voice 7: if they know that they're not you know i want us to be able to be a safe place for someone to come

[1:35:17] Voice 7: forward and say hey i think i've got a thing that's outside the law but i would like to sort

[1:35:20] Voice 7: of get it captured what's the process for that because i've had people who have not spoken to

[1:35:25] Voice 7: me for several years afraid that I'm immediately going to have to dob them in. And my perspective

[1:35:32] Voice 7: is, no, I want to help you get through that process in a way that's helpful and good and

[1:35:36] Voice 7: does not feel scary. But there's a tremendous amount of fear and anxiety around that for some

[1:35:40] Voice 7: people. And I think it would be really good to explicitly state, you know, the level to which

[1:35:49] Voice 7: a trustee can be a resource in that discussion. I think I'm articulating myself, but I don't know.

[1:35:59] Trustee Patrick: Thank

[1:36:00] Voice 9: you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Trustee Porthwick.

[1:36:03] Voice 9: So what I hear you asking is, you know, the trustee's role, which is kind of spelled out

[1:36:09] Voice 9: in the roles responsibilities, where it says, you know, you're a community representative.

[1:36:13] Voice 9: Trustees represent the interests and concerns of their constituents in matters related to

[1:36:18] Voice 9: bylaws and their enforcement acting as a liaison between the community and enforcement officers.

[1:36:23] Voice 9: I think that could also be extended to say in planners.

[1:36:27] Voice 9: You know, I'm a community member on Salt Spring and been with the planning department for quite some time now.

[1:36:33] Voice 9: A lot of questions I get are, hey, I have this illegal thing doing whatever it's citing or use.

[1:36:42] Voice 9: What do we do? Or is it a matter? And, you know, how do we communicate that trustees are not out here?

[1:36:51] Voice 9: I don't know a single trustee that's out there to really go out and force it crazy

[1:36:56] Voice 9: except for when something they find egregious and then they may submit a complaint. So I think it's

[1:37:00] Voice 9: laid out that trustees can lay a complaint otherwise you're there as a representative

[1:37:05] Voice 9: to listen and to help your constituents get through whatever process or grievance that they

[1:37:11] Voice 9: have. I think helping you as a planner or as a director or as a file enforcement officer

[1:37:17] Voice 9: quite often what happens has happened over the time is that um you know you send them to the

[1:37:23] Voice 9: planning department and there's no judgment planners don't go enforcing you know we answer

[1:37:27] Voice 9: the questions how do we legalize what's the process to go through a variance or or similar

[1:37:32] Voice 9: rezoning application and so we you know most of our inquiries are somewhere along that uh some

[1:37:37] Voice 9: people quite cagey they're like oh i won't tell you where i am because therefore you're going to

[1:37:41] Voice 9: enforce but that's never been the case that i'm aware of um so i guess my answer to your question

[1:37:47] Voice 9: is that um you know the roles and responsibilities sort of lays it out i might include planners in

[1:37:53] Voice 9: there to some degree to help uh explore potential solutions but you yourself as a community member

[1:38:00] Voice 9: you know if if you feel comfortable being say hey you might need to hold their hand a little

[1:38:05] Voice 9: bit saying one-on-one take them to a you know i used to do this on salt spring a trustee would say

[1:38:10] Voice 9: say, I'm here helping Joe, I'm sorry, maybe that's too close to a trustee, John with this

[1:38:18] Voice 9: issue. I'd like to help them come to a table. You know that planning staff and bylaw enforcement

[1:38:24] Voice 9: are not proactively going after this particular issue, but they're seeking solutions. And

[1:38:28] Voice 9: if they feel afraid, that might be your role to kind of hold their hand into those meetings

[1:38:33] Voice 9: and sit down with them and just to be a presence. I don't know if that answers your question

[1:38:38] Voice 9: totally but that I think that's your role in a sense is to help be that

[1:38:43] Voice 9: conduit to teach them that file enforcement staff and planning staff

[1:38:48] Voice 9: are not scary people we're not we're not we're here to help we're here to help

[1:38:51] Voice 9: them get to where they need to go and perhaps that's a cultural thing that we

[1:38:55] Voice 9: need to be better at to share that but I know that most people who do work with

[1:39:02] Voice 9: us and I know there's complaints against to say the opposite but the vast majority

[1:39:05] Voice 9: people are grateful when they come to our team and they and they work with us and they say oh that

[1:39:09] Voice 9: wasn't scary or difficult in the least so your role in that would be just to help encourage them

[1:39:15] Voice 9: through that process maybe i'm not answering well enough if

[1:39:18] Voice 7: i may uh share um yeah that i that is

[1:39:26] Voice 7: pretty much how i see it anyways and i you know i thank you for sort of like sort of confirming

[1:39:31] Voice 7: that i i think my my point is that in this with regards to this specific document um i think it

[1:39:37] Voice 7: might be really useful to lay out that relationship a little bit more clearly and the potential for

[1:39:42] Voice 7: that and and and say do you have a thing that you think might be you know might be might be a

[1:39:48] Voice 7: problem um that you want to proactively like check out beforehand you can talk to your trustee your

[1:39:53] Voice 7: trustee is not going to immediately hand you over to anybody else to deal with it like that's that

[1:39:59] Voice 7: that, that, that's sort of the dynamic that I think would be really helpful to people I have

[1:40:03] Voice 7: spoken to who have had a lot of anxiety for whatever reason. And, and likewise, I don't

[1:40:08] Voice 7: think that people are out there like actively hunting these people down, but, but I think

[1:40:12] Voice 7: that would be a really useful piece of information for certain people to be able to, to access and

[1:40:16] Voice 7: read and it would save them a lot of anxiety and concern. Um, and, uh, yeah, making that clear.

[1:40:25] Voice 7: And, and I, you know, I, I see what you mean in terms of like, I hear you in terms of, I think

[1:40:28] Voice 7: that that that that is laid out in the roles and responsibilities that the problem is is that um

[1:40:37] Voice 7: uh yeah community representation represent the interests and concerns of their constituents

[1:40:42] Voice 7: um it's it's the part of like acting as a liaison like i think that it might not be clear to a

[1:40:52] Voice 7: community member who may be inclined from whatever they've heard to to believe the worst of us

[1:40:58] Voice 7: that because we are a liaison we would be uh immediately uh uh you know uh the same as you

[1:41:08] Voice 7: know calling up a bylaw enforcement officer and say hey i've got this illegal thing uh

[1:41:13] Voice 7: so i and and which is not to say that that's actually what would happen talking to bylaw

[1:41:18] Voice 7: enforcement either but there is that perception and i think it could be really valuable to to

[1:41:23] Voice 7: explicitly lay out it's like are you concerned about a thing that may be happening on your

[1:41:26] Voice 7: property and you want to get a little more information the the way it's laid out in there

[1:41:32] Voice 7: makes sense to me and i would interpret it that way and have interpreted that way um but i think

[1:41:37] Voice 7: that's not necessarily clear to the public and i think that's one of the big things that we were

[1:41:40] Voice 7: trying to make sure was coming through in this document so yeah finding a way to to um yeah

[1:41:47] Voice 7: lay out that your your trustee can be your first point of contact in getting into this conversation

[1:41:53] Voice 7: and that it's not necessarily going to start a process,

[1:41:57] Voice 7: that there's room for discussion

[1:41:59] Voice 7: and it can be relatively anonymous and whatever else.

[1:42:03] Voice 7: I think laying that out somehow would be really helpful.

[1:42:05] Voice 7: And I'm open to the rest of the committee

[1:42:08] Voice 7: if they want to comment on that,

[1:42:09] Voice 7: if they agree or disagree,

[1:42:10] Voice 7: but I think that could be useful.

[1:42:16] Trustee Patrick: Yeah, I found the checklist

[1:42:18] Trustee Patrick: that Trustee Elliott had asked us to have in the package,

[1:42:22] Trustee Patrick: which is on page 117, starting there.

[1:42:25] Trustee Patrick: But they ask for accessibility.

[1:42:28] Trustee Patrick: They have two questions there.

[1:42:30] Trustee Patrick: Do you have systems in place to assist more vulnerable people who may need help bringing their concerns to us?

[1:42:35] Trustee Patrick: And have we addressed and removed any barriers that might prevent someone contacting us with their concerns?

[1:42:42] Trustee Patrick: So I hear you, Trustee Borthwick, sort of along those lines that that's a role that trustees can play as well to help someone who may be concerned about coming forward.

[1:42:55] Trustee Patrick: forward just as a trustee a trustee Cermak I'm sorry director Cermak I'm always going to call

[1:43:03] Trustee Patrick: you trustee Cermak um you know here's people say I have this question but I'm not going to tell you

[1:43:08] Trustee Patrick: where I am um trustee Boland you have your hand raised uh

[1:43:14] Voice 10: yeah thanks yeah I think that's a good

[1:43:17] Voice 10: idea raised by a trustee Borthwick I think if you go back to that paragraph in fact if you even

[1:43:23] Voice 10: you know, switch the community liaison paragraph or section up to the top and opened with that

[1:43:30] Voice 10: rather than the role of trustees in establishing policies that might make a sort of a better

[1:43:37] Voice 10: impression. You know, the last paragraph, community representation, swap that to the top

[1:43:43] Voice 10: and immediately you've, you know, set an expectation that trustees are your friend,

[1:43:50] Voice 10: understand initially at least but uh i i take his point so i had some other comments i'll just zip

[1:43:57] Voice 10: through them i've got my own copy which i'll just have to go through to find the pages

[1:44:01] Voice 10: so under definitions um i had a comment around um so the complainant is a person who has

[1:44:13] Voice 10: an official complaint is that the person who made the complaint or a complaint has been made

[1:44:19] Voice 10: against them so

[1:44:24] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: complaining is a person who has made the complaint okay

[1:44:27] Voice 10: can we have who has made

[1:44:29] Voice 10: an official complaint then i'll

[1:44:34] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: make a note of that

[1:44:34] Voice 10: yeah and then formal complaints i don't

[1:44:38] Voice 10: believe that's in the right place those are limited to subjected in writing and directed

[1:44:42] Voice 10: to the chief administrative officer i believe that that's something that's dropped in from

[1:44:48] Voice 10: from your administrative complaints handling process.

[1:44:54] Voice 10: So, you know, the method of submitting

[1:44:59] Voice 10: by-law compliance complaint would be entirely different.

[1:45:06] Voice 10: So I don't know what that means, their formal complaints.

[1:45:10] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: It means an administrative unfairness complaint.

[1:45:13] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: So obviously if

[1:45:14] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: that's not clear, it needs to be rewritten.

[1:45:16] Voice 10: Absolutely, yeah, thank you.

[1:45:18] Voice 10: and then a petty little thing but respondent begins with r and it comes after screening

[1:45:24] Voice 10: officer i think it should be above i think in an opq r s yeah i don't know why that struck me but

[1:45:31] Voice 10: i was looking for a definition of respondent um so then if i just zip on down um i had

[1:45:42] Voice 10: Not too many, but okay.

[1:45:44] Voice 10: So on page 88, it's about notice being given.

[1:45:51] Voice 10: And I suggest that on how much notice must be given before an inspection,

[1:45:57] Voice 10: I think it must be given to the respondent before an inspection.

[1:46:04] Voice 10: Because it's a little bit unclear,

[1:46:10] Voice 10: clear because there's the officer and this that and the other so i think it would be helpful to

[1:46:14] Voice 10: put in notice must be given to the respondent before um inspection um then i had yeah much

[1:46:28] Voice 10: the same as um as the comment from aaron etc is the communications with trustees a local trust

[1:46:36] Voice 10: committee or individual will not be involved in any aspect of investigation of a complaint indeed

[1:46:43] Voice 10: that might be repeated up higher in the trustee roles um i got a bit confused when i got into

[1:46:52] Voice 10: the implementation bylaw but we had that conversation yesterday at saturn ltc so i

[1:47:00] Voice 10: I didn't read that in great detail. I'd have to come back to read again, because I think towards

[1:47:07] Voice 10: the end of this document, it started to become more and more procedural. And I wondered whether

[1:47:13] Voice 10: some of it belonged actually in other documents and a kind of a lighter version of it should be

[1:47:22] Voice 10: in this, but I wasn't able to go through it in enough detail to make specific recommendations.

[1:47:27] Voice 10: One thing on page 92, response periods, determine timelines for response to screening officer decisions.

[1:47:36] Voice 10: And that is something I brought up yesterday.

[1:47:42] Voice 10: And I think that that's quite important and doesn't have to be a conclusion.

[1:47:51] Voice 10: But a timeline around, you know, there's something I saw where it said if we post, if we mail a complaint, we deem it to have arrived within seven days.

[1:48:02] Voice 10: Well, for all the other actions, perhaps something similar needs to exist.

[1:48:08] Voice 10: You know, you will receive a response to blah, bye, X.

[1:48:12] Voice 10: I believe yesterday, Warren, you told us that you were very, very quick about responding.

[1:48:20] Voice 10: and that's great but i think timelines that people understand would be helpful about some key things

[1:48:27] Voice 10: at least and um yeah the one i didn't really understand was at the bottom of page 94 it was

[1:48:37] Voice 10: just struck an odd tone a notice is not invalid if the bylaw compliance and enforcement officer

[1:48:44] Voice 10: has not signed it i felt like as we got to the bottom we were moving slightly out of the territory

[1:48:50] Voice 10: of plain language and back into the territory of it's possible that you just didn't get to

[1:48:58] Voice 10: all the detail but that struck an odd note with me can you speak to that is it necessary it's just a

[1:49:04] Voice 10: bit odd

[1:49:05] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: uh what it is uh trustee boland is the law some of this um yes may not necessarily all the

[1:49:16] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: content here about bylaw violation notices may not be required in here because not all local

[1:49:22] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: trust areas have a bend bylaw but a lot of what this is about is i guess it's not just procedural

[1:49:29] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: but it's the law under the local government bylaw notice enforcement act so the original purpose was

[1:49:36] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: one it was an employee document staff document this is what the law is so now we're trying to

[1:49:42] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: make the document forward facing and yes some of this detail uh yes could be deleted yeah what's

[1:49:49] Voice 10: the role i mean this comes back to as i said if we later look at the project charter deliverables

[1:49:56] Voice 10: and align those document deliverables with the ones that you're creating and there's even like

[1:50:03] Voice 10: in my view a kind of a title thing going on which is the administrative fairness one is still

[1:50:10] Voice 10: referred to I think as general complaints and in one of the ones you said don't review that for

[1:50:17] Voice 10: the moment but I think step one put the title on the top that's actually in the project charter

[1:50:23] Voice 10: and in the list at the top of the briefing and so okay I'll leave that then I come on to I was

[1:50:31] Voice 10: surprised to note that the Alice Trust runs its own dispute adjudication registry by working with

[1:50:39] Voice 10: the ministry of attorney of the attorney general i didn't know that i mean are we just part of a

[1:50:46] Voice 10: larger process or do we have something that is very very specific i just found that very unusual

[1:50:54] Voice 10: can you speak to that please this time

[1:50:58] Voice 10: 98 yeah so

[1:51:01] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: with the bylaw enforcement notice system and with

[1:51:04] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: with the Local Government By-law Enforcement Notice Act

[1:51:07] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: that was adopted approximately 20 years ago.

[1:51:11] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: It's, one, you're setting a system up

[1:51:13] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: that is outside of the court system.

[1:51:16] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: It's a way to issue tickets

[1:51:18] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: without going to provincial court.

[1:51:22] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: So within the act and the regulations,

[1:51:26] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: each local government can set up their own registry,

[1:51:29] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: their dispute adjudication registry.

[1:51:32] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: And really what that is,

[1:51:33] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: is all about is about record keeping and holding hearings from those records so if someone gets a

[1:51:41] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: disputes a violation notice we process that dispute if they don't want to sign a compliance

[1:51:47] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: agreement we have to set up a hearing with an adjudicator we send an email to the ministry

[1:51:53] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: of attorney general they say yes on this date we can supply you an adjudicator and then we take

[1:51:59] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: care of the rest of the paperwork to notify people of the hearing so

[1:52:03] Voice 10: i understand that uh thank you

[1:52:07] Voice 10: but so the dispute adjudication registry is provided by the ministry of attorney general

[1:52:14] Voice 10: so we are not no

[1:52:15] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: it's provided by us we are their registry each local government can establish their

[1:52:20] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: own registry and islands trust has passed the necessary bylaws with each local trust committee

[1:52:25] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: to be its own registry what the

[1:52:28] Voice 10: ministry of attorney

[1:52:28] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: general does is

[1:52:30] Voice 10: what is a registry

[1:52:33] Voice 10: it

[1:52:35] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: is in its simplest form i can describe it it's our record keeping for these adjudication hearings

[1:52:43] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: there's no separate government registry it's just what's set out in law and the regulations

[1:52:48] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: the ministry attorney general keeps a roster of adjudicators so when islands trust needs an

[1:52:56] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: an adjudication hearing we send a message to the minister of attorney general staff

[1:53:00] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: and then they supply us with an adjudicator on the date that we have requested we are then

[1:53:06] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: responsible for all the record keeping but we must provide

[1:53:09] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: a public hearing room and keep the

[1:53:11] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: records from that hearing okay

[1:53:13] Voice 10: i understand what you're telling me i think that first sentence

[1:53:17] Voice 10: gives an a an impression that the islands trust is running its own system in a way which isn't

[1:53:24] Voice 10: true so for instance i would open that sentence like in common with other local governments

[1:53:30] Voice 10: or you know according to the ministry of attorney general system we do the following it's just it

[1:53:38] Voice 10: gives an odd impression which is it runs its own dispute adjudication registry yeah

[1:53:44] Voice 3: i agree

[1:53:45] Voice 10: i agree

[1:53:46] Voice 3: so

[1:53:46] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: we can try and wordsmith this but that is that's the law okay that is legally

[1:53:53] Voice 10: what we do

[1:53:54] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: and so yes we can wordsmith it to communicate it better let's

[1:53:58] Voice 10: not call it wordsmithing let's

[1:54:00] Voice 10: call it plain language okay because it is a plain and i think what you've achieved in the rest of

[1:54:07] Voice 10: document is terrific it needs to be applied here so okay um if we go on down to section 99

[1:54:17] Voice 10: page 99 sorry section 19 of the local government act states that hearings must be open to the

[1:54:25] Voice 10: public this was a bit astonishing to me to be honest and i you know yes you can request the

[1:54:32] Voice 10: information but how do you know that you need to request the information is there a schedule of

[1:54:37] Voice 10: those um hearings and which by law violations whatever we want to call them are going to be

[1:54:46] Voice 10: adjudicated how would i know as a general member of the public that there are some scheduled and

[1:54:54] Voice 10: that I can ask for information on how to attend them?

[1:55:02] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: So there's, within the Act,

[1:55:05] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: although the hearing must be open to the public,

[1:55:08] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: there's no legal requirement for notice to the public.

[1:55:12] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: So the parties involved, which are the bylaw officer,

[1:55:15] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: the respondent, the complainant,

[1:55:18] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: and of course the adjudicator,

[1:55:20] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: those parties are notified.

[1:55:22] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: and we could we could put them all these they're all on zoom we could put all these hearings

[1:55:29] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: on our meeting schedule so that the general public would have noticed that there's going to be

[1:55:36] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: a hearing coming up and there are sometimes community members who do have beyond the

[1:55:43] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: complainant who have concerns and they contact me and they get a link and they can come

[1:55:47] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: and observe as can the disputants they will send the link to other parties and we'll have a whole

[1:55:55] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: group showing up at the hearing could we develop a new process where we put it on our website yes

[1:56:00] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: we don't currently do that because it's not required under the law so

[1:56:05] Voice 10: members of the public

[1:56:07] Voice 10: can request this information the how is superfluous i think but in any case i think this this warrants

[1:56:14] Voice 10: some further work um you know perhaps a news release schedule with the scheduled dates

[1:56:20] Voice 10: and saying that you know the violations are relate to certain islands i mean you know this this it

[1:56:29] Voice 10: just needs a little further thought because it's if i read that i feel very included excluded like

[1:56:37] Voice 10: i'm a member of the public but if i if i don't know what i don't know i'm not going to find out

[1:56:43] Voice 10: you know is there a hearing or i'll send you a letter every week asking is there a hearing this

[1:56:49] Voice 10: week you know so so i think there's something needs to happen there but let's leave it for the

[1:56:55] Voice 10: moment and then i on page 100 we have um the disputant will receive the decision of the

[1:57:08] Voice 10: adjudicator when islands trust receives it um i don't i think that needs some plain language around

[1:57:17] Voice 10: it um it's not clear to me will they receive it at the same time from the same source or will it be

[1:57:25] Voice 10: sent to them to the islands trust when the islands trust i think this is a remnant from the inward

[1:57:29] Voice 10: staff facing document that needs some attention what where does the um decision come from and

[1:57:40] Voice 10: And how is it sent to the disputant?

[1:57:47] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: Is that a question?

[1:57:48] Voice 10: Yeah.

[1:57:49] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: The decision comes from the adjudicator.

[1:57:51] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: It comes to me.

[1:57:53] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: And then I distribute it to the disputant and staff,

[1:57:58] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: if I believe they're interested in it.

[1:58:01] Voice 10: Okay.

[1:58:01] Voice 10: So that sentence needs to be fleshed out to make it more friendly, I think.

[1:58:07] Voice 10: Okay.

[1:58:08] Voice 10: The cost.

[1:58:08] Voice 10: I was interested in charges and administrative fee of $25.

[1:58:13] Voice 10: I don't see the purpose of $25 in this context.

[1:58:17] Voice 10: It must cost more than $25 to collect the $25.

[1:58:21] Voice 10: So can you speak to the value of the $25 and, you know,

[1:58:27] Voice 10: whether that cost should be more or less or what exactly does it achieve?

[1:58:32] Voice 10: Thanks.

[1:58:33] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: So that is set out in law.

[1:58:35] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: It's set out in the act by the provincial government.

[1:58:39] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: I believe they have received input from the local governments

[1:58:42] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: who have set up their own registries that the $25 fee should be raised.

[1:58:48] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: So it's up to the provincial government to raise that fee.

[1:58:54] Voice 10: So the provincial government gets it?

[1:58:57] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: No, we get it. We get it.

[1:58:59] Voice 10: Okay.

[1:59:01] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: They're setting out the law. They're saying all we can charge is $25.

[1:59:05] Voice 10: Okay, fair enough. I think that was me for the moment.

[1:59:11] Voice 10: Thank you very much.

[1:59:13] Trustee Patrick: Thank you, Trustee Graham.

[1:59:15] Trustee Patrick: and before you go uh warren did you need to leave at noon um was there a

[1:59:20] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: um i should

[1:59:21] Trustee Patrick: leave in four

[1:59:22] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: minutes four

[1:59:23] Trustee Patrick: minutes okay trustee graham thank

[1:59:25] Voice 6: you chair i'll be very brief uh thank you trustee

[1:59:28] Voice 6: boland for all those uh recommendations but i don't agree with your concern about the public

[1:59:34] Voice 6: access to adjudication um hearings um i i would feel very uncomfortable making a big deal of this

[1:59:42] Voice 6: and broadcasting it publicly that this is something that you should all watch if you're

[1:59:46] Voice 6: at all interested. I'm assuming that this provision is for the person who's challenging

[1:59:57] Voice 6: the bylaw can bring their family.

[2:00:00] Voice 6: their family, their helpers, their legal representatives, so that obviously it's open

[2:00:06] Voice 6: to the public. In other words, it's not just the complainant and the honest trust and the

[2:00:11] Voice 6: adjudicator that can come. But to have this as something that we broadcast for people who are

[2:00:19] Voice 6: just curious, I disagree entirely. This is a private action for someone who is really feeling

[2:00:26] Voice 6: that they're being oppressed by the local trust committee and and that that that should be remained

[2:00:30] Voice 6: uh i don't i don't want to broadcast that so i your suggestions to uh manager dingman are great

[2:00:37] Voice 6: but if he if he assumes that we all agree with your suggestions that's that's not right so i i

[2:00:43] Voice 6: just want it known that i don't agree with sure

[2:00:46] Voice 10: that's fine in fact i mean maybe we should remove

[2:00:49] Voice 10: the fact that members of the public because it's not really appropriate perhaps you know you will

[2:00:55] Voice 10: will hear about it through concerned people.

[2:00:58] Voice 10: I don't really know.

[2:00:59] Voice 10: It's just odd to have it in there.

[2:01:01] Voice 10: And I kind of take your point.

[2:01:03] Voice 10: So I don't know how we should cast that.

[2:01:07] Voice 10: Okay, that's fine by me.

[2:01:09] Voice 10: Well,

[2:01:10] Trustee Patrick: what I'm hearing from the law,

[2:01:11] Trustee Patrick: the law is they must be open to the public.

[2:01:14] Trustee Patrick: So I think it is important information

[2:01:17] Trustee Patrick: to a person that's facing adjudication here.

[2:01:21] Trustee Patrick: And there could be other people in the room.

[2:01:22] Trustee Patrick: How they find out about it,

[2:01:23] Trustee Patrick: That's the curiosity that there isn't a way.

[2:01:29] Trustee Patrick: And that's something that would be interesting to know what other

[2:01:32] Trustee Patrick: municipalities do.

[2:01:33] Voice 10: It's as simple as remove members of the public and just say contact blah,

[2:01:38] Voice 10: blah, blah for further information.

[2:01:40] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: So chair, I mean, we can't go against what the law is,

[2:01:44] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: what the act says that we have to make our boardroom here in Victoria open to

[2:01:49] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: the public.

[2:01:49] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: So from whatever means, if someone walks in off the street and they say they know that there is a hearing today, we must be able to accommodate them in our boardroom.

[2:02:00] Voice 10: Sure. So maybe just remove the members of the public can request this information. How?

[2:02:06] Voice 10: Just after this statement that it's open to the public, say contact Islands Trust for more information.

[2:02:19] Voice 10: it's yeah anyway that's my suggestion that you leave it there that it is open to the public

[2:02:25] Voice 10: and then contact islands trust for more information all

[2:02:30] Trustee Patrick: right um we're not going to

[2:02:31] Trustee Patrick: finish this before uh warren needs to leave um if if uh i think we can table this conversation

[2:02:38] Trustee Patrick: if you are able to come back at 1 30 and we're still we can come back to this otherwise um i i

[2:02:44] Trustee Patrick: I don't think we can say we're wrapped yet.

[2:02:48] Trustee Patrick: So if that makes sense, we'll see if he's available

[2:02:51] Trustee Patrick: and we're still going at 1.30.

[2:02:56] Trustee Patrick: All right, with everyone, if we table for right now,

[2:03:00] Trustee Patrick: and it is lunchtime, I think, as well, table and lunch.

[2:03:04] Trustee Patrick: I'm seeing thumbs up flying up through the screen.

[2:03:08] Trustee Patrick: How long a lunch break?

[2:03:09] Trustee Patrick: I know at least 30 minutes would probably be appreciated by all.

[2:03:13] Trustee Patrick: So would that be all right to come back at 12.35?

[2:03:17] Trustee Patrick: thumbs up okay we're on lunch break till 12 35 enjoy your lunch

[2:34:35] Voice 15: All right, not a lot of cameras on.

[2:34:37] Voice 15: Is there anyone out there?

[2:34:38] Trustee Patrick: Just haven't put their cameras on.

[2:34:42] Trustee Patrick: Ah, they're coming on.

[2:34:44] Trustee Patrick: They're hiding, chewing.

[2:35:16] Trustee Patrick: Yes, most importantly is trustee Elliot back

[2:35:19] Trustee Patrick: because I think she's up next on the agenda.

[2:35:26] Voice 15: I

[2:35:38] Voice 10: think Sam, you and I are eating something similar.

[2:35:44] Voice 10: The

[2:35:53] Voice 7: joy of leftovers.

[2:35:56] Voice 15: In my case.

[2:35:58] Voice 7: All

[2:36:56] Trustee Patrick: right. We're still waiting. Trustee Elliot, are you back? I don't even see Trustee Elliot on the participation list. Uh-oh.

[2:37:20] Voice 1: Chair Patrick, I've re-sent an invitation to Trustee Elliot, just in case, to get top of your inbox.

[2:37:28] Trustee Patrick: Thank you very much.

[2:37:29] Trustee Patrick: It's

[2:37:50] Voice 10: rather odd that the community calls are the, you know that, I always forget what it's called, but the reconciliation programme that we attend, culturally committed.

[2:38:03] Voice 10: committed actually one of the stated kind of how would you call it values is feel free to eat

[2:38:11] Voice 10: on camera because eating and communicating is deemed to be if you're eating you're kind of open

[2:38:17] Voice 10: to input it's funny because you know otherwise that other than that culturally i'm inclined to

[2:38:24] Voice 10: think no i should turn my camera off if i'm chewing but in culturally committed it's encouraged

[2:38:29] Voice 10: so it's kind of funny yes

[2:38:32] Trustee Patrick: you're consuming and taking in well

[2:38:34] Voice 7: i like i like that concept too

[2:38:36] Voice 7: because it it it implies like if you're if you're eating you are yeah like you say taking things in

[2:38:43] Voice 7: but you're not maybe just waiting for your chance to speak in the same way that i think winds up

[2:38:48] Voice 7: happening a lot otherwise and um yeah i think there's some nice components there um i just

[2:38:56] Trustee Patrick: I just heard from Trustee Elliott, she's had a bit of an emergency with an animal and it's going to be delayed.

[2:39:02] Trustee Patrick: It's a rather, I will not, gruesome emergency.

[2:39:05] Trustee Patrick: So if we are all on board, we are now waiting for Trustee Elliott and we're waiting for Warren Digman.

[2:39:14] Trustee Patrick: So I guess that puts us on if we've got, well, it looks like William Shulbaugh is here.

[2:39:20] Trustee Patrick: So I think we're going to need to move on to item 7.5 on the agenda.

[2:39:26] Trustee Patrick: agenda if that is all right with everyone while we wait for folks oops i'm gonna get myself on

[2:39:37] Trustee Patrick: the right page so this is going to be the watershed security strategy grant application

[2:39:43] Trustee Patrick: that begins on page 141 of our agenda package and i assume is that going to be uh william or

[2:39:52] Trustee Patrick: or Director Cermak that will kick this off.

[2:39:55] Trustee Patrick: So, are they there?

[2:39:58] Trustee Patrick: Go ahead, Director Cermak.

[2:40:02] Voice 9: Yeah, I'm sorry, Madam Chair.

[2:40:03] Voice 9: I'm just trying to catch up to materials

[2:40:07] Voice 9: that were sent by Trustee Elliot late last night.

[2:40:10] Voice 9: Well, we're gonna-

[2:40:11] Voice 9: I

[2:40:11] Trustee Patrick: know we haven't got there,

[2:40:12] Voice 9: but I was busy trying to catch up.

[2:40:14] Trustee Patrick: Yeah, no,

[2:40:15] Voice 9: I think we all were

[2:40:16] Trustee Patrick: reading all those.

[2:40:18] Trustee Patrick: So you have a break on that.

[2:40:19] Trustee Patrick: Yes, Trustee

[2:40:20] Trustee Patrick: Elliot's delayed.

[2:40:21] Trustee Patrick: I'm just

[2:40:23] Voice 9: turning to the agenda package now, if you just bear with me for a second.

[2:40:26] Voice 9: There we are.

[2:40:27] Voice 9: Okay.

[2:40:28] Voice 9: So my apologies for the delay.

[2:40:30] Voice 9: Okay.

[2:40:30] Voice 9: So this comes to you, you know, it was largely drafted by the planning services team.

[2:40:39] Voice 9: William took the first crack at it, but the rest of us got to put our inputs into it.

[2:40:44] Voice 9: And what you had before you is a request from staff to get regional planning committee,

[2:40:52] Voice 9: endorsement to approve staff applying for a grant for five hundred thousand

[2:40:57] Voice 9: dollars over two years from the watershed security fund to implement key

[2:41:02] Voice 9: initiatives within the freshwater sustainability strategy and it details

[2:41:07] Voice 9: what that looks like in terms of which which items it would be a tackling in

[2:41:11] Voice 9: terms of implementing the freshwater sustainability plan and what I sort of

[2:41:17] Voice 9: would like to just point out before we can get into discussions what that means

[2:41:21] Voice 9: and how it works and the whole bit is really that this is you know a trust council strategic

[2:41:28] Voice 9: priority i know we haven't adopted the new strategic plan but implementation of the fresh

[2:41:36] Voice 9: water sustainability plan is proposed to be in there you know that trust council has endorsed

[2:41:42] Voice 9: rpc's top three priorities to be this and so this is kind of a how to do that and i also like to i

[2:41:50] Voice 9: I also would like to point out the executive committee

[2:41:53] Voice 9: supported the creation or providing feedback

[2:41:56] Voice 9: to the watershed security strategy and fund

[2:41:57] Voice 9: when it was being created.

[2:41:59] Voice 9: That information is on the second page of your report.

[2:42:02] Voice 9: It is this particular fund that actually helped create

[2:42:05] Voice 9: the strategy that you had before you.

[2:42:09] Voice 9: So not only is it, we're looking to go back

[2:42:11] Voice 9: to the same pool of money to advance this work.

[2:42:14] Voice 9: So we're very familiar with the fund.

[2:42:16] Voice 9: There's been a lot of support from trust council,

[2:42:18] Voice 9: from executive committee and so on for this fund and it's been a lot of support for this strategy

[2:42:24] Voice 9: so what you had before you is uh is quite a lengthy report describing how we would apply

[2:42:31] Voice 9: those funds but of course there's no business case attached to this it's just a very detailed

[2:42:36] Voice 9: explanation of which projects would advance within this strategy so i think for details

[2:42:43] Voice 9: I'll turn to William Shulva, but I just want to provide that sort of high-level strategic perspective.

[2:42:51] Voice 13: Thank you.

[2:42:57] Voice 13: Is William here?

[2:42:59] Voice 13: There we go.

[2:43:00] Voice 8: Yeah, I'm here.

[2:43:01] Voice 8: There we go.

[2:43:02] Voice 8: Hi, Chair.

[2:43:03] Voice 8: Sorry, I thought we were going to the tiny home discussion.

[2:43:08] Voice 8: So

[2:43:08] Trustee Patrick: did we, but we've had some animal emergency.

[2:43:14] Voice 8: Oh, oh, no.

[2:43:15] Voice 8: No. Yes, I

[2:43:17] Voice 8: was getting myself a coffee. But I'm here now. Yeah, so thank you. And thank you,

[2:43:25] Voice 8: Director Cermak for introducing the request for decision. I'll be, I guess, frank to say that

[2:43:36] Voice 8: uh that this is quite a lengthy request for decision um and um i was wondering how much

[2:43:47] Voice 8: detail to put into uh something like this and but i i think that it um is is warranted um

[2:43:56] Voice 8: because uh in in our previous meetings we i came forward with we we had a discussion on

[2:44:04] Voice 8: on, you know, reasons why we wouldn't undertake a business case for a trust council to fund

[2:44:12] Voice 8: the continuation of the freshwater footprint project, mostly due to resourcing. And

[2:44:22] Voice 8: this grant application, if the regional planning committee supports going into a funding

[2:44:31] Voice 8: application for for this work um would alleviate those some most of those concerns with um with

[2:44:39] Voice 8: with uh staffing resources um it is in line with the with the grant application um to um

[2:44:48] Voice 8: use it for staffing uh for shovel ready projects and you know the with respect to the water

[2:44:56] Voice 8: sustainable or um sorry the watershed security strategy and fund um there's really like uh the

[2:45:05] Voice 8: freshwater sustainability strategy and then continuing on the implementation of that

[2:45:09] Voice 8: um is i don't know how much more shovel ready we can get because the uh this um strategy has

[2:45:17] Voice 8: has kept pace with the with the development of the watershed security strategy and fund

[2:45:24] Voice 8: from its inception with the Healthy Watersheds Initiative, which is the grant that kicked off

[2:45:32] Voice 8: the strategy and all the good work that we undertook to develop that strategy. And

[2:45:39] Voice 8: Chair Patrick was on the strategic roundtable that was instrumental of putting the strategy

[2:45:46] Voice 8: together and identifying the actions and the objectives and the goals of that strategy and so

[2:45:54] Voice 8: this is this is the um uh the attempt to to continue on that good work um to to find those

[2:46:05] Voice 8: critical resources and to develop organizational structures that the that islands trust uh will

[2:46:12] Voice 8: will require to, to undertake this work. Um, and, and, um, it's, it will be stewarded by,

[2:46:20] Voice 8: by these projects that, um, that I've listed here. And, um, yeah, I, I don't, uh, particularly want

[2:46:29] Voice 8: to, um, uh, belabor that point, but, um, perhaps I can, um, ask for questions, um, from, from the

[2:46:39] Voice 8: the Regional Planning Committee, and if you'd like to ask on the grant opportunity itself,

[2:46:46] Voice 8: the proposed resourcing that will be a part of that application, or the individual projects,

[2:46:55] Voice 8: I'm available for those questions and comments, and hopefully that'll drive the discussion.

[2:47:03] Voice 8: unless you have anything else you'd want me to touch on chair no

[2:47:11] Trustee Patrick: thank you I have I mean one

[2:47:12] Trustee Patrick: question I did speak with the watershed security funding last about a year ago and they told me

[2:47:23] Trustee Patrick: that only projects that were co-developed with First Nations could be considered for funding

[2:47:29] Trustee Patrick: Have you spoke to the funder about how likely of success we would have?

[2:47:34] Voice 8: Yeah, that's a very good point.

[2:47:36] Voice 8: So the first rollout of the Watershed Security Strategy and Fund was, I don't want to get

[2:47:45] Voice 8: the name wrong, but I think it was Indigenous Watersheds Initiative or something like this,

[2:47:50] Voice 8: where um it the projects weren't uh not only like cooperative but but the main um the main

[2:48:01] Voice 8: organization that was accepting the funding needed to be an indigenous organization or a first nation

[2:48:07] Voice 8: and and this round of funding uh is is more open than that and of course they encourage uh

[2:48:15] Voice 8: co-development and, you know, I don't want to say co-governance model, but, you know,

[2:48:22] Voice 8: collaboration with Indigenous groups or First Nations, but that's not one of their

[2:48:31] Voice 8: driving requirements of this round of funding. It's open to any local government and other

[2:48:37] Voice 8: groups, not just Indigenous groups or First Nation.

[2:48:43] Trustee Patrick: Thank you. Trustees, who has some

[2:48:46] Trustee Patrick: some questions here, Trustee Graham.

[2:48:50] Voice 6: Thank you, Chair.

[2:48:52] Voice 6: Oh, are there any matching fund requirements

[2:48:55] Voice 6: with this fund?

[2:48:58] Voice 8: Yeah, thank you for that question and through the Chair.

[2:49:02] Voice 8: I don't believe so, it's not a matching fund requirement

[2:49:08] Voice 8: for this fund.

[2:49:10] Voice 8: So, and as we go through the application process,

[2:49:15] Voice 8: process. We'll learn more about the technical requirements of the application. Of course,

[2:49:23] Voice 8: of an application of this size, half a million dollars, it's going to be a significant amount

[2:49:28] Voice 8: of analysis and work. So that's why we're coming to the regional planning committee first. That's

[2:49:33] Voice 8: why you don't see business cases and things in front of you. Because if, you know, Trustee Graham,

[2:49:38] Voice 8: to be honest, like your feedback from last meeting has been with me as I was developing

[2:49:45] Voice 8: this because we had a discussion around the freshwater footprint about resourcing and

[2:49:51] Voice 8: waiting for the methodology project that's undertaken this year to roll out. And I know

[2:49:56] Voice 8: you're in agreement with that. And I'm kind of coming back to you and saying, well, let's take

[2:50:01] Voice 8: on this work. And so this is one of the reasons why I'm approaching it this way, to ask for the

[2:50:12] Voice 8: the regional planning committees to see if there's support

[2:50:16] Voice 8: just to enter this grant application.

[2:50:19] Voice 8: So to that point, I'm not saying I have all the answers

[2:50:25] Voice 8: to how the grant application will roll out,

[2:50:28] Voice 8: but I'm quite certain that this is a, you know, 100% ask.

[2:50:34] Voice 8: I haven't seen any matching fund requirements.

[2:50:44] Trustee Patrick: Trustees, other questions?

[2:50:46] Trustee Patrick: otherwise i know i'll fire another one the implementation plan um this does not replace

[2:50:55] Trustee Patrick: the need for the implementation plan what is the status on developing an implementation plan for

[2:51:02] Trustee Patrick: the freshwater strategy um

[2:51:08] Voice 8: well not not not to kind of rebuttal but i i think this is implementation

[2:51:15] Voice 8: planning in motion. So as we work through, you know, if the RPC is in support of going through

[2:51:28] Voice 8: the grant application, we'll need to demonstrate within the application how these initiatives and

[2:51:38] Voice 8: projects will roll out and how those organizational structures will, for the island's

[2:51:45] Voice 8: stress will manifest themselves um the implementation plan of of of the strategy

[2:51:52] Voice 8: um needs to be informed by something and currently uh the water sustainability team is

[2:52:03] Voice 8: while you're looking at it so um to to undertake this work to to start um building

[2:52:11] Voice 8: resources around the strategy to undertake um you know like the last bullet point there

[2:52:19] Voice 8: on the recommendation is the freshwater sustainability technical advisory committee

[2:52:23] Voice 8: and that doesn't mean that like in in the first month we'll have a round table of people sitting

[2:52:29] Voice 8: together making decisions it'll likely take maybe even a year to make a terms of reference around

[2:52:34] Voice 8: And I think that that is part of the implementation planning of the strategy. So I believe like, you know, this isn't replacing the plan, but you're looking at implementation planning here.

[2:52:51] Voice 8: like this is uh i'm i've i'm trying many angles to to to gain the the resources to undertake that

[2:53:02] Voice 8: work and and you know as you know we have resourcing challenges at the islands trust and

[2:53:07] Voice 8: and and my um the freshwater sustainability strategy and projects are not insular to that

[2:53:15] Voice 8: So, or isolated from that, I should say. And, you know, the main planner that I was working with is no longer with us. So, you know, I believe this is, you know, this is implementation planning in process and likely the resultant of undertaking this work and working with the RPC is going to manifest itself into a plan for, you know,

[2:53:46] Voice 8: you know like but we'll need to kind of determine what that looks like and and for right now I think

[2:53:54] Voice 8: Stefan and I um or sorry uh director Cermak and I um um kind of like I don't know I don't want to

[2:54:02] Voice 8: speak for director Cermak but but this to us looks like and we're we're we're planning for

[2:54:08] Voice 8: an implementation plan we're trying to to gain the the tools and the resources to to have something

[2:54:13] Voice 8: robust that perhaps is an implementation plan for an entire term rather than a year by year

[2:54:21] Voice 8: kind of picking off actions here and there from the strategy but perhaps through the chair that

[2:54:29] Voice 8: maybe director Cermak wants to comment on that but I'm not sure well

[2:54:37] Trustee Patrick: yes go ahead please sure

[2:54:39] Voice 9: through the chair yeah you know I've been in this role I've been lucky to be in this role for a

[2:54:44] Voice 9: couple years and to work directly with William on his work and understanding the freshwater

[2:54:51] Voice 9: sustainability strategy on all the resolutions surrounding it including the implementation plans

[2:54:56] Voice 9: has been a challenge that the strategy itself has you know a sort of a high level implementation

[2:55:02] Voice 9: plan at the back which is just really a table indicating potential progress individual projects

[2:55:09] Voice 9: at a certain time a little bit of cost and who's who could be on you know included in that

[2:55:14] Voice 9: And as we've sort of tried to meet the RPC's goals to have an implementation plan similar to the housing strategy, you know, it becomes pretty clear that the complexity of this is far beyond the housing, you know, strategy.

[2:55:28] Voice 9: strategy. And William and I have gone back and forth and through the RPC as well, sort of to a

[2:55:35] Voice 9: lesser detail is saying, we need these resources to create an implementation plan. We need a

[2:55:41] Voice 9: technical group, we need staff, and we need to be able to develop that. William can't work in a

[2:55:46] Voice 9: vacuum. He's a scientist, and he's not getting the policy support. I'm not giving him the resources

[2:55:51] Voice 9: because I don't have them. Like he said, he lost a staff person. And so we, if this is a trust

[2:55:57] Voice 9: council priority which they've said it is a strategic priority we need to resource it and

[2:56:03] Voice 9: we're also conscious of not going to the taxpayers and so this is the best approach that you have

[2:56:11] Voice 9: from staff to help william develop advancing the strategy that he was involved with in the first

[2:56:17] Voice 9: place and the rpc and trust council supported so i think william's being very kind and gentle

[2:56:24] Voice 9: in saying that we need these resources to develop an in-depth implementation plan and you have the

[2:56:31] Voice 9: ideas of the what what projects would be implemented or advanced in this report as well

[2:56:37] Voice 9: as in the appendix there a bit of a it's a bit of a code but at least you can understand which

[2:56:41] Voice 9: projects would be implemented so it's not all the project all implementations but it is a look into

[2:56:47] Voice 9: the next couple years if we can secure this grant what would be implemented and i think this is i i

[2:56:52] Voice 9: I think the details would be fleshed out as we go through more of an adaptive management

[2:56:57] Voice 9: approach versus a waterfall approach, this, this, do this, then that, then that.

[2:57:03] Voice 9: I really think that the message that we need, this technical group, this is all coming from

[2:57:10] Voice 9: the freshwater strategy.

[2:57:11] Voice 9: This is how they recommend to go about implementing it by creating these structures and resources

[2:57:16] Voice 9: and support team.

[2:57:17] Voice 9: So I certainly want to support what the strategy says and what staff are saying they need in order to keep this going.

[2:57:26] Voice 9: So that's all I have to say.

[2:57:29] Voice 13: Trustee Golan.

[2:57:33] Voice 10: Yeah, I haven't decided what I'm going to vote about this, but I have the following questions, queries, issues.

[2:57:42] Voice 10: If I read this document, and I did, it refers to things ongoing which we have not been exposed to.

[2:57:51] Voice 10: One of them is there's a consultant who will, I believe currently underway, defined a holistic metric of freshwater sustainability,

[2:58:03] Voice 10: sustainability the confluence of the water cycle community influence of environmental variables

[2:58:08] Voice 10: that collectively affect the availability distribution and quality of fresh water

[2:58:12] Voice 10: resources that sounds great but i haven't seen any project or description of the scope of work

[2:58:19] Voice 10: for that consultant who is currently undertaking this i go down further and there's a water atlas

[2:58:26] Voice 10: which i know we funded a year or 18 months ago i can't even remember and it says expand the water

[2:58:32] Voice 10: We've never seen the water atlas. So those are two issues. We have a communication issue in that work is undertaken, which is not actually communicated back to us.

[2:58:46] Voice 10: and the big fundamental problem I have is that at the end of two years what do we have

[2:58:54] Voice 10: what I think we have is a large team which now have to be permanently resourced and I don't see

[2:59:05] Voice 10: what else a help desk and an expanded water atlas I mean I don't have a clear idea of in year three

[2:59:13] Voice 10: what we will actually have. So those are my concerns right now. Thank you.

[2:59:23] Voice 13: Anyone want to respond to Trustee Boland's comments?

[2:59:32] Voice 8: Well I'll answer. The Islands Trust Freshwater Footprint Project is a

[2:59:37] Voice 8: project that Trust Council saw was in the budget and there was a report that was placed in the

[2:59:50] Voice 8: It was either the December or March Trust Council agenda package.

[3:00:00] Voice 8: And the request for proposal went out in the middle of September, closed in October, and

[3:00:10] Voice 8: there was a successful proponent, and we're still in the procurement phase of that, in

[3:00:17] Voice 8: the contracting phase, which is, that's out of my hands.

[3:00:20] Voice 8: And so we'll likely have a contractor, or I shouldn't say contractor, consultant, that

[3:00:29] Voice 8: will be working on that project uh hopefully imminently i don't i don't know if contracting

[3:00:34] Voice 8: takes procurement takes so long i can't believe it's already been two months since since our rfp

[3:00:39] Voice 8: got released um the freshwater atlas is um has been an ongoing project of of my work uh

[3:00:51] Voice 8: yeah a lot of information and gis help and and we've had some resourcing challenges there

[3:00:58] Voice 8: Again, I'm not immune to these resources and challenges.

[3:01:01] Voice 8: Our GIS person is no longer with us.

[3:01:04] Voice 8: And so I've been working closely with the manager of information services and with director

[3:01:10] Voice 8: CIRMAC to backfill that vacant GIS person to help get the freshwater help desk over

[3:01:20] Voice 8: the finish line.

[3:01:21] Voice 8: And so myself and manager of information services have been, we have a preliminary plan on how to do that and he's going to be putting together a contract service request form next week to help out with that project to start bringing that over the finish line.

[3:01:49] Voice 8: So the first part of the freshwater atlas is similar to our TAPIS or MAPIT mapping engine, which essentially just places all of the information in front of a user that they can explore the island's trust area and explore the data that we have.

[3:02:11] Voice 8: the the expansion of the of the freshwater atlas is there it's a um the the the program that runs

[3:02:21] Voice 8: the atlas is called arc online experiences and it's um largely an educational tool so um for

[3:02:30] Voice 8: a certain component of of the freshwater work say a more complex one uh like the groundwater

[3:02:38] Voice 8: recharge mapping project and and well indeed the freshwater footprint but let me focus on

[3:02:43] Voice 8: groundwater recharge that was a multi-year project uh many islands uh have been covered

[3:02:49] Voice 8: by all of the major islands and it's a complex methodology and the arc online experience will

[3:02:55] Voice 8: allow us to um lay out that methodology uh in a more um approachable way for for um residents

[3:03:04] Voice 8: and also for trustees and even staff and researchers

[3:03:08] Voice 8: to explore what the components that went into

[3:03:14] Voice 8: to groundwater recharge to increase the water literacy

[3:03:18] Voice 8: around that, strengthen some policy initiatives

[3:03:23] Voice 8: like the Groundwater Recharge Protection Development

[3:03:27] Voice 8: Permit Area, which is actually hopefully going

[3:03:29] Voice 8: to first reading right now at Galliano.

[3:03:31] Voice 8: I'm excited to see what happens in that meeting that's happening right now.

[3:03:37] Voice 8: And so that's the expansion.

[3:03:41] Voice 8: It's, you know, it's a outreach tool that is a visual one.

[3:03:49] Voice 8: And so that's what that means by the expansion of that freshwater atlas.

[3:03:54] Voice 8: As for the, you know, what's happening after three years,

[3:03:59] Voice 8: is what's going to happen with the resourcing. That's likely questions that Director Cermak can

[3:04:06] Voice 8: handle. The intention here is to gain resources to undertake a set amount of initiatives and

[3:04:16] Voice 8: projects. The intention of getting a water policy analyst, like someone from Polis, is, in my

[3:04:25] Voice 8: my opinion, uh, wouldn't be a, a long-term, um, uh, employee, uh, here. I could be wrong, but,

[3:04:34] Voice 8: but the intention is to, to, um, uh, facilitate getting momentum on the strategy to, uh, develop

[3:04:43] Voice 8: tools that will, uh, bridge the gap between the, the strategy and, and, and, and planning services

[3:04:50] Voice 8: and provide our planners with tools to utilize the work of the strategy in their work to also,

[3:05:00] Voice 8: you know, like one of the initiatives is a regulatory and policy audit for water policy.

[3:05:06] Voice 8: We have proof of water is all over the place across land use bylaws. All the definitions for

[3:05:13] Voice 8: freshwater and water bodies is is very complex um trustee patrick you may know from from work

[3:05:20] Voice 8: on salt spring what is a water body right if you take a direct read it's surface drainage works

[3:05:27] Voice 8: you know and and that that has some real impact to to uh bylaw enforcement uh to um development

[3:05:36] Voice 8: and permit areas like these these definitions and and and the way that freshwater is represented in

[3:05:43] Voice 8: in land use bylaws and official community plans has has um like significant relevance to um

[3:05:50] Voice 8: to to to applicants and to our residents so that's part of that so maybe i'll yield

[3:05:57] Voice 8: yeah because i

[3:05:58] Trustee Patrick: think i see director sir max hand is raised yeah

[3:06:00] Voice 8: thank

[3:06:04] Voice 9: you madam chair i just thought

[3:06:05] Voice 9: I'd sort of draw attention to page 155 of your agenda where it sort of more directly answers

[3:06:11] Voice 9: Trustee Boland's questions about what might we see at the end of this project and I don't want

[3:06:18] Voice 9: to dwell on each individual item but it certainly provides some guidance to the question but what

[3:06:24] Voice 9: would you get and of course some of those may feel intangible to people and a lot of what William

[3:06:31] Voice 9: William does he does amazing support across the entire organization and the things that

[3:06:36] Voice 9: trustees don't see it is his input into applications bylaw amendments and so on and so forth and

[3:06:43] Voice 9: providing that professional expertise and so you see in here is a way to develop that

[3:06:51] Voice 9: on a more permanent basis how do how can we get support staff to implement those things

[3:06:55] Voice 9: on an ongoing basis so it's not just William's time but it's actually we've created a structure

[3:06:59] Voice 9: and a process so that's just one small example but so you have page 155 i think that helps answer

[3:07:06] Voice 9: some of the potential deliverables at the end

[3:07:08] Voice 3: i

[3:07:09] Voice 9: want to back up to the communications issue

[3:07:11] Voice 9: i won't debate whether or not we have a communications issue that could quite be true

[3:07:16] Voice 9: but i do want to tell you you know we're halfway through the fiscal and we still have deliverables

[3:07:21] Voice 9: ongoing that were funded this year as william mentioned and that is of course the footprint

[3:07:27] Voice 9: footprint project it is still despite where it is right now we're still indicating that it'll

[3:07:33] Voice 9: be concluded by the end of this fiscal that is being applied directly to Gabriel LTC it's it's

[3:07:39] Voice 9: sort of fine-tuning a methodology and then the water Atlas same thing it's uh it's ongoing and

[3:07:45] Voice 9: hoping to get you know advanced this fiscal but of course if you haven't heard our GIA service

[3:07:51] Voice 9: services have we lost some key personnel there and so we're we're continuing to work on it but

[3:07:57] Voice 9: but there's still very much half of the fiscal to go

[3:07:59] Voice 9: and still time to deliver.

[3:08:00] Voice 9: And we have made a commitment to respond

[3:08:03] Voice 9: to the Regional Planning Committee every meeting

[3:08:05] Voice 9: about our freshwater sustainability strategy,

[3:08:07] Voice 9: where we're going and to keep you up to date

[3:08:09] Voice 9: as much as possible.

[3:08:10] Voice 9: So that's how we're trying to respond

[3:08:12] Voice 9: to the issue about communications.

[3:08:13] Voice 9: And as these things get delivered, we'll report to you.

[3:08:17] Voice 9: And I don't know if we have any time in the spring

[3:08:20] Voice 9: or between December and March to have more webinars

[3:08:23] Voice 9: and teaching things.

[3:08:24] Voice 9: things if you talk to that program it's very full but certainly going forward part of the

[3:08:29] Voice 9: deliverables is developing education materials for trustees so we don't lose the ongoing education

[3:08:34] Voice 9: that has been proposed to be developed so that those are just my contributions thank

[3:08:45] Trustee Patrick: you sorry

[3:08:45] Trustee Patrick: I couldn't get my mic off uh before we go the next hand is uh Trustee Elliott I was trying to find

[3:08:53] Trustee Patrick: the footprint staff report.

[3:08:57] Trustee Patrick: So any reference of when that came to us?

[3:09:04] Trustee Patrick: It's

[3:09:05] Voice 12: the Grey Bariola project, I believe.

[3:09:07] Voice 12: So the freshwater sustainability strategy

[3:09:12] Voice 12: attached to our OCP review

[3:09:14] Voice 12: that Trust Council funded for $50,000.

[3:09:18] Voice 12: Is that not the footprint project

[3:09:20] Voice 12: to prove the methodology

[3:09:22] Voice 12: that you're talking about, William?

[3:09:23] Voice 8: Yes, it is. And, you know, I want to, through the chair, this project really benefited from some really great constructive critical analysis from Trustee Elliott, which resulted in us providing more analysis to the Trust Council.

[3:09:47] Voice 8: It was in their March 2024 agenda package, page 275, developing the Islands Trust water balance methodology using Gabriela as a case study.

[3:09:57] Voice 8: And it just described on how this is a, it is a federation-wide initiative, but focusing on Gabriela as part of their significant OCP and LUB review project.

[3:10:11] Voice 8: project and and so it is a project of the ltc very substantial one i think 50 60 000 range um

[3:10:19] Voice 8: and yeah so so that that's that's where that is chair just to clarify no

[3:10:25] Trustee Patrick: i was just curious because

[3:10:26] Trustee Patrick: i thought this committee was the fresh water uh so anyway um trustee elliott you had your hand

[3:10:33] Trustee Patrick: raised yeah

[3:10:35] Voice 12: um so i'm i'm not struggling with this um report or request for decision at all

[3:10:43] Voice 12: because i think it's just there's nothing more critical that we can do specific to the trust

[3:10:49] Voice 12: area than figure out fresh water and this comes up in so many cases for instance we're going to

[3:10:55] Voice 12: be discussing tiny homes our ocp project on gabriola we're talking about do we mandate

[3:11:01] Voice 12: date rainwater catchment on new builds. So defining and proving that groundwater sourcing

[3:11:12] Voice 12: in a very island specific way, I think the work needs to be done and it can't be separated from

[3:11:18] Voice 12: planning. So I'm supportive of it. I think it's just a great opportunity to apply for a grant so

[3:11:24] Voice 12: so that taxpayers are not bearing the brunt, and we'd be foolish to miss it.

[3:11:30] Voice 12: So I'm in support.

[3:11:32] Voice 12: I'm struggling right now because my cat, I think, got attacked by a raccoon and is bleeding,

[3:11:37] Voice 12: so I may have to get him to the vet.

[3:11:38] Voice 12: But if this were to go to a vote, I would vote in favor.

[3:11:41] Voice 12: Thank you for your work on this, William, and Director Sir Mac.

[3:11:47] Trustee Patrick: All right.

[3:11:48] Trustee Patrick: I do have one more question here, and I know Quadra, Cortez, and other islands are also

[3:11:56] Trustee Patrick: also moving forward with doing work, has there been any conversations with the province about

[3:12:00] Trustee Patrick: having sort of a focus on islands and helping us out more? I know they've done the saltwater

[3:12:08] Trustee Patrick: intrusion. They've done some work here and there. Has there been any conversation about

[3:12:12] Trustee Patrick: the province, like I said, taking on a more island-centric or island program that would

[3:12:18] Trustee Patrick: be helpful to us uh

[3:12:22] Voice 8: yeah yeah thanks for the comment chair um you know maybe this is the start

[3:12:29] Voice 8: of that right well actually i think it started with their funding of our of our freshwater

[3:12:35] Voice 8: sustainability strategy i think they're um allowing islands trust to take the lead in

[3:12:41] Voice 8: determining what that looks like in our region uh if you look at other areas of of the province

[3:12:48] Voice 8: say in the coaxiala where there's a lot of water sustainability work going on there um it was

[3:12:55] Voice 8: largely community-led uh with the interest groups that are involved in that watershed and and and

[3:13:02] Voice 8: you know the first nations that have their territory in that in that region and now the

[3:13:07] Voice 8: province is um adapting to that and and i think it's the same here like we're we're going to enter

[3:13:13] Voice 8: there's some really interesting territory around like governance and policy on how provincial

[3:13:22] Voice 8: policy relates to the solutions that are required in the island's trust area for freshwater

[3:13:26] Voice 8: sustainability. For example, rainwater as a source water supply for drinking water that there is

[3:13:34] Voice 8: some vast regulatory gaps there. And I think that the tools of area-based regulations will

[3:13:43] Voice 8: increase to to solve some of these um unique uh problems of areas in the province and islands

[3:13:50] Voice 8: trust area has unique set of challenges when it comes to fresh water uh so i i it's it's my hopes

[3:13:59] Voice 8: that if if we're successful with the with with the application well if if the rpc supports the

[3:14:06] Voice 8: application the application process and we're successful in that that uh like a senior water

[3:14:12] Voice 8: policy analysts will will find the cables between you know our very unique local government and and

[3:14:20] Voice 8: the province to to start um identifying avenues to solve some of these large issues uh you know

[3:14:28] Voice 8: like like using rainwater for multi-family housing developments and and things like that i mean

[3:14:36] Voice 8: those are these are very significant and and stormwater management in rural lands that

[3:14:41] Voice 8: That, you know, we don't, besides Bowen Island Municipality, we don't have municipalities, so it's, there's, and the regional districts largely don't have stormwater management plans.

[3:14:53] Voice 8: So, when we have stormwater challenges like on Denman Island, I know of a few very significant stormwater issues between residents, it's a civil matter, and, you know, that's not great governance.

[3:15:07] Voice 8: governance so yeah um i i i think i think it's it's happening on a on a staff level right now

[3:15:16] Voice 8: where where the um you know senior staff in in the province are are starting to really identify

[3:15:22] Voice 8: these challenges um especially on the islands and and i i think that we're making steps to

[3:15:29] Voice 8: to having people sit around the table and a technical advisory committee it may not be

[3:15:35] Voice 8: be called that right when we get through it but but it's our hopes that we'd have provincial

[3:15:41] Voice 8: staff at that table so when we're going through the implementation planning of this same with

[3:15:48] Voice 8: the freshwater footprint project sorry to just jump around here but but um the the regional

[3:15:53] Voice 8: district of Nanaimo um their drinking water watershed protection program they're interested

[3:15:57] Voice 8: in being an external member um provincial staff are interested in being an external member of

[3:16:02] Voice 8: of, of working on this project with us, because then if they're involved, they could utilize it

[3:16:08] Voice 8: for water authorizations and, and, and areas of their work. So we're just trying to come closer

[3:16:14] Voice 8: together and, and, you know, Islands Trust in our mandate, we have coordination, like we're a

[3:16:19] Voice 8: coordinating body. And, and, and I think that's, that's our strength and we really have to focus

[3:16:24] Voice 8: on that. I think that's, that'll be one of the strong points of, of our application to the

[3:16:30] Voice 8: Watershed Security Fund.

[3:16:32] Trustee Patrick: Before we continue on, I wanted to check back with

[3:16:35] Trustee Patrick: Trustee Elliott, because the nature of the emergency she's facing, if we need to go back

[3:16:41] Trustee Patrick: and if she wants to deal with her, the tiny house issue now. Sorry, I don't mean to be jumping

[3:16:49] Trustee Patrick: around, but I want to be cognizant. Trustee Elliott, are you still on? No? Okay. No, she must be

[3:17:03] Trustee Patrick: dealing with the emergency at hand so i apologize um so uh trustee boland

[3:17:12] Voice 10: thanks um so the freshwater footprint uh which used to be known as water balance which used to

[3:17:19] Voice 10: be known as groundwater availability um it's not easy to keep up with the different reports and

[3:17:25] Voice 10: business cases not least because the name changes but anyway okay freshwater footprint given that

[3:17:32] Voice 10: you've begun a project and you've hired somebody, does that affect the grant funding mechanism?

[3:17:39] Voice 10: I believe that sometimes they say they won't fund something that you've already started.

[3:17:44] Voice 10: And the second thing is you spoke about coordination and indeed that's very important.

[3:17:51] Voice 10: How do you envisage this technical coordination group working and how will they be funded and

[3:17:59] Voice 10: And do these groups not exist already in some shape or form?

[3:18:03] Voice 10: I think you used to go to one at Nanaimo, for instance.

[3:18:07] Voice 10: So I'm just curious as to who would comprise that group and how it would operate.

[3:18:16] Voice 10: Thanks.

[3:18:18] Voice 8: Thanks for the question.

[3:18:19] Voice 8: So, uh, freshwater footprint is, is like the overall, uh, like holistic vision of, of

[3:18:27] Voice 8: identifying, um, groundwater availability and, and water balance.

[3:18:32] Voice 8: And it's, it, it really freshwater footprint.

[3:18:35] Voice 8: It it's to be defined part of the project.

[3:18:38] Voice 8: It's a methodology project right now.

[3:18:40] Voice 8: Um, so, and, and, you know, it, it's a balance of technical science, which is what we really

[3:18:47] Voice 8: only get when we look at water budgets.

[3:18:49] Voice 8: uh, with social science, because we don't, if you talk to the, you know, um, senior groundwater

[3:18:57] Voice 8: scientists like Dr. Diane Allen, she says, we don't know, we can't do water balance. We don't

[3:19:00] Voice 8: know how much people use and it's true. Uh, so we have to go ask, or we have to do surveys or we

[3:19:06] Voice 8: have to coordinate with communities. We have to get out there. And, and so that's, that's the

[3:19:13] Voice 8: uniqueness of that project um would would undertaking this work now um uh impact the

[3:19:20] Voice 8: grant no it's it's going to strengthen it because we're developing the methodology so it'll be

[3:19:25] Voice 8: shovel ready by the time that the grant is is going to be um starting to be rolled out which

[3:19:32] Voice 8: would be in next fiscal so the timing is great for that um about the fresh uh the technical advisory

[3:19:38] Voice 8: advisory committee or the freshwater committee, um, you know, I think the, the questions that

[3:19:44] Voice 8: you have are the same ones that, um, director Cermak blasted me when I first approached this

[3:19:49] Voice 8: and, and it's, we, we don't know, right. We don't know who's going to be on it. We don't know how

[3:19:54] Voice 8: it's going to function. And, uh, we don't know how much it's going to cost. The, the, the idea

[3:19:59] Voice 8: here would be to, um, take time, take say even a whole year and, and working with, um, senior

[3:20:07] Voice 8: level staff, like, like director Cermak to, uh, uh, come up with a, with the terms of reference

[3:20:14] Voice 8: for that and, and working with, um, you know, the regional planning committee, this is, this is our,

[3:20:19] Voice 8: this is our opportunity to coordinate. Um, so maybe it's called a coordination committee. I

[3:20:24] Voice 8: don't know, but, but, um, those, those questions are, are, are really great and they shouldn't

[3:20:30] Voice 8: just come from isolation staff, like myself and a planner, you know, just grabbing a bunch of

[3:20:36] Voice 8: people together and sitting in a room um this is actually the oldest initiative of it actually

[3:20:42] Voice 8: predates the strategy when uh myself and at the time of uh director marler uh who was who was the

[3:20:50] Voice 8: director of planning service at the time we sat down with polis we sat down with oliver brandis

[3:20:55] Voice 8: and we and and we had a very good conversation about about this and and you know the the

[3:21:02] Voice 8: the sentiment was that the Islands Trust needs more people around the room to not only direct

[3:21:10] Voice 8: work, but to have the work that we're doing be analyzed in process. I've done some projects

[3:21:20] Voice 8: where we procured, through a procurement process, we contracted consultants to do reviews of the

[3:21:27] Voice 8: the work of consultants that did work for us and that was useful in a way um but yeah the i do still

[3:21:35] Voice 8: sit on the technical advisory committee of the regional district and i'm those drink water

[3:21:39] Voice 8: watershed protection program and it's been an invaluable resource i've i i've brought um our

[3:21:46] Voice 8: work i presented on on on work to them and and bounce bounce ids off them we have a round table

[3:21:53] Voice 8: every meeting we have we meet quarterly and um you know the province is there the federal

[3:21:59] Voice 8: government's there um members of the public and and it's it's a really great opportunity

[3:22:05] Voice 8: for for me to to gain that understanding to bounce um our projects off them but you can really see

[3:22:13] Voice 8: that it's it's um it's a um an essential organizational structure for the regional

[3:22:20] Voice 8: district of Nanaimo and we don't have that here um so so this would be one of those essential

[3:22:27] Voice 8: organizational structures that will finally start getting some momentum on the freshwater

[3:22:32] Voice 8: sustainability strategy and um be you know critically analyze what the strategy is doing

[3:22:38] Voice 8: to the to um you know trust council strategic plan I think that would be like the main one

[3:22:44] Voice 8: of the main goals of the technical advisory committee yeah thanks all

[3:22:49] Voice 13: right uh trustee

[3:22:50] Voice 13: yeah

[3:22:52] Voice 7: uh and yeah by and large i mean i i am pretty happy with most of what i see here i i think the

[3:23:00] Voice 7: thing and and this is a little bit sort of what you were just talking about um trustee boland and

[3:23:05] Voice 7: and william um yeah i mean my uh like i think the the value here and the potential to collaborate

[3:23:16] Voice 7: with you know provincial and and and other bodies on this sort of stuff is really valuable and

[3:23:21] Voice 7: And obviously, you know, coming up with those definitions and strategies is really valuable, you know, across the board and can, will hopefully lead to a bunch of really good work.

[3:23:33] Voice 7: And we are, as we know, you know, under-resourced on this, you know, we keep, we keep running up against that, that front.

[3:23:42] Voice 7: And obviously this grant will hopefully help kick all of that stuff off.

[3:23:46] Voice 7: off but if one of the sort of selling points of our utility is our or of this project is the

[3:23:54] Voice 7: utility to the province and to other rural groups um and you know and absolutely including us and

[3:24:01] Voice 7: and you know we're i think this is being you know uh initiated from a desire to like hey this doesn't

[3:24:07] Voice 7: exist let's create it because we need it um which i totally agree with i just because of the trusts

[3:24:14] Voice 7: like seemingly chronic issue of of being under-resourced and being under under-prioritized

[3:24:21] Voice 7: by other bodies provincially um you know i i just there's a there's a small part of me that

[3:24:27] Voice 7: it gets concerned that are we the best people to host it um and that's that's that's just really

[3:24:33] Voice 7: all that i come from and it sounds like you know in this instance this this is funded and this is

[3:24:38] Voice 7: supported um i just in the long run it would be like we have a lot of really great things that

[3:24:46] Voice 7: we're working on here at the trust we have a lot of things that we're really doing i think a lot

[3:24:50] Voice 7: of really good work on you know a lot of the stuff that's happening in terms of reconciliation you

[3:24:54] Voice 7: know we we do get told not you know unilaterally but we do get told you know that that we're we're

[3:25:00] Voice 7: sort of ahead of the head of the curve on some stuff and that's really good and it's nice to be

[3:25:04] Voice 7: be that it does leave us vulnerable in some ways, because we're, we are so far ahead of everybody

[3:25:09] Voice 7: else. And I just, you know, want to make sure that if, if we're supposed to, if we're due some

[3:25:14] Voice 7: sort of support from other bodies and other municipalities, and if this is such a valuable

[3:25:19] Voice 7: resource, you know, are we in the best position to be the host for it? And maybe we are. And I'm

[3:25:25] Voice 7: totally open to that being the answer. This is not meant to be an indictment of the plan or the

[3:25:29] Voice 7: project at all. I just want to make sure that I'm sort of, that's my reflection. I just wanted to

[3:25:33] Voice 7: of throw that out there.

[3:25:34] Trustee Patrick: Thank you, Trustee Borthwick. Before Director Cermak jumps in,

[3:25:38] Trustee Patrick: I want to challenge a missing project that should be considered for this, and that's governance.

[3:25:45] Trustee Patrick: You know, we had SWPA, which is funded and not resourced, and now I'm looking at a bunch of

[3:25:52] Trustee Patrick: more work about it and creating a new committee when the old committee languished. One of the

[3:26:01] Trustee Patrick: the most important recommendations for the local work was the governance, watershed governance.

[3:26:05] Trustee Patrick: And that needs to be a regional conversation. That's where it's gone to. We understand that

[3:26:09] Trustee Patrick: from Salt Spring. So I think it's a missing project. If you're going to have a watershed

[3:26:13] Trustee Patrick: project that you need to develop also, if we're going for the funding. So at the end of the day,

[3:26:18] Trustee Patrick: we end up with some strong governance model, maybe even piloted in some watershed or two or

[3:26:25] Trustee Patrick: three in the islands, because there could be different forms of governance, depending on

[3:26:30] Trustee Patrick: who's at the table and interested so i'll challenge you with to think about that for

[3:26:34] Trustee Patrick: a minute and i'll bring that up in a again but uh uh trustee sir mac there we go director sir mac

[3:26:42] Voice 9: thank you madam chair let me just lower my hand um okay i just want to respond to our trustee

[3:26:48] Voice 9: borthwick i pre i love that the question are the we the best to do this work i think is what i

[3:26:54] Voice 9: heard or best positioned um i think trust council has said we are they've endorsed the plan they've

[3:27:00] Voice 9: made it a priority and they've asked you to implement it so i just really want to emphasize

[3:27:05] Voice 9: that trust council has said this is we are in fact um the best position to do this work and without

[3:27:12] Voice 9: uh you know answering for uh william shovel too much that um you know the work we're doing is

[3:27:19] Voice 9: unique that's why we have to do it if it was available we wouldn't have to do the work so

[3:27:23] Voice 9: no one's going to do it for us and uh and we need to lead the way and trust council has agreed with

[3:27:28] Voice 9: with that up to this point. Thank you, Madam Chair.

[3:27:32] Trustee Patrick: All right. Trustee Luckman.

[3:27:36] Trustee Luckham: Yeah. Thank

[3:27:37] Trustee Luckham: you very much, Chair. And thank you very much, Stefan, for taking the wind out of my sails there

[3:27:42] Trustee Luckham: a little bit faster on the leeward tack, I guess there. But I hope, you know, I'm not a voting

[3:27:50] Trustee Luckham: member of this committee. I hope that you will support this. This is significant. There's

[3:27:56] Trustee Luckham: potential for us to get $500,000 from somebody else to do the work that we need to do.

[3:28:04] Trustee Luckham: And as Stefan said, and has been told to us over and over again over the years, nobody

[3:28:10] Trustee Luckham: else is going to do this work for us.

[3:28:12] Trustee Luckham: If we don't think it's a priority and particularly go after grant funding to help facilitate

[3:28:18] Trustee Luckham: it, nobody else is going to do it for us.

[3:28:20] Trustee Luckham: This has been a long story.

[3:28:22] Trustee Luckham: We are very fortunate to have William Shulba as a freshwater specialist, and that's an uppercase specialist on our team and is doing amazing and significant work.

[3:28:35] Trustee Luckham: And I hope that you support this.

[3:28:38] Trustee Luckham: If I was voting, I would.

[3:28:42] Voice 13: All right, William.

[3:28:46] Voice 8: Yeah, thanks for those accolades, ex officio.

[3:28:51] Voice 8: you're welcome. Um, uh, I, like, I, I tend to agree that, that, um, trust council has agreed

[3:29:00] Voice 8: that there were the, uh, in the best position to take on this work. Um, but I'll argue that this

[3:29:07] Voice 8: is work of the province to, to, to, you know, to really, to, um, to stand behind the object of the

[3:29:19] Voice 8: the trust to that, you know, the, the islands trust is, is, is an organization for the benefit

[3:29:26] Voice 8: of the province. And, and I think the, like the, like the on the ground work is, is really the

[3:29:36] Voice 8: work of the regional districts. Um, and they're in the best position to get funding from, from,

[3:29:46] Voice 8: from their tax base through drinking water

[3:29:49] Voice 8: and watershed protection programs to run on the islands.

[3:29:53] Voice 8: But as Trustee Luckham knows,

[3:29:56] Voice 8: and Thetis Island has seen

[3:30:00] Voice 8: very little to nothing of the drinking water and watershed protection program that was was voted on

[3:30:06] Voice 8: in a referendum from the Cowichan Valley Regional District to a tune of $750,000 a year that that

[3:30:17] Voice 8: you know they've been stockpiling that money for four years they have millions of dollars in the

[3:30:21] Voice 8: the bank for that program. And so how is that really going to benefit, you know, the Thetis

[3:30:32] Voice 8: Island? And then if you go to the more mature regional district program in the regional district

[3:30:38] Voice 8: of Nanaimo, they're kind of like pulling at straws to find something to do on Gabriola Island. I mean,

[3:30:47] Voice 8: they have a really good wells monitoring program for sure that is tops um but they're they're only

[3:30:53] Voice 8: monitoring like one little stream and and that's determining their their their watershed health

[3:31:00] Voice 8: across the island um they're having troubles uh on on mainland uh vancouver island on on reaching

[3:31:08] Voice 8: their science with with planning and and you know on on our side of the fence island trust like

[3:31:14] Voice 8: like we're already implementing freshwater sustainability strategy science work in policy.

[3:31:20] Voice 8: It's happening right now at the Galliano Media. I'm so interested in what's going on over there

[3:31:26] Voice 8: right now. So I do think we're in the best position to undertake this work for the direct

[3:31:35] Voice 8: benefit of the Islands Trust Area and the residents and the First Nations that have

[3:31:41] Voice 8: have, you know, their territory in our region. And I think that's where I think we're really

[3:31:48] Voice 8: strong, where we can focus on this work, on how it benefits us. And as we coordinate with the

[3:31:54] Voice 8: province, say, how can our work help you make your decisions rather than the other way around?

[3:32:01] Voice 8: And I think that's where it's really strong for us to do this work in hubs. Yeah, thanks.

[3:32:06] Voice 8: uh

[3:32:07] Trustee Patrick: william uh what about my comment about adding an element of this oh yeah governance yeah that

[3:32:14] Voice 8: was my other i'm making notes here and i have i have patrick uh and then slash governance and

[3:32:20] Voice 8: then i slash regulatory policy audit so that that section there was my attempt to to to say

[3:32:28] Voice 8: governance without saying governance so um you know and and maybe we just go ahead and say it

[3:32:34] Voice 8: that that there needs to be some sort of governance discussion here you know and and that's why i'm

[3:32:41] Voice 8: kind of lamenting by putting technical advisory committee because really it's it we don't really

[3:32:46] Voice 8: need that much technical support on on the hydrogeology of the thing right we really need

[3:32:51] Voice 8: to know uh the regulatory implications the governance model like how this um lays out

[3:32:59] Voice 8: with planning and i think you're right like if if we want to look at at how this work really hits

[3:33:06] Voice 8: the ground running it's we have to look on watershed by watershed like governance of of

[3:33:11] Voice 8: lake weston is is really important to to not only the um the work of the island stress but also

[3:33:18] Voice 8: to uh first nation um reserve lands are within the catchment or well within the

[3:33:24] Voice 8: the distribution of the catchment um so yeah I think like as we go forward right now this is

[3:33:33] Voice 8: this is big picture stuff and as we go and and and do um more work more applications more

[3:33:40] Voice 8: affordable housing it's going to be watershed by watershed um um I you know um analysis and

[3:33:47] Voice 8: governance and um you know perhaps that's you know that's the nature of the conversation you

[3:33:53] Voice 8: you know, I, I always find that, that, that staff are kind of expected to come with, with all the

[3:34:00] Voice 8: answers before we do the project. And, and I think, you know, working through these problems

[3:34:06] Voice 8: is the project, like working through governance issues of, of, you know, watershed governance.

[3:34:12] Voice 8: I mean, that's, that's, that's the such exciting work to do. And, and, you know, and that, that

[3:34:20] Voice 8: that would be the work of the regional planning committee. Right. And, and,

[3:34:24] Voice 8: and we can be really directed as staff to, to undertake elements of that.

[3:34:29] Voice 8: So I might have to think about that section.

[3:34:35] Trustee Patrick: Look at the polis strengthening decision-making and collaboration for healthy

[3:34:38] Trustee Patrick: watersheds got handbook that's already written and might be something we can

[3:34:42] Trustee Patrick: steal some wording from trustee Borthwick.

[3:34:48] Voice 7: Yeah. Thanks for that, William. That's, I mean, you answered my question.

[3:34:52] Voice 7: i know we've kind of bounced around a little bit there but um yeah and i just wanted to just state

[3:34:58] Voice 7: like i'm not in any way in opposition to this i i understand the the value and the utility of this

[3:35:04] Voice 7: i also director cermak and chair lockham i or trustee lockham i i do understand that that

[3:35:10] Voice 7: trust council has directed this you know supporting this that's not that's not my

[3:35:15] Voice 7: misunderstanding i feel like i maybe got misinterpreted there in terms of what my

[3:35:19] Voice 7: question was i guess um i and and you know in the spirit of what you were just saying william like

[3:35:26] Voice 7: i i i am also excited for this to be a collaborative project where we can be

[3:35:30] Voice 7: you know of utility to to staff in in sort of building this and uh you know as you say

[3:35:37] Voice 7: regional districts really in many ways are better resourced to do a lot of this

[3:35:41] Voice 7: work potentially but the reality that we're we're confronted with is that they're not um and so

[3:35:48] Voice 7: So really, all my question was, like, I guess is, you know, just verifying that, yeah, like

[3:35:56] Voice 7: no one else is going to do it.

[3:35:57] Voice 7: So the reality is, it's like, yes, we are the best people to do it because nobody else

[3:36:01] Voice 7: is going to bother to pick it up, which is too bad in general for other rural communities.

[3:36:07] Voice 7: But also, if nobody else is going to do it, we absolutely should do it.

[3:36:11] Voice 7: Again, totally in support of that, want to be helpful with that.

[3:36:13] Voice 7: And I guess my, my, my point is like, how can we, uh, you know, how can we, how can

[3:36:20] Voice 7: we as a, as a, as a committee also really support, um, you know, beyond obviously voting

[3:36:26] Voice 7: this through, um, uh, uh, that cooperation and engagement from, from our regional districts,

[3:36:33] Voice 7: um, who have the ability to sort of do that on the ground work in a way that we don't.

[3:36:38] Voice 7: Um, anyways, I, I just, I feel like I get misinterpreted ever so slightly.

[3:36:43] Voice 7: sometimes. Thank you,

[3:36:47] Trustee Patrick: Trustee Worthwick. And well, on Salt Spring, we have a report that says,

[3:36:52] Trustee Patrick: no, the CRD should be taking over this, that we've had SWPA for a long time. So we aren't

[3:36:57] Trustee Patrick: consistent in our messaging. And I think it is important. And I think if we could just build

[3:37:01] Trustee Patrick: governance into this, because this is an issue of critical importance and would help us leave,

[3:37:08] Trustee Patrick: We, you know, at the end of the day, the year three, as Trustee Bolden was referring to it, that maybe we could have a structure that is brought in place that is far more exciting.

[3:37:19] Trustee Patrick: Anyway, Chairman,

[3:37:21] Voice 8: may I just comment back through the chair to Trustee Worthwick there?

[3:37:27] Voice 8: Your sentiment is, has been heard by, or I guess placed and expressed by many different people.

[3:37:36] Voice 8: I think that's kind of the nature why we have the watershed security strategy now, because there are other areas of the province where those same questions were asked.

[3:37:51] Voice 8: Like there might be other organizations like the province, the regional districts positioned to take on this work, but for their governance issue or resourcing, whatever, they're not.

[3:38:05] Voice 8: And so that, you know, and there's, there's significant challenge, like we have really significant challenge, challenge, trust area, very unique to our, to our islands. There's, there's other areas of the province that have experienced with, with significant flooding and wildfire and, and, and, and, you know, streams going dry in the summertime and irrigation districts, like very significant issues.

[3:38:27] Voice 8: issues and and i think the province has identified that and first they said hey let's listen to

[3:38:34] Voice 8: first nations and indigenous groups on how they would approach these problems and and and now

[3:38:41] Voice 8: they're coming back to us and saying let's expand that to local governments and see how they will

[3:38:46] Voice 8: approach these problems and so i yeah i know your sentiment is is is not um unique or or or odd

[3:38:56] Voice 8: it's it's definitely the the the basis for for this new initiative um yeah

[3:39:03] Voice 7: yeah i just want to

[3:39:05] Voice 7: see the job done as best we can you know and i want to make sure that we have we're best

[3:39:10] Voice 7: you know place to get traction on that and if if this is the only way it's going to go forward

[3:39:14] Voice 7: hell yeah i'm totally behind it want to see it done want to be involved in it just i just want

[3:39:19] Voice 7: to make sure that it's as successful as possible that's the entirety of my sentiment director sir

[3:39:26] Trustee Patrick: Mac thank

[3:39:29] Voice 9: you madam chair um and thank you trustee Borthwick for clarifying it if we misinterpreted

[3:39:35] Voice 9: and it's it's a curse sometimes when you try to summarize what somebody else is saying

[3:39:39] Voice 9: but I'm glad that that's what communication fixes um I just wanted to point out you know that one of

[3:39:45] Voice 9: the purposes of the technical advisory committee you know the composition of it you know I think

[3:39:49] Voice 9: can be worked on after this after today and and the key part of it as per the strategy itself

[3:39:56] Voice 9: points out is that the you know inviting provincial agencies regional districts

[3:40:00] Voice 9: water purveyors and First Nations and I think bringing those types of people

[3:40:06] Voice 9: anyways those there's various partners to to the agency would I think you know

[3:40:13] Voice 9: then germinate the questions about governance and it's a fantastic question

[3:40:17] Voice 9: and I know as far as I know I may be maybe and William can correct me but I

[3:40:22] Voice 9: you know the Water Sustainability Act you can ask permission from the province

[3:40:26] Voice 9: to create a water and advisory board and i don't know if anyone's taken them up on that uh action

[3:40:31] Voice 9: yet but those types of discussions with those with regional districts provincial staff first nations

[3:40:36] Voice 9: islands trust and water purveyors and maybe others at this you know we're being asked to create if we

[3:40:43] Voice 9: go forward um would i think inevitably ask those very questions about governance and related things

[3:40:49] Voice 9: so it's an excellent question and i'm glad you brought it up oh

[3:40:52] Trustee Patrick: well thank you and in the the

[3:40:54] Trustee Patrick: The manual that I just sent to you, it says right in the beginning, in short, there is growing recognition that to fix water problems,

[3:41:00] Trustee Patrick: we urgently need to tackle systemic root issues related to authority, responsibility, knowledge and accountability.

[3:41:07] Trustee Patrick: So it's right there. Trustee Boland.

[3:41:12] Voice 10: So the water atlas as it exists currently, will that show us the information that's been collated, collected already?

[3:41:24] Voice 10: ready, the reports, the data. Because I remember you spoke of the data sets that were delivered

[3:41:31] Voice 10: from Ground War Solutions, et cetera, and the fact that this would, the project to create the

[3:41:39] Voice 10: water atlas would involve importing those data sets to make them available. So can we see that

[3:41:47] Voice 10: water atlas in some shape or form as soon as possible, please? Thank you.

[3:41:55] Trustee Patrick: All right. At the

[3:41:56] Trustee Patrick: risk of this going on forever um i'm going to push forward and make a motion to add a watershed a

[3:42:03] Trustee Patrick: request of watershed governance be added and we'll see how that flies and i'm i'm sorry rob i'm doing

[3:42:08] Trustee Patrick: this on the seat of my pants um i move that the regional planning committee um i guess request

[3:42:16] Trustee Patrick: staff to add a project on watershed governance within its grant application

[3:42:33] Trustee Patrick: for the watershed security strategy or incorporate approach however you add is

[3:42:49] Trustee Patrick: fine does that make sense to staff or we second it

[3:43:05] Voice 8: I chair I'm not sure if I'm

[3:43:10] Voice 8: the best one to speak but um um can you just add it to the recommended resolution as as is or do

[3:43:19] Voice 8: you want to have it as a standalone standalone because we have well

[3:43:22] Trustee Patrick: i just because it's if i

[3:43:24] Trustee Patrick: just add a bullet i think i could but i but the motion's not there so oh okay i

[3:43:30] Trustee Patrick: thought we needed

[3:43:31] Trustee Patrick: to sure rather

[3:43:33] Trustee Patrick: than just add a project that i think we're requesting you to add it and then

[3:43:36] Trustee Patrick: then we can make

[3:43:37] Trustee Patrick: the motion and include it in there okay

[3:43:39] Voice 8: i also have just a friendly amendment

[3:43:41] Voice 8: on on the recommended oh

[3:43:43] Trustee Patrick: yeah we haven't there's no amendment it has not been seconded

[3:43:45] Trustee Patrick: no

[3:43:47] Voice 8: no not on this one but on on the on oh

[3:43:49] Trustee Patrick: okay yeah so this

[3:43:51] Trustee Patrick: makes sense then

[3:43:53] Voice 8: to yeah to me it does yeah

[3:43:55] Trustee Patrick: okay that's what matters uh is uh i've made that motion is there

[3:44:00] Trustee Patrick: a second is that uh trustee worthwick thank you very much is there any discussion um i'll just i

[3:44:08] Trustee Patrick: think i've discussed but i think there's a lot of material especially from polis on watershed

[3:44:12] Trustee Patrick: governance and the importance of it is all about working with them and really recognizing working

[3:44:19] Trustee Patrick: with first nations in this uh this realm um and i think it would really help us at the end of the

[3:44:24] Trustee Patrick: day have a strong governance model to go forward because i can tell you swip has been around since

[3:44:29] Trustee Patrick: since 2014. And it's struggled. And we're going to be struggling if we don't bite into this one.

[3:44:35] Trustee Patrick: And if we look at the handbook, it says you start with the champion. So we're the champion,

[3:44:39] Trustee Patrick: but we got to get that answer. We got to get to the governance answer. Any further discussion,

[3:44:46] Trustee Patrick: Trustee Borthwick, did you want to discuss?

[3:44:48] Voice 7: Yeah, just wanted to clarify, and I think you

[3:44:50] Voice 7: may have already answered, but I just want to double check before we go through this.

[3:44:54] Voice 7: this um so in terms of adding this and this is possibly a question for for director sermac um

[3:45:02] Voice 7: will this uh how does this impact our ability to then vote on on the the broader uh application

[3:45:09] Voice 7: i guess you

[3:45:11] Trustee Patrick: mean the next motion i would just so i'm clear as a bullet

[3:45:15] Voice 7: so that's

[3:45:16] Trustee Patrick: what i'll add it

[3:45:16] Voice 7: in like immediately we're not like we're not sending this away until

[3:45:19] Voice 7: another meeting

[3:45:19] Trustee Patrick: correct

[3:45:20] Voice 7: correct okay great no that i just i thought so just checking

[3:45:23] Voice 7: it would

[3:45:25] Trustee Patrick: just be added as a bullet now under the motion that's in front of us

[3:45:28] Trustee Patrick: all right if there's no further debate i'll call the question all those in favor do

[3:45:35] Voice 10: we have quorum

[3:45:36] Voice 10: just i know that that's

[3:45:38] Trustee Patrick: a good question

[3:45:39] Voice 10: yeah

[3:45:40] Trustee Patrick: who's here we'll see by voting trustee lauren yes we do

[3:45:46] Trustee Patrick: we have quorum trustee ellen's back good all right uh all those uh any opposed i don't think

[3:45:56] Trustee Patrick: there was any hands up so that carries so then that would bring us uh trustee laurie did you

[3:46:02] Trustee Patrick: just raise your hand or is it lingering nope lingering okay um so that would bring us back

[3:46:10] Trustee Patrick: to the motion if we're repaired prepared for that and rob we would just add a bullet now

[3:46:15] Trustee Patrick: that said watershed governance um there we go let's see that solves uh trustee borthworth's

[3:46:23] Trustee Patrick: question and

[3:46:24] Voice 8: chair if i may um i think it's a friendly amendment um yep

[3:46:29] Trustee Patrick: it has not been made

[3:46:31] Trustee Patrick: yet oh

[3:46:31] Voice 8: okay uh just in the first line there that rbc approved staff proceeding with the grant

[3:46:36] Voice 8: application for 500 000 i think you should just replace four with up to okay um

[3:46:42] Voice 8: because it may

[3:46:43] Voice 8: not be exactly that no

[3:46:45] Trustee Patrick: that sounds fine is there someone prepared to make this motion i see trustee

[3:46:52] Trustee Patrick: I move

[3:46:56] Voice 7: that the Regional Planning Committee approve staff proceeding with a grant application up to $500,000 over two years from the Watershed Security Fund to implement key initiatives under the Islands Trust Freshwater Sustainability Strategy, including staffing, consulting, technical research, and technical resources to undertake following projects and initiatives.

[3:47:15] Voice 7: initiatives. Islands Trust Area Freshwater Footprint, the Islands Trust Area Watershed

[3:47:21] Voice 7: Resiliency Mapping, Freshwater Sustainability Regulatory and Policy Audit, Freshwater Helpdesk,

[3:47:27] Voice 7: Islands Trust Freshwater Atlas, Freshwater Sustainability Technical Advisory Committee,

[3:47:32] Voice 7: and Watershed Governance. All

[3:47:35] Trustee Patrick: right, is there a second? Seconded by Trustee Graham.

[3:47:39] Trustee Patrick: any discussion i'll call the vote then all those in favor all right over your hands any opposed

[3:47:56] Trustee Patrick: that carries all right we'll keep us posted on this and uh look forward to hearing about next

[3:48:09] Trustee Patrick: steps okay

[3:48:11] Voice 8: thank you chair appreciate it thank

[3:48:14] Trustee Patrick: you um is trustee elliott still on board with us

[3:48:18] Trustee Patrick: i think i saw her voting trustee elliott

[3:48:21] Trustee Patrick: i'm

[3:48:22] Voice 3: in the house

[3:48:22] Trustee Patrick: fantastic we're sorry that you're having

[3:48:24] Trustee Patrick: emergencies here we want to go back to your uh thank you so much for your project

[3:48:30] Trustee Patrick: it's not my project

[3:48:31] Trustee Patrick: council i'm sorry

[3:48:32] Trustee Patrick: your proposal i was i thought i said yeah uh

[3:48:37] Voice 12: thank

[3:48:37] Voice 12: you so much for your patience um robert do you want to introduce the briefing uh and then i can

[3:48:45] Voice 12: go into a potential pathway sure

[3:48:50] Voice 4: that's fine with the chair so yes please do

[3:48:55] Voice 4: so it's on page

[3:49:04] Voice 4: starting on page 131.

[3:49:07] Voice 12: they didn't mean to survive you there sorry pardon

[3:49:10] Voice 4: me i

[3:49:11] Voice 12: didn't mean to

[3:49:12] Voice 12: surprise you there i can

[3:49:13] Voice 4: no that's okay um so the purpose is to provide the regional planning

[3:49:16] Voice 4: committee with the trust council resolutions uh for the tiny homes on wheels so you have them in

[3:49:22] Voice 4: in front of you, and someone sort of summarized what the implications would be, they prioritized

[3:49:32] Voice 4: the establishment of a regional interagency cooperation, including roundtables, and with

[3:49:42] Voice 4: the goal of removing funding and legislative barriers to support the development of affordable

[3:49:46] Voice 4: affordable housing, specifically tiny homes,

[3:49:49] Voice 4: working with regional districts and advocating to the province.

[3:49:54] Voice 4: And Trust Council, as you know,

[3:49:56] Voice 4: is authorized up to $20,000 to support this initiative and sort of seeking

[3:50:03] Voice 4: some more specific direction, timing, content, et cetera.

[3:50:08] Voice 4: And I think the email that you sent recently,

[3:50:13] Voice 4: Recently, Trustee Elliott has a lot more detail on that.

[3:50:17] Voice 4: So that could be a starting point for discussion of that.

[3:50:19] Voice 4: And I've attached the housing action plan as well as a reminder for the committee that this would kind of reallocate some of the work from some of the other housing implementation actions of the housing action plan

[3:50:38] Voice 4: to focus on the ones that would prioritize tiny homes.

[3:50:52] Voice 12: Yes, that's all good.

[3:50:54] Voice 12: And that's part of the conversation I was hoping we'd have today.

[3:50:58] Voice 12: Is this committee comfortable with this as a priority project

[3:51:06] Voice 12: within the Affordable Housing Strategic Action Plan?

[3:51:11] Voice 12: I mean, council's already voted on it, and thank you, council.

[3:51:15] Voice 12: And then with a view of not using as much staff resources or regional planning team resources as in having our internal staff set up and do all the work.

[3:51:30] Voice 12: Um, what I've been working on is a proposal to, um, use the money to essentially hire a project

[3:51:40] Voice 12: manager and who would convene the experts and, um, prepare a detailed final report with the

[3:51:50] Voice 12: project findings and recommendations. It's quite a complex endeavor as we've just been discussing,

[3:51:57] Voice 12: convening interagency groups i've been working so for the past month and a bit talking to the rdn

[3:52:05] Voice 12: regional district of nanaimo um director vanessa craig um who's the director for area b

[3:52:13] Voice 12: the gabriel island and then the crd and the crd has some political uh drive to exploring tiny

[3:52:23] Voice 12: homes. But I wasn't certain where they were at with staff capacity. And that's certainly going

[3:52:30] Voice 12: to be a challenge. There might be the political will there, but getting experts in the room,

[3:52:37] Voice 12: consultants in the room is easy. I think getting people who already have full-time jobs

[3:52:41] Voice 12: in the room, planners and so on, is going to be a little more challenging.

[3:52:45] Voice 12: managing so uh i apologize for the lateness i don't know rob if you could bring up the email

[3:52:52] Voice 12: it's just a three page oh it's a five page draft sorry um this was prepared so i've been working

[3:53:00] Voice 12: with a consultant uh who has about 15 years experience um being a consultant and uh in terms

[3:53:08] Voice 12: of you know writing grants working for non-profits some experience in the housing industry sits on a

[3:53:14] Voice 12: society um and he really helped me to plan out what this could look like i was all i knew is

[3:53:26] Voice 12: that we need a technical working group but who was to do the convening and how would we get that

[3:53:32] Voice 12: information back to our respective um bodies uh for decisions it was a challenge so if you can go

[3:53:41] Voice 12: Go further down there, it identifies six project goals, convening a steering committee and two diverse technical panels of experts.

[3:53:50] Voice 12: All of this is my best attempt, our best attempt, I would say.

[3:53:57] Voice 12: And I recognize that you probably haven't had a chance to read and digest it.

[3:54:03] Voice 12: But the goal is to not only examine existing BC billing codes and land use regulations, but to develop model policy options for siting and use, including servicing that would be appropriate in the Islands Trust land use planning context, and then develop clear and practical recommendations for code modifications or regulatory approaches.

[3:54:29] Voice 12: So if we move on to Section 2, the project scope, steering committee formation, the reason I thought this might be important is you need political leadership to sort of stay abreast of what's happening, bring important decisions back to their respective decision-making tables if that's needed,

[3:54:52] Voice 12: And then scale up to other orders of government, such as the Department of Building Standards and Safety, the Ministry of Housing, if there's policy changes needed. So I haven't really given much thought into who would be on the steering committee.

[3:55:08] Voice 12: committee. This is, I just think it needs to be political. And my thinking is that the technical

[3:55:16] Voice 12: working group mostly should be staff, should be planners, experts in, well, we've listed him here,

[3:55:26] Voice 12: structural engineering, electrical, plumbing, fire safety, building code compliance, water

[3:55:31] Voice 12: management, waste and sewage system professionals. So there's a bunch of people that we can tap.

[3:55:36] Voice 12: um the reason i thought two technical panels if you could scroll down a little bit

[3:55:43] Voice 12: uh two technical panels this may not be necessary i so i've been talking to like i said the rdn

[3:55:49] Voice 12: um and i think i stated in my email sorry back up a little bit rob yeah the regional district

[3:55:58] Voice 12: of nanaimo is essentially ready to go um the their general manager of planning um has already

[3:56:06] Voice 12: slotted tiny homes or exploration of tiny homes as long-term dwellings for the regional district

[3:56:12] Voice 12: of Nanaimo, not just Gabriola, into their work plan for the next year. And I don't know if they

[3:56:18] Voice 12: had a particular approach. And so they've got the political will, they've got the staff staffer on

[3:56:24] Voice 12: board. The building and safety, sorry, their building inspector, not sure where that's going

[3:56:31] Voice 12: going to go. And she had also suggested their manager of long-range planning would just be

[3:56:37] Voice 12: interested in being involved. So I had suggested in this document that the first, a first technical

[3:56:45] Voice 12: working group could essentially start quite soon. And with a second to follow, I've got some

[3:56:54] Voice 12: updated information on the Capital Regional District. Justine Stark, who heads up the new,

[3:57:00] Voice 12: It's basically a new planning area, the rural, so I'm just trying to remember what her role exactly is. She's planning and services manager. Somebody remind me. There's the rural.

[3:57:13] Trustee Patrick: Just say Justine Stark. We all know her.

[3:57:15] Trustee Patrick: We

[3:57:15] Voice 12: all know Jessica Stark. I'm just trying to get, she just gave me an update, though, because she said, well, her branch is essentially ready to go with the rural housing strategy.

[3:57:29] Voice 12: strategy, um, the building inspection department has found a new manager. This literally just

[3:57:37] Voice 12: happened. Um, but they are so probably going to be at capacity, um, that it isn't going to be

[3:57:47] Voice 12: possible to fit this in right off the bat, but that the best way to get CRD participation is

[3:57:55] Voice 12: is to ensure there's political will. And by this, I mean, CRD Director Paul Brent,

[3:58:03] Voice 12: who I know he's in favor of this. But also, we may need to ask staff or ask our new CAO

[3:58:10] Voice 12: to request that the CRD participate and consider this as in their planning. So

[3:58:19] Voice 12: So the will is there, but not necessarily the understanding in every department of how they, yeah, we need to do some messaging or some interagency communication of why this is important and why they might want to jump on board.

[3:58:38] Voice 12: So initially, I thought two technical groups with the CRD and Associated Islands in the South convening later.

[3:58:50] Voice 12: But what could be more practical is a single technical working group.

[3:58:57] Voice 12: Start with Nanaimo and Gabriela Island, and the CRD can join as able and build on the work rather than having two separate groups.

[3:59:07] Voice 12: groups and um and that might just make things a little bit simpler it's going to take a while to

[3:59:12] Voice 12: get this up and running anyways uh we've given a timeline uh if you go to page three potential

[3:59:21] Voice 12: timelines of essentially starting now uh with this is very ambitious to prepare a report and

[3:59:30] Voice 12: disseminate by March 31st. So, oh, 2025. Yes, that's this March. I don't think that's entirely

[3:59:39] Voice 12: achievable, but you never know. I don't want this to drag on too long either. The other piece of

[3:59:46] Voice 12: info that I wanted to bring forward is, I just got an email back from Janichi Jensen, and this was the

[3:59:58] Voice 12: See you next time.

[4:00:00] Voice 12: Director of Codes and Standards for the Building and Safety Standards Branch with the Ministry of

[4:00:06] Voice 12: Housing. So this is the director that we got a meeting with during UBCM. He wasn't there, but

[4:00:12] Voice 12: I was just doing a lot of networking and asked him for a meeting. I wrote up those notes,

[4:00:18] Voice 12: and he said they are interested in hearing how things progress, that as the national system

[4:00:26] Voice 12: work on tiny homes and housing supply is going to start in february 2025 so remember i said at

[4:00:34] Voice 12: trust council 2025 2030 code update which is the national building code update there is a focus

[4:00:41] Voice 12: on affordable housing supply and tiny homes so they've set the committee um the members the

[4:00:49] Voice 12: membership of the committees have been um set already so though that's closed but you can

[4:00:56] Voice 12: actually serve on a co-development committee um or stay up to date and so i've got some information

[4:01:02] Voice 12: on that so he indicated that they may be able to participate in some way it might be sort of in

[4:01:09] Voice 12: every six months or when we've got um sort of a significant finding um but they're they're

[4:01:17] Voice 12: interested and they're already doing the work on a national level for the next four or five years so

[4:01:22] Voice 12: So, again, we could be the pilot and just do some crazy stuff and then let the rest of the province in the country follow.

[4:01:32] Voice 12: Is it possible?

[4:01:35] Voice 12: So, yes, I didn't I don't want to take any more time.

[4:01:40] Voice 12: The project manager role, if you can scroll down to page five.

[4:01:45] Voice 12: I haven't worked with Simon Reid before, but his portfolio seems pretty deep and wide, and his specialty seems to be convening, facilitation, grant writing, governance, and he's quite an innovator and very much a business-minded person.

[4:02:06] Voice 12: and so he i think would you know he wrote this proposal i gave him some here's what i think

[4:02:16] Voice 12: i need to present to rpc so that we can have something to discuss and he came up with all

[4:02:23] Voice 12: this and i tweaked it and um and so this is what you have before you today because i wanted to

[4:02:29] Voice 12: give us something to discuss it's all up for discussion if you've got different ideas different

[4:02:34] Voice 12: different tactics, totally open to it. And I just wanted to end by saying, I know staff

[4:02:41] Voice 12: are in charge of resourcing. So we have, you know, procurement policies. So as far as hiring

[4:02:50] Voice 12: a project manager, I don't want to push anyone specifically. There might be other candidates who

[4:02:56] Voice 12: are, I'm sure, equally able. But at this point, Simon has stepped forward and done some free work

[4:03:05] Voice 12: and is fairly knowledgeable of what I'm looking for. And he lives in Nanaimo and

[4:03:14] Voice 12: Gabriela. So anyway, stop talking and see what everybody else thinks of this.

[4:03:21] Voice 12: Yes, trustee's questions for this.

[4:03:27] Trustee Patrick: Oh, everybody's getting tired now this time of day.

[4:03:29] Trustee Patrick: Oh, here we go.

[4:03:30] Trustee Patrick: Trustee Borthwick.

[4:03:34] Voice 7: Yeah, I haven't had a full chance

[4:03:36] Voice 7: to get through all of this yet, unfortunately,

[4:03:39] Voice 7: but I will go, I will have a look through it.

[4:03:42] Voice 7: I mean, by and large, you know,

[4:03:43] Voice 7: I think this is really good stuff.

[4:03:45] Voice 7: And I'm, you know, I think you've done it.

[4:03:47] Voice 7: You've clearly done a bunch of work

[4:03:49] Voice 7: and talking on this and it's exciting stuff.

[4:03:51] Voice 7: Yeah, and I agree.

[4:03:52] Voice 7: like i think um making sure that that political will and that that you know um making it clear

[4:04:01] Voice 7: that this this has some uh some gas behind it is is going to be really crucial to making sure that

[4:04:08] Voice 7: it it goes forward and this is is good but i think this is a really good time for that this is a

[4:04:14] Voice 7: subject that's on a lot of people's minds and on the islands in particular like we're

[4:04:19] Voice 7: you know, there's a lot of people doing it already. So finding ways to like really support

[4:04:23] Voice 7: that and encourage it for people who, you know, maybe are not wanting to run ahead of the pack

[4:04:30] Voice 7: too far is really good. So yeah, I mean, I by and large been really, I've skimmed it, but I haven't

[4:04:36] Voice 7: gone deep, deep. So I don't have specific bits, but I think it looks good to me. I'm excited for

[4:04:41] Voice 7: the the process i think i think what you've got here is looks good too trustee graham

[4:04:50] Voice 6: yeah uh ditto for my uh coach trustee uh trustee borthwick um on the other hand here here's the

[4:04:58] Voice 6: trust once again it's the smallest uh population uh land use authority in the entire nation being

[4:05:06] Voice 6: the the point of the spear for an effort which will have uh potentially uh solutions that are

[4:05:14] Voice 6: are from coast to coast appropriate.

[4:05:16] Voice 6: And I know Nova Scotia has got a tiny house development

[4:05:20] Voice 6: already in Halifax.

[4:05:21] Voice 6: So obviously there are other groups that have found

[4:05:25] Voice 6: the wedge to slip between the regulations

[4:05:28] Voice 6: or they just have different regulations.

[4:05:30] Voice 6: Although I would have thought they had to comply

[4:05:31] Voice 6: with national building standards.

[4:05:33] Voice 6: Anyway, it's encouraging that the national group are formed

[4:05:38] Voice 6: and we'll start to work in February.

[4:05:39] Voice 6: We haven't allotted a lot of money for this, so that seems appropriate.

[4:05:46] Voice 6: I mean, I really do think that the Tiny Home Manufacturers Association should be paying

[4:05:52] Voice 6: us, considering they will be the beneficiaries, but for whatever bizarre reason, they dropped

[4:05:58] Voice 6: the ball on this one.

[4:05:59] Voice 6: As a small business owner for many years, man, did they drop the ball on this one.

[4:06:03] Voice 6: But anyway, well done.

[4:06:05] Voice 6: Good for you, and carry on.

[4:06:10] Voice 12: If I could respond to that point. I didn't include in here, I've had conversations with Mint Tiny Homes. They're the one of the biggest and earliest suppliers. They are incredibly excited, as you can well imagine.

[4:06:26] Voice 12: But they are already talking about scaling down some of the more boutique models and making, I asked them, frankly, can you make a more affordable model? And if there was sort of a guaranteed, you know, client base, I called it the Gulf Island special, can we have three different models?

[4:06:47] Voice 12: And they're already, they work up and down in California and stuff, but they can build, I think they build nine a month. So their production is quite high. They're very interested in being involved as an innovator. And they already have the designs.

[4:07:05] Voice 12: So the accessory dwelling units that are typically maximum 969 square feet or something, 90 square meters that we allow, those have to be built to code.

[4:07:19] Voice 12: And yet they can build the exact same model on a trailer chassis and show it to a, you know, a building inspector and say, what is the difference between this on a trailer chassis and this, you know, legal ADU?

[4:07:36] Voice 12: And they can't tell the difference.

[4:07:39] Voice 12: So they can provide that technical support, I think.

[4:07:43] Voice 12: I didn't include them as a stakeholder.

[4:07:45] Voice 12: holder I wasn't sure how much I want business in sort of right off the outset or to prioritize any

[4:07:52] Voice 12: any one particular company but yes there's a huge market for this and I think if you know if Simon

[4:08:01] Voice 12: or whoever gets the project manager role should be looking for those business opportunities and

[4:08:08] Voice 12: that this should roll into a non-profit or an advocacy group that's got some long-term

[4:08:15] Voice 12: sustainable funding so to keep it going because i don't think it's going to stop with our little

[4:08:20] Voice 12: project i i believe it's got definitely got legs so thanks for bringing that up

[4:08:28] Voice 10: trustee trustee

[4:08:29] Voice 10: boland

[4:08:29] Voice 13: yeah

[4:08:31] Voice 10: um good work i i hope this comes along fast i note that um paul brent said that

[4:08:38] Voice 10: regional planning and imo except they have an exception for um modular homes i can't remember

[4:08:47] Voice 10: Remember that they adopt those standards, the CSA standards,

[4:08:51] Voice 10: and the CRD are working on that right now as well.

[4:08:55] Voice 10: I think in answer to Trustee Graham, I would say the reason we're embarking on it

[4:09:00] Voice 10: is because, unfortunately, all of the regulation intersects across,

[4:09:05] Voice 10: indeed, federal, provincial, but then it's the regional districts

[4:09:09] Voice 10: and that horrible intersection with the trust that causes the most grief

[4:09:15] Voice 10: in terms of swimming upstream with respect to this so um yeah i hope it achieves something

[4:09:25] Voice 10: anything would be good and the discussions will be good because i think there are a lot of people

[4:09:31] Voice 10: with a lot of information that haven't been brought together to share with each other in an

[4:09:37] Voice 10: in a forum where perhaps something can change so um i think it's a really good idea and uh

[4:09:46] Voice 10: Let's do it.

[4:09:48] Voice 12: Rob, could you

[4:09:49] Voice 12: pull up just one more because I'd like to look at the budget or the proposed budget.

[4:09:54] Voice 12: I was going to, while we're pulling that

[4:09:56] Trustee Patrick: up, I was going to have a couple of points here.

[4:09:59] Trustee Patrick: One is March 31st for aiming for report.

[4:10:04] Trustee Patrick: We're going to have to have something for this $20,000 that we have put to this.

[4:10:10] Trustee Patrick: I think starting off with a more focused idea of working with the sort of, if we've got regional district in Nanaimo at the table, go, use them, and we can always expose more people through the process.

[4:10:24] Trustee Patrick: I know a lot of the code and regulatory work has been done. It's just dense and, you know, it needs to be summarized and made more palatable.

[4:10:32] Trustee Patrick: I think there's an opportunity as well with ABICC being April 11th to 13th, right after some sort of preliminary report is done in March 31st, that we should push ahead and ask for either a panel.

[4:10:44] Trustee Patrick: And if we could get a panel assembled from your steering committee to be that, come through and report their initial findings at ABICC.

[4:10:53] Trustee Patrick: This is high speed, no question, but I think the timing would be great to put a little pressure on, you know, the CRD and others, because now you're sitting there talking about it at AVICC.

[4:11:03] Voice 12: I agree.

[4:11:05] Voice 12: December 2nd, by the way, Trustee Patrick.

[4:11:07] Voice 12: Yes.

[4:11:08] Trustee Patrick: So

[4:11:08] Voice 12: if you want to put me on a proposal for AVICC as a panel session, that would be.

[4:11:12] Trustee Patrick: Yeah, I think let's talk, let's see if

[4:11:14] Trustee Patrick: we can aim for that and at least put a request in for it, because I think it would be a good idea.

[4:11:19] Trustee Patrick: Yep. So I guess the only big question is when you do now put up the pricing here is I absolutely agree.

[4:11:25] Trustee Patrick: Either we have a project manager or somebody from staff's got to stand up and take this job.

[4:11:31] Trustee Patrick: What's staff's thoughts on this element?

[4:11:36] Trustee Patrick: And because if we if you have to go out to tender for somebody, then we're not you're not meeting March 31st.

[4:11:41] Trustee Patrick: so I don't know if staff want to comment on our abilities to either stop this or

[4:11:49] Trustee Patrick: have a direct award or not I

[4:11:53] Voice 9: guess that falls to me I see Robert chiming in perhaps about the

[4:11:58] Voice 9: research so just for clarity I'm sure the Robert manages the regional planning team so he's closest

[4:12:05] Voice 9: to the ground in terms of who on the regional planning team may or may not be available for

[4:12:08] Voice 9: this type of project but before he answers i'll i'll take some of his thunder um certainly was

[4:12:15] Voice 9: not expecting this level of detail in the report to come last night and be ready for this meeting

[4:12:19] Voice 9: so uh you know you don't need to apologies to apologize jesse elliot you're just blazing your

[4:12:25] Voice 9: trails and that's i'm okay with that i will make the request that this be added as a late agenda

[4:12:31] Voice 9: item and so we can post it online so the rest of the public knows what we're talking about

[4:12:34] Voice 9: about and at least they'll be able to to see that and so we can sort of retroactively add that to

[4:12:40] Voice 9: the agenda i'll i'll ask if the you know chair later on wants to make sure that that happens

[4:12:45] Voice 9: um yeah i i think the key issue here is that lynchpin is i don't think we have the staff

[4:12:50] Voice 9: resources to go at the speed that this recommends you know we're a slow-moving government body that

[4:12:54] Voice 9: has built-in processes to make us go slow you know and this is not that and you i think the

[4:13:00] Voice 9: linchpin of course is the procurement policies um whereby um you know we we're technically we have

[4:13:08] Voice 9: to go out to a tender and we have to evaluate them and that's a two-month process um at best

[4:13:14] Voice 9: sometimes so uh the the option there is a direct award i think the cost justifies uh that i'm not

[4:13:22] Voice 9: sure we could justify some of the reasons behind that if we chose that one individual person so

[4:13:28] Voice 9: it's a bit tricky and i'll just say from staff's perspective and anticipating this conversation

[4:13:32] Voice 9: we kind of expected just to be finding a place to host a meeting for these people and we expected

[4:13:38] Voice 9: to send out communications and then the working group itself would have sort of uh self-selected

[4:13:44] Voice 9: who's going to do the work of the working group if that makes sense right so we were just going to

[4:13:47] Voice 9: play host we were going to play uh book the venue and send out invites and communications and leave

[4:13:54] Voice 9: it up to the working group to do most of the work so i know um that's perhaps not so satisfactory

[4:13:59] Voice 9: but in the time commitment that we had and figured you guys were going to have a really nice venue

[4:14:03] Voice 9: and eat really well lastly that's what i thought and maybe a facilitator if you needed that

[4:14:08] Voice 9: um so this kind of comes as a surprise so i'm i'll stop there and i'll turn to uh

[4:14:14] Voice 9: rpm kojima if he's got anything else to add and see give me enough time

[4:14:18] Voice 9: to problem self not much

[4:14:20] Voice 4: Yeah, I was impressed with the project plan. It's great for the most part. It covers most of what you would look for.

[4:14:31] Voice 4: Yeah, sometimes it'd be nice if planners were succinct and clear in their project reports that I review.

[4:14:38] Voice 4: But yeah, I agree that the timeline might be ambitious.

[4:14:43] Voice 4: it's usually the thing when i'm reviewing planners drafting a project charter i'm crossing out their

[4:14:49] Voice 4: timelines and saying no no no way too ambitious uh extend the timeline so uh direct award i mean

[4:14:56] Voice 4: it's possible stephan it's ultimately up to julia isn't it yeah

[4:15:01] Voice 9: if if i may um anything over five

[4:15:03] Voice 9: thousand dollars for a direct award has to be approved by the cao right policy says 10 but

[4:15:08] Voice 9: but our procedure changed a few years ago.

[4:15:10] Voice 4: Yeah.

[4:15:10] Voice 9: So it's 10 or anything over five, sorry.

[4:15:13] Voice 4: Anything over five, right.

[4:15:15] Voice 4: Yeah, so I mean, we can certainly impress upon Julia

[4:15:19] Voice 4: the importance of this and that it's a top priority

[4:15:22] Voice 4: endorsed by trust council.

[4:15:25] Voice 4: Yeah, the only other suggestions I have was we try

[4:15:28] Voice 4: and bring in some municipal affairs staff,

[4:15:32] Voice 4: sort of our main contacts with the province

[4:15:35] Voice 4: and part of their role with us is to be that intermediary

[4:15:39] Voice 4: with other provincial ministries and agencies so it's something to

[4:15:43] Voice 4: follow up on or see if we can get someone

[4:15:47] Voice 4: and then in terms of the tasks

[4:15:51] Voice 4: there's a project manager proposed but I also wonder about

[4:15:55] Voice 4: a coordinator position as well

[4:15:58] Voice 4: set up the meetings, take the minutes, those sorts of things

[4:16:03] Voice 4: um so it might be another part of the contract um yeah the expectation i guess i'm reading

[4:16:15] Voice 4: between the lines the expectation is that it would be the project manager that would

[4:16:19] Voice 4: would draft the actual report yeah

[4:16:21] Voice 12: okay the the report preparation i think is the critical thing

[4:16:26] Voice 12: the minute taking i had assumed that um the project manager would be doing that so

[4:16:34] Voice 12: So if we wanted to reduce that budget, for instance, we could say a project manager for

[4:16:42] Voice 12: less amount and provide minute taking.

[4:16:47] Voice 12: I don't know if the Islands Trust can do that.

[4:16:50] Voice 12: And then if the Islands or if our team can take on some coordination and because I guess

[4:16:59] Voice 12: Here's the thing. I would hope and want planners such as yourself to be involved.

[4:17:06] Voice 12: So if you're involved, you can't be coordinating and herding cats either.

[4:17:11] Voice 12: So somebody's got to do that, whether that's a coordinator plus a project manager or the project manager just runs the whole thing.

[4:17:20] Voice 12: And to me, it's immaterial.

[4:17:25] Voice 12: This is a proposal that would, I think, get the job done.

[4:17:30] Voice 12: but that's going to be the cost. So best as I can answer. Oh, and sorry.

[4:17:35] Voice 12: I wanted to speak to the ministry of municipal affairs be on board.

[4:17:39] Voice 12: That's an interesting question. I thought the ministry of housing

[4:17:44] Voice 12: be more keen.

[4:17:47] Voice 4: Yep. Then it's their responsibility to the building standards and safety

[4:17:52] Voice 4: branch, but municipal affairs

[4:17:55] Voice 4: There's a branch that we deal with is our sort of liaison or intermediary for other provincial ministries.

[4:18:04] Voice 4: And so they might be more amenable to actually participating.

[4:18:09] Voice 4: We can try anyway.

[4:18:10] Voice 12: Okay.

[4:18:11] Voice 12: I did pass off the summary package, including the RDN's late resolution to UBCM that ultimately did not get.

[4:18:22] Voice 12: It was an emergency resolution that didn't get voted on, but it was about tiny homes.

[4:18:27] Voice 12: So I put a package together at UBCM and handed it to the assistant deputy minister, Jessica Woods, of the Ministry of Housing.

[4:18:34] Voice 12: And she said, yeah, I want to stay in touch about this.

[4:18:38] Voice 12: It looks really interesting.

[4:18:39] Voice 12: And so there is some interest there.

[4:18:43] Voice 12: Anyways, I just did as much networking as I could.

[4:18:50] Voice 12: Anyways, I'll shut up now.

[4:18:55] Voice 13: all

[4:18:55] Voice 10: right trustee boland uh you said writing the report was really important which it is what about

[4:19:03] Voice 10: the facilitation um is that a different person from the project manager or what in the course

[4:19:15] Voice 10: you're meeting in workshop facilitation i'm just interested in i'm on page page am i on i don't

[4:19:25] Voice 10: now page

[4:19:26] Voice 10: four um honestly

[4:19:28] Voice 12: i'm not sure that might be a separate cost uh for a separate person but

[4:19:37] Voice 12: that's within simon's skill set it might just be you know somebody needs to be on site

[4:19:45] Voice 12: running the meeting taking notes and minutes so again all of this is is just a proposal please

[4:19:53] Voice 12: change amend if if we want to reduce some things and increase others um i

[4:20:02] Voice 10: don't think there's any

[4:20:03] Voice 10: point in us fiddling around that it's a good first pass but i think that the facilitation

[4:20:09] Voice 10: is really important i mean those facilitators that took care of the strategy sessions etc

[4:20:16] Voice 10: you know you'll have a lot of people in the room with a lot of knowledge and

[4:20:21] Voice 10: and getting the best out of them in an organized way

[4:20:26] Voice 10: would be really important.

[4:20:32] Voice 12: I have a question.

[4:20:36] Voice 12: If we can adopt this in principle, but then things move around,

[4:20:41] Voice 12: how does that reporting come back to RPC?

[4:20:44] Voice 12: Because we don't really have another meeting until...

[4:20:48] Voice 12: When's our next meeting?

[4:20:51] Voice 12: Oh, we haven't set those meeting dates yet, have we?

[4:20:57] Voice 12: I mean, ultimately, I can be, I am the sponsor of this. And if anybody else wants to jump in from this team, Mairead, you've been on this from the beginning. And I think having trustees who are accountable for how the money is spent and sort of overseeing, you know, making sure that things are done well, is that enough accountability?

[4:21:29] Trustee Patrick: Who wants to comment on that? There we go. Directors are mine.

[4:21:36] Voice 9: sure thank you madam chair the um so you have a tiny home working group that i think i would

[4:21:43] Voice 9: encourage you to continue to use that uh i know that's an extra commitment to those who are on it

[4:21:48] Voice 9: but i think first of all i think having a working group this is this is a big project having

[4:21:52] Voice 9: multiple things um so that's your first accountability i think we have to ensure that

[4:21:58] Voice 9: the information you forwarded is attached to a public agenda so such that um the public can

[4:22:04] Voice 9: and hold elected officials accountable

[4:22:06] Voice 9: for the work they're doing.

[4:22:07] Voice 9: So I think that has to become part of the public record.

[4:22:11] Voice 9: And so then that's what the working group would use

[4:22:13] Voice 9: to springboard off into order or advance the work.

[4:22:16] Voice 9: In terms of procurement policies,

[4:22:18] Voice 9: I'm trying to, I commit to following up with it,

[4:22:20] Voice 9: to spit precisely what it says.

[4:22:23] Voice 9: What it says and kind of how we do things,

[4:22:25] Voice 9: there's a bit of a schism.

[4:22:27] Voice 9: And the CAO is pretty clear with me

[4:22:30] Voice 9: that you know she doesn't have power to issue directive awards beyond what the policy says

[4:22:37] Voice 9: so there's a need to review that policy before this proposal if we're going to try to direct

[4:22:42] Voice 9: award this in this circumstance and i know from experience having done many contracts with the

[4:22:46] Voice 9: trust direct award is used as sparingly as possible and the reason for that is probably

[4:22:53] Voice 9: obvious but if it's not it's just just you know keep the procurement pair avoid

[4:22:59] Voice 9: favoritism and cronyism and all those bad things that we can do by giving

[4:23:03] Voice 9: contracts to people that we like versus you know having a fair and open process

[4:23:08] Voice 9: so I direct award is to be avoided but in this there are circumstances when it

[4:23:12] Voice 9: can be done generally there are emergencies or their unique contractors

[4:23:17] Voice 9: that have such experiences but we also have a price threshold so I'll follow up

[4:23:23] Voice 9: the cao in terms of that and and the process we have and that's something i can take away from

[4:23:27] Voice 9: this meeting but i do and i can keep in contact with you and or the working group that might be

[4:23:32] Voice 9: a smaller tighter group to work with as opposed to trying to reconvene an rpc meeting in terms of

[4:23:37] Voice 9: that i do see that as the critical lunchman in terms of timing and to get what you need

[4:23:42] Voice 9: so yeah i'll just leave with that with that commitment i'm

[4:23:45] Trustee Patrick: before trustee elliott i'm just

[4:23:48] Trustee Patrick: Just I'm thinking as I'm talking here, I'm trying to help out.

[4:23:53] Trustee Patrick: I like the urgency aspect because we've been in a log jam and I think that

[4:23:59] Trustee Patrick: might help. Can we get,

[4:24:01] Trustee Patrick: can you get all these things answered by March 31st? Probably not,

[4:24:06] Trustee Patrick: but we could get a good facilitated meeting about how to break that log jam

[4:24:12] Trustee Patrick: with the right people in the room.

[4:24:14] Trustee Patrick: um and that would be great to have no later than march 31st the sort of the the next you know the

[4:24:23] Trustee Patrick: recommendations to to move us toward uh you know or move someone toward getting that standard that

[4:24:31] Trustee Patrick: will work um and and so i think maybe just shrinking this to be really focused on getting

[4:24:39] Trustee Patrick: getting one really good, high-powered meeting organized and facilitated

[4:24:45] Trustee Patrick: so that maybe we're looking for a facilitator to, you know,

[4:24:50] Trustee Patrick: and then the outcomes of that being some clear next steps

[4:24:54] Trustee Patrick: or clear recommendations as to how do we get this going?

[4:25:03] Voice 12: Just a thought.

[4:25:06] Voice 12: So, Trustee Elliott.

[4:25:07] Voice 12: On that thought, my thinking was, it takes a few kicks at it to get a common understanding of, here's the lay of the land. Here's where building inspection department sits. They need to do some problem identification.

[4:25:32] Voice 12: I think each department or expert needs to bring forward what exactly the logjam looks like from their perspective.

[4:25:44] Voice 12: I think that's one meeting.

[4:25:46] Voice 12: And then I think there needs to be a second one.

[4:25:50] Voice 12: I didn't see this as just one big roundtable meeting, a single shot.

[4:25:54] Voice 12: thought um everybody goes away gets some um and brings back some reporting with with a solutions

[4:26:03] Voice 12: orientation um that's the positive thing about what i was hearing from director craig is um

[4:26:11] Voice 12: their gm is very hopeful that they can they want to work the problem they want to be given some

[4:26:17] Voice 12: creative license to, here's the issue, let us try to crack it. And they already have the political

[4:26:26] Voice 12: will to do that. And where I see the CRD coming in is a company in the process, because I think

[4:26:34] Voice 12: some of their departments are there and some are not, and they need to see some

[4:26:39] Voice 12: um, um, maybe innovation at work. Um, I think we could get two meetings in this, uh, December

[4:26:48] Voice 12: to, what have we got here? May, March, December, March. Uh, I think there needs to be a problem

[4:26:55] Voice 12: identification, who's who, and, um, and then, uh, um, uh, let's get together and work. And then the

[4:27:03] Voice 12: a report coming out of that with the analysis um and there may need to be so when we're thinking

[4:27:14] Voice 12: about technical working groups this is the other thing it's hard to get everybody in the same room

[4:27:18] Voice 12: so do you actually also need to have somebody who's chasing people down like janichi jensen

[4:27:28] Voice 12: And hard guy to get. He's director of co-chair of like the National Building Code revamp. Right. Lots of things. So you need somebody who's going to take this information, scale it over to Janichi and say, what are you or here's where we're at and get some indication of where he's at.

[4:27:47] Voice 12: So I see this as not a just locked into a meeting thing where we all are hearing from the experts, but there's a continuous push to pull together information. That is actually the work. It's pulling together the information, which, Trustee Boland, you identified so early on.

[4:28:07] Voice 12: there's no shortage of the information it just isn't in one place to really um and then there

[4:28:14] Voice 12: hasn't been that level of analysis for a framework to to make it work so

[4:28:20] Voice 10: can i just interject i just

[4:28:23] Voice 10: was considering if you did have a certain number of people who initially were committed what about

[4:28:31] Voice 10: about a zoom meeting to plan the other meeting which would be gather the information identify

[4:28:38] Voice 10: what we need to do as prep send everyone back to say okay like it's easy on zoom to communicate

[4:28:47] Voice 10: here's the problem as we see it what pieces of the puzzle do you have who else do you think

[4:28:53] Voice 10: should be here and you know what will you bring to the meeting so that might be a step that's in

[4:29:03] Voice 10: in the early days of prepping yeah because yeah that would work pretty well I think and we could

[4:29:10] Voice 10: do it fairly quickly I

[4:29:12] Voice 12: think we can work on this right so we've got a broad framework but

[4:29:16] Voice 12: it's it's a proposal if the working group is able to give some leadership to how we think it should

[4:29:23] Voice 12: roll out um i think that's a great idea is is an initial zoom meeting with a few people what is the

[4:29:30] Voice 12: anyway i'll be quiet great yes we don't have to nail it all down right now right this is

[4:29:35] Voice 12: this is the runway to get us off all right

[4:29:43] Trustee Patrick: uh oh trustee let go yeah

[4:29:50] Trustee Luckham: thank you chair a very

[4:29:54] Trustee Luckham: interesting conversation very stimulating uh thank you toby you clearly could get us to the

[4:30:00] Trustee Luckham: place. I can't help but think and I'm just tossing this word out because I can't help but think of it

[4:30:06] Trustee Luckham: because we have often talked at the Islands Trust about the necessity for lobbyists

[4:30:14] Trustee Luckham: and many of these things that you need to try and pull together doesn't need that kind of attention

[4:30:21] Trustee Luckham: and so I just toss that out for your thoughts. I don't have anything to suggest or offer beyond

[4:30:26] Trustee Luckham: on that well

[4:30:30] Trustee Patrick: thank you um it is frustrating and i you know i sat with toby on the meeting there

[4:30:36] Trustee Patrick: at ubcm with the building um i guess whatever provincial building uh code folks and um you know

[4:30:45] Trustee Patrick: he was he was pretty blunt he was like you know this is a circular problem you know we hear about

[4:30:50] Trustee Patrick: talking about the code and then we need to have uh you know local governments that allow these

[4:30:55] Trustee Patrick: these things you know so we're both stuck you know we're who goes first so you know i i'm

[4:31:03] Trustee Patrick: this is an important project and how we can structure it what meetings need to be done in

[4:31:10] Trustee Patrick: the near term to at least find a way to start moving the conversation back from a crossed over

[4:31:16] Trustee Patrick: pointing finger problem that we have right now so um i guess from staff if you know we we had this

[4:31:25] Trustee Patrick: 20,000 that Trust Council has allocated. You were thinking it was just a meeting space,

[4:31:35] Trustee Patrick: but I mean, clearly a facilitator of that type. I understand staff will find out what could be

[4:31:41] Trustee Patrick: direct awarded if possible for a role of someone to help facilitate the meeting and help structure

[4:31:50] Trustee Patrick: sure, pull together, you know, the kind of what comes out of one or two meetings or two meetings

[4:31:57] Trustee Patrick: and how we can go about that. And if the working group is used to coordinate that work,

[4:32:04] Trustee Patrick: is that sufficient? If an answer can get, you know, a facilitator of some form or whatever

[4:32:11] Trustee Patrick: we wish to call it, could be secured? I guess I'm looking at you, Director Cermak, of what do

[4:32:21] Trustee Patrick: do you need from us if anything right now well

[4:32:25] Voice 9: i need clarity how you want to spend the money

[4:32:26] Voice 9: and i have a proposal before us if i am to the process just to let you know internally is

[4:32:32] Voice 9: i would draft up a direct award request to which i would submit to finance and which would be

[4:32:40] Voice 9: overseen by of course our interim ceo and i would have to justify according to the criteria there

[4:32:47] Voice 9: why a direct award is warranted. And I would have to convince the CAO that that is in fact the case,

[4:32:57] Voice 9: and she agrees with me. And I will warn you, she is a very diligent, exhaustive assessor of things.

[4:33:03] Voice 9: And I mean that with all the love I can possibly give. She is a detail-orientated, keen human. And

[4:33:10] Voice 9: so there you go. So if I go to her asking for a direct award, she will scrutinize that request.

[4:33:15] Voice 9: so I need to be clear about what I'm asking for and why we have to direct

[4:33:20] Voice 9: award it why we can't wait just to go through the normal procurement process

[4:33:23] Voice 9: so I ask you why could we slow it down to some degree and go through the normal

[4:33:30] Voice 9: procurement process is there somebody who's uniquely qualified yeah so that

[4:33:38] Voice 9: that's I'll have to make that argument on your behalf and so I'm not even sure

[4:33:41] Voice 9: what i'm asking the money for much less uh to whom i'm asking it to go because they're uniquely

[4:33:47] Voice 9: qualified or and or the time is of the essence so all

[4:33:51] Voice 12: right trustee elliott so would it be easier

[4:33:55] Voice 12: well the reason why is that time is of the essence um we have a mandate and we have um a wish to get

[4:34:05] Voice 12: it done at least from the rdn and from the allies both sides um but we need someone to do it would

[4:34:11] Voice 12: Would it be more comfortable if, say, a project manager was…

[4:34:18] Voice 12: I think Peter

[4:34:20] Trustee Patrick: Leckham's microphone is on.

[4:34:23] Voice 12: We could limit the project manager direct award to, say, $5,000 and reallocate the rest and just ask Simon, who put together this proposal, what could you do for this amount?

[4:34:38] Voice 12: And then if project facilitation is off the list or, say, minute taking, then there's another contract to do that.

[4:34:50] Voice 9: Yeah, I think that's one approach.

[4:34:51] Voice 9: I think, sorry, through the chair, that we could limit the contracts to less than $5,000.

[4:34:58] Voice 9: You could separate perhaps roles.

[4:35:04] Voice 9: You know, if you have one person doing some coordination and a separate person doing, as you say, report writing and things like that, the project management aspect of things.

[4:35:12] Voice 9: And I think we could probably help our team. We have a very able Mr. Coker managing this meeting as we speak, taking minutes capably and monitoring Zoom, etc.

[4:35:23] Voice 9: I would be happy to volunteer his time if he's not, if he's available. I haven't checked his calendar and I haven't asked him.

[4:35:30] Voice 9: but I think we might be able to help in that aspect and maybe also with minute taking so I

[4:35:35] Voice 9: think we could help sort of setting up like a virtual meeting for sure I think we could help

[4:35:40] Voice 9: minute taking I think we could also if need be we could book venues if necessary unless of course

[4:35:48] Voice 9: you know RDN wants to do something like that so I think I think there's ways around that but I think

[4:35:53] Voice 9: the five thousand dollar threshold anything under five thousand is probably the easiest get out of

[4:35:58] Voice 9: a jail card that i can think of and um otherwise i'm like you know i can i can directly award that

[4:36:04] Voice 9: and i'd be comfortable advancing the rpc project based on what i'm hearing in the discussion here

[4:36:09] Voice 9: today and i'd be willing to take that as my in my role so that's actually a very comfortable

[4:36:13] Voice 9: solution

[4:36:14] Voice 12: and and then if if so if i were to put so if if rpc approved this in principle and we

[4:36:21] Voice 12: We are working out the details of contract award and which roles the islands, because I think it is a larger discussion.

[4:36:29] Voice 12: What can the Islands Trust take on in terms of coordination and convening and minute taking?

[4:36:37] Voice 12: And those were unknowns at the point of writing this proposal, right?

[4:36:41] Voice 12: So I think there is further conversation needed.

[4:36:44] Voice 12: And so can RPC approve this in principle, that there does need to be some cost for a project manager because we don't have the capacity in-house, but without going to the $9,000 limit here proposed, we can take some of those tasks off and keep it under the $5,000 limit.

[4:37:07] Voice 12: I think I'd be comfortable with that. It gets us moving. It keeps us within the ballpark of what policy allows, for sure. So that would be my proposal.

[4:37:20] Voice 9: Perhaps I can respond. I see you, Trustee Graham, but maybe I'll just cut you off. Is that okay, Trustee Graham or Madam Chair?

[4:37:25] Trustee Patrick: Yep. No, please go.

[4:37:26] Trustee Patrick: okay

[4:37:27] Voice 9: um like i said you know a resolution to that effect would be great if and i would recommend

[4:37:31] Voice 9: again using a working group you know that the rbc authorized their working group to continue the um

[4:37:37] Voice 9: the work as proposed by trustee elliott in the submission yada yada and to ensure that contracts

[4:37:43] Voice 9: remain at five thousand dollars in in order to keep the project moving but tracking that

[4:37:49] Voice 9: resolution i think would be very helpful all

[4:37:52] Voice 13: right so hopefully someone's starting to just

[4:37:54] Voice 13: Just think about putting that together, Trustee Graham.

[4:37:58] Voice 6: Thank you, Chair.

[4:37:59] Voice 6: Great suggestion, limiting the initial cost to just slightly under $5,000.

[4:38:05] Voice 6: That seems to alleviate the bureaucracy.

[4:38:07] Voice 6: I thought we'd already approved $20,000.

[4:38:10] Voice 6: So we've already approved the expenditure.

[4:38:12] Voice 6: We don't normally micromanage those budgets, do we?

[4:38:15] Voice 6: I mean, do we have to get more involved with how the

[4:38:20] Voice 12: money is spent?

[4:38:21] Voice 12: It's how it's awarded, right?

[4:38:22] Voice 12: Right. So the fairness of the process, that is that's the tricky part.

[4:38:28] Voice 12: Normally, staff would go out and tender for contract and and this is going outside of that process.

[4:38:35] Trustee Patrick: The total budget is 20. So, you know, the meeting venue and other things that may incur expenses would be on top of this is the contracted portion.

[4:38:44] Trustee Patrick: the person to coordinate the meeting or facilitate the meeting or whatever the word is that we're

[4:38:49] Trustee Patrick: using is the piece that if it can stay under $5,000 makes it easier and

[4:38:58] Voice 9: if I may madam chair

[4:38:59] Voice 9: just in my experience you know when we host personal in-person meetings say for a team

[4:39:04] Voice 9: meeting in Cowichan Bay 20 to 30 people it costs roughly $2,000 for a light lunch and a meeting

[4:39:12] Voice 9: venue so i mean that's the starting number i would start with in terms of just a venue

[4:39:20] Voice 7: yeah you can rent the denman hall for 250 bucks

[4:39:27] Trustee Patrick: i got an empty

[4:39:29] Voice 9: office for you too but i can't recommend it yet all

[4:39:32] Trustee Patrick: right uh who um

[4:39:36] Trustee Patrick: well let's start building a resolution here i guess uh we did it all by group resolution before

[4:39:42] Trustee Patrick: So, Rob, I know, Director Cermak, you had some good words that you had started with there that were helpful.

[4:39:53] Trustee Patrick: Can you remember what you said?

[4:39:55] Trustee Patrick: I see Trustee Elliott's got a brilliant idea.

[4:39:58] Voice 12: Well, that was I tried to copy your word and work with staff to stay within the limits of direct award policy.

[4:40:05] Voice 12: I don't know if you can see that in the chat.

[4:40:07] Voice 12: They don't copy over.

[4:40:09] Voice 12: So the RPC authorized the Taney House Working Group to proceed with the project proposal, convening a technical panel to explore Taney Home codes in the Islands Trust area.

[4:40:26] Voice 12: Project proposal convening a technical panel to, that's just the name, so it's referencing the report.

[4:40:33] Voice 12: court and then just put s read there uh and work with staff to stay within the limits of the direct

[4:40:42] Voice 12: award procurement policy something like that what is that policy it's not the procurement policy

[4:40:50] Voice 12: of the direct or to stay within the direct award limits maybe for contracting right

[4:40:57] Voice 9: and as long as

[4:40:58] Voice 9: it's it's easily understood what we're talking about well don't need to get too technical yeah

[4:41:03] Voice 12: Yeah. And it's great because if, you know, we've got some more, we've got more room in the budget.

[4:41:09] Voice 12: So meeting facilitators needed, you could award another contract.

[4:41:14] Voice 12: So that's, I think this gives us some flexibility while staying within.

[4:41:20] Voice 12: Yeah. Anyway, I've said enough.

[4:41:22] Voice 12: Does that sort of reflect what you were saying, Director Cermak?

[4:41:28] Voice 9: Yes, it does. I think you captured it quite well.

[4:41:30] Voice 9: that the RPC you know gives the tiny house working group through that

[4:41:36] Voice 9: authorization to proceed as proposed and to work under there to make sure we can

[4:41:40] Voice 9: advance the project according to the constraints of the direct award so yeah

[4:41:45] Voice 9: I think you've captured it well all

[4:41:47] Trustee Patrick: right so trustee Borthwick are you

[4:41:50] Trustee Patrick: second it yes he is so if you were making that motion trustee Elliott

[4:41:54] Trustee Patrick: trustee Borthwick has seconded that motion so we are now open for debate any

[4:41:59] Trustee Patrick: any debate everyone's really getting tired now trustee graham but

[4:42:03] Voice 6: just quickly i wonder if it

[4:42:04] Voice 6: should say with the amended project proposal because your proposal does have the nine thousand

[4:42:10] Voice 6: dollar fee for um your facilitator even though you've covered it with your uh second part of the

[4:42:17] Voice 6: motion um you are amending the proposal to stay under the nine thousand just a suggestion or say

[4:42:23] Trustee Patrick: proceed generally with the proposal um i think it i think there was a i

[4:42:29] Voice 12: was going to say

[4:42:29] Voice 12: in principle project proposal in principle but i don't know if that's necessary it's a it's a

[4:42:35] Voice 12: proposal the contract hasn't been it you know it's if it's clear enough to staff i'm comfortable

[4:42:44] Voice 12: with it as it is well the

[4:42:47] Voice 6: proposal is a public document and um it does have the nine thousand

[4:42:51] Voice 6: dollars so we are amending the proposal through this discussion sure

[4:42:56] Voice 12: well and there's still a

[4:42:58] Voice 12: negotiation with the person who wrote the proposal right so they may say i can't do the work for

[4:43:04] Voice 12: 5 000 um um so yeah you're right okay i'm fine if you want to add with the amended

[4:43:21] Voice 12: it's something thank you everybody i do have a further motion after this

[4:43:26] Trustee Patrick: all right if there's no further discussion we'll call the vote all those in favor

[4:43:30] Trustee Patrick: all right i think that's everyone so that's carried all right did you say you had another

[4:43:42] Trustee Patrick: proposal of motion where i yeah

[4:43:45] Voice 12: thank you very

[4:43:46] Trustee Patrick: briefly back to warren too here we got 15 minutes

[4:43:48] Trustee Patrick: left so i

[4:43:49] Voice 12: i don't know if this needs to be a motion but um that it would be that our cao right

[4:43:55] Voice 12: to the cao of crd to invite their participation in this so a higher higher level staff to

[4:44:07] Voice 12: administrative officer staff saying this is happening at the islands trust we really invite

[4:44:11] Voice 12: your participation from not only the rural housing policy planning group but the building safety and

[4:44:20] Voice 12: standards this was a request by that we I

[4:44:26] Trustee Patrick: think that makes perfectly can I understand what what

[4:44:30] Trustee Patrick: you're saying dude I'll look to director Cermak would that be better to make that request when

[4:44:39] Trustee Patrick: I guess when meetings being designed or do it now and do we need a motion to make

[4:44:43] Trustee Patrick: that request of this of the CAO I'm seeing a quite thought of a nod

[4:44:51] Voice 9: Yeah, I admit, Madam Chair, requesting the CAO to do anything would, I think,

[4:44:57] Voice 9: would come from the Trust Council and perhaps EC. I think RPC making that request is fine,

[4:45:03] Voice 9: and I'd be happy to forward it. I don't know. I think if all the committees request the CAO

[4:45:11] Voice 9: to do things, I think the CAO would be very busy. I'll just say that I don't have the same heft,

[4:45:18] Voice 9: Of course, I'd be happy to write such a letter as your sort of committee sponsor in terms of, I'd be happy to write that on my behalf, but I don't want to commit the CAO to something that I know she is extraordinarily busy.

[4:45:32] Voice 9: I can't even comprehend how busy she is.

[4:45:35] Voice 9: So you can make the request.

[4:45:36] Voice 9: She may not have time, and it may just be me, and let's just have to put up with that, I guess is what I'm saying.

[4:45:41] Voice 9: So

[4:45:41] Voice 12: I could use a little more advice on this, but if Director Cermak, if you were willing to do, you know, draft a letter like that and send it on this committee's behalf, I think that would be sufficient.

[4:45:53] Voice 12: If I get further feedback that actually a higher level CAO to CAO request is needed, I think we could do that at December Trust Council.

[4:46:03] Voice 12: There was some indication that if this came in January, that would be great.

[4:46:09] Voice 12: so and our new cao would be in place by then so let's uh do we need a resolution for you to do

[4:46:16] Trustee Patrick: that or do you want to okay i was gonna say or you could even wait and do this at trust council

[4:46:21] Trustee Patrick: or executive committee could make a motion if um the timing of this starts pulling together

[4:46:28] Voice 12: well who's your counterpart uh director sermac at the crd is there um oh

[4:46:33] Voice 9: i guess i was gonna say

[4:46:34] Voice 9: lapham but that's not right he's cao uh robert do you remember uh it's kevin lorette yeah it's

[4:46:40] Voice 4: kevin lorette lapham lapham retired if you just

[4:46:43] Voice 9: kind of get lost in the swirls of time yeah

[4:46:49] Voice 9: so

[4:46:49] Voice 12: it would be kevin lorette yeah

[4:46:51] Voice 12: why don't we request that director sermac write to

[4:46:53] Voice 12: his counterpart and explain the project and say and what we're doing and request their

[4:46:59] Voice 12: participation and if we need to scale it up in december we can invite

[4:47:04] Trustee Patrick: their participation so

[4:47:05] Trustee Patrick: rob i guess we're making a motion so regional planning committee request direct staff i guess

[4:47:12] Trustee Patrick: or director sir mac do we want to be specific request staff um to to what is it to write

[4:47:22] Trustee Patrick: to write to request CRDs or invite CRDs participation in this what do you want

[4:47:32] Trustee Patrick: to call it this enabling tiny home projector the

[4:47:38] Voice 12: technical panel to explore

[4:47:39] Voice 12: tiny home codes and you know it's just area mm-hmm

[4:47:42] Voice 12: no

[4:47:44] Voice 9: madam chair or just yes

[4:47:46] Trustee Patrick: go ahead I'm

[4:47:48] Voice 9: I think I've already gone a few steps

[4:47:51] Voice 9: I had with you, Elliot, that the first step was to work with RDN because RDN is eager now to go.

[4:48:00] Voice 9: So this letter, I mean, obviously we'll work out the details in the future or in the near future,

[4:48:05] Voice 9: is for a second panel with CRD sometime in the near year.

[4:48:09] Voice 9: I

[4:48:09] Voice 12: think we need to work this out. I think we can go on the first panel. It's going to take

[4:48:15] Voice 12: a while to set it up but the indication i got was that the crd um needs a stronger invitation

[4:48:22] Voice 12: because it's just there's so many moving parts and it's so complex there so um okay

[4:48:30] Voice 9: so so then it should go out to both rds and if i may madam chair we're skipping over an rd in

[4:48:37] Voice 9: between i don't know how much thetis is worried about tiny homes and wheels i'm just geographically

[4:48:43] Voice 9: i'm a very geographically orientated person if we're going from crd skipping over the cvrd

[4:48:47] Voice 9: to rdn i mean

[4:48:49] Voice 12: cvrd i'm

[4:48:51] Voice 9: okay with that what would you like

[4:48:53] Voice 12: they're actually potentially

[4:48:54] Voice 12: interested as well i had some conversations um but with some political leaders there so i'm not

[4:49:01] Voice 12: sure uh anyway i don't want to dwell on this too much because i know we've got other work so

[4:49:07] Voice 12: let's just keep it the capital regional district we've already got participation from the rdn

[4:49:11] Voice 12: okay

[4:49:12] Voice 3: all right

[4:49:14] Trustee Patrick: is there someone who will second this motion this is made by trustee elliott

[4:49:19] Trustee Patrick: and uh seconded by trustee borthwick any discussion call the vote all those in favor

[4:49:29] Trustee Patrick: and that is carried okay um running rapidly out of time uh if we don't mind trustee ellett this

[4:49:39] Trustee Patrick: is back you're gonna have to work with the working group and uh anything you need from

[4:49:43] Trustee Patrick: the committee you just have to yell um and we'll do our best and we wanted to go back to our

[4:49:51] Trustee Patrick: conversation we clearly aren't going to finish it today we got eight minutes left um on the

[4:49:58] Trustee Patrick: bylaw i'm sorry i'm trying to get to the right page by itself um back into the page 81 we were

[4:50:07] Trustee Patrick: We're going through the manual.

[4:50:12] Trustee Patrick: I know I had some comments.

[4:50:13] Trustee Patrick: Was anyone else having some comments?

[4:50:20] Trustee Patrick: Is it my turn?

[4:50:22] Trustee Patrick: Warren, are you here?

[4:50:26] Voice 3: Yes, I am here.

[4:50:27] Trustee Patrick: Okay.

[4:50:28] Trustee Patrick: That's all right.

[4:50:28] Trustee Patrick: I was just trying to make sure.

[4:50:32] Trustee Patrick: I really like the table.

[4:50:34] Trustee Patrick: I like pictures.

[4:50:37] Trustee Patrick: And it also helped me start to see the process here.

[4:50:40] Trustee Patrick: and i know i went and started looking at other other uh jurisdictions when a complaint is made

[4:50:48] Trustee Patrick: i'm opening a file it's really a record it's a record it's a record a complaint has been received

[4:50:54] Trustee Patrick: on a property um in the drawing it just goes to the next thing is you know a letter sent to the

[4:51:00] Trustee Patrick: person saying you know you're in violation there really is the preliminary step so

[4:51:08] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: chair the letter

[4:51:09] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: doesn't say that they're in violation the letter is just a notice that we've

[4:51:14] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: opened a file there may be a contravention and we're going to

[4:51:16] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: investigate and the letter also asked that the respondent contacted by law

[4:51:22] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: officer but

[4:51:25] Trustee Patrick: what if from if you receive a complaint and it's and it's considered

[4:51:33] Trustee Patrick: considered vexatious or frivolous or you know some other reason and it's is there

[4:51:46] Trustee Patrick: you know now we've contacted an owner and started the road is there any chance that

[4:51:56] Trustee Patrick: you know what what isn't there a step missing of saying well how valid is the complaint i mean it

[4:52:01] Trustee Patrick: It has to be recorded, absolutely.

[4:52:05] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: Currently, Chair, there's no policy directing us

[4:52:09] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: to look at the validity of the complaint.

[4:52:12] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: We don't have a vexatious complaint policy by Trust Council.

[4:52:16] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: They should adopt one in the future

[4:52:19] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: so that if we do receive a complaint that we believe is vexatious,

[4:52:23] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: then I won't have to proceed with opening a file

[4:52:26] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: and there'll be no need to contact the property owner.

[4:52:30] Trustee Patrick: Okay, but this is...

[4:52:32] Trustee Patrick: we're trying trying to create a new i mean we have not adopted the policy there's work yet to be done

[4:52:40] Trustee Patrick: the intent is to to adopt a vexation i can't say the word vexatious

[4:52:47] Trustee Patrick: um definition and and have that in i i thought there was a great desire to have that um

[4:52:57] Trustee Patrick: wouldn't that be the step though i'm just saying there's there is a step there between

[4:53:01] Trustee Patrick: between you know sending a letter out if the complaint itself is is not you know that

[4:53:13] Trustee Patrick: doesn't work whatever the word is so

[4:53:17] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: current policy is that if it is a complaint about a land

[4:53:20] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: use bylaw contravention or possible contravention we would open a file there's no other evaluation

[4:53:27] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: required so

[4:53:29] Trustee Patrick: okay then we shouldn't review this this manual until we do the policy

[4:53:34] Trustee Patrick: well

[4:53:37] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: um are

[4:53:38] Trustee Patrick: we jumping we're jumping steps we're not going to issue a new manual out publicly if

[4:53:45] Trustee Patrick: we're about to review the update the policy that's all my question is so

[4:53:51] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: i think the manual

[4:53:52] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: should just be about best practices and some of the issues that are coming up here are procedural

[4:53:58] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: procedural issues that, I mean, we could take this chart, this flow chart, and make it incredibly

[4:54:06] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: complex, and then no one will understand it or want to read it. The intent here was to provide

[4:54:13] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: the most basic possible flow chart to help the public understand the process. There's a hundred

[4:54:22] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: other steps here that could be entered into this flow chart. It's not going to go through every

[4:54:28] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: every procedure, or I don't think it's physically possible, and I don't think that's the intention

[4:54:35] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: of having a best practices manual, that needs to be in another document, or as far as procedures.

[4:54:42] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: In fact, even with this work, there's still obviously procedures in here that probably

[4:54:47] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: don't belong, and it should just be about what's the best practice in going through a bylaw

[4:54:57] Manager of Bylaw Compliance and Enforcement: complaint and enforcement process okay

[4:55:02] Trustee Patrick: well i'm still confused because the ombudsman report had

[4:55:08] Trustee Patrick: said our policy as well needed to be designed to speak to the public and i know i know on september

[4:55:17] Trustee Patrick: 4th the committee was like they were seemed to be satisfied that a policy could be one policy wonkish

[4:55:23] Trustee Patrick: and that this the manual was where we would have our speaking to the public part going out and

[4:55:31] Trustee Patrick: looking at lots of most municipalities their policies are quite plain language and straightforward

[4:55:36] Trustee Patrick: step one step two and it's very clear even the discretion is spelled out very clearly

[4:55:44] Trustee Patrick: in these other examples um and that's my only concern is that we

[4:55:52] Trustee Patrick: we have to have it's either the policy or here that it's the steps are are clear

[4:56:01] Trustee Patrick: and that the direction to by-law enforcement staff is clear.

[4:56:13] Trustee Patrick: So I guess I'm confused on process.

[4:56:16] Trustee Patrick: Trustee Boland, maybe you can question me.

[4:56:18] Voice 10: I'm tired.

[4:56:19] Voice 10: You're kind of circling back to where I started in a way,

[4:56:23] Voice 10: and I did write to Stefan before the meeting,

[4:56:29] Voice 10: not this meeting, the previous meeting.

[4:56:31] Voice 10: If I look at the deliverables and I map those to what the ombudsman

[4:56:35] Voice 10: asked for and it doesn't map succinctly and you haven't actually laid out what the content of

[4:56:45] Voice 10: each of those documents is going to be for instance the deliverables talk about a

[4:56:53] Voice 10: best practices manual and then separately a public bylaw complaints enforcement document

[4:57:00] Voice 10: document and there's another public one um the revisions to bio so 5.5.1 okay i'll back out of

[4:57:11] Voice 10: going line by line just as a general principle i mean i just heard uh officer dingman say that

[4:57:19] Voice 10: there are perceived processes in this best practices manual that don't belong there and i

[4:57:26] Voice 10: I agree, a forward-facing public document on best practices

[4:57:30] Voice 10: shouldn't have every line item of the process.

[4:57:33] Voice 10: That belongs in the other documents.

[4:57:36] Voice 10: So I just feel like we're going round in circles

[4:57:38] Voice 10: because something needs to be done.

[4:57:42] Voice 10: Like, we take a couple of hours, sit down,

[4:57:45] Voice 10: look at the four or five deliverables,

[4:57:48] Voice 10: correct the name from general complaints

[4:57:51] Voice 10: to, you know, administrative handling,

[4:57:54] Voice 10: handling and make it really clear what the documents are and what each one is going to

[4:58:00] Voice 10: contain and make it so that like if it's in here it doesn't need to be in here it but it's referenced

[4:58:08] Voice 10: because at the moment we're developing all of these together and I include the islands the

[4:58:14] Voice 10: local trust committee uh bylaw template that's being rolled out even though we haven't finished

[4:58:22] Voice 10: so there'll be inconsistencies developing as we go so that's my primary problem and every time

[4:58:31] Voice 10: we review a document we get caught in this does it belong here does it belong over there

[4:58:35] Voice 10: the level of detail that's in there but to me a best practices manual should be quite a high level

[4:58:41] Voice 10: of detail well

[4:58:43] Trustee Patrick: that's why i'm wondering are we back to is the poll is working on a policy that

[4:58:49] Trustee Patrick: has all the parts and pieces that we need and then making sure we've got you know whatever needs to

[4:58:55] Trustee Patrick: be done to communicate that policy or implement that policy through operational procedures or

[4:59:04] Trustee Patrick: and things is that this is not a good conversation for end of the day no not a friday of a holiday

[4:59:14] Trustee Patrick: day weekend I could make a motion I see trustee Borthwick's hand raised here yeah

[4:59:25] Voice 7: just I mean

[4:59:27] Voice 7: feeling that sort of end of day discussion and I know like obviously this is a topic that

[4:59:33] Voice 7: has like broader interest among trustees as well is it worth us trying to schedule even

[4:59:40] Voice 7: in like a like a special meeting to to sort of focus just on the one thing is that something

[4:59:46] Voice 7: that might be useful i

[4:59:48] Voice 10: think that's a good idea yeah

[4:59:49] Voice 7: i don't want to yeah stacks

[4:59:54] Trustee Patrick: are like oh boy

[4:59:54] Trustee Patrick: another meeting no no but this is very important work

[5:00:00] Trustee Patrick: I absolutely agree.

[5:00:01] Trustee Patrick: And when we put things on the side...

[5:00:04] Voice 10: And I

[5:00:04] Voice 10: think it stalled a bit.

[5:00:06] Voice 10: And if we all really focused and had one sharp meeting,

[5:00:11] Voice 10: maybe we could really get a lot...

[5:00:13] Voice 10: There's a lot of material,

[5:00:14] Voice 10: but we could get a lot of material over the line fairly quickly

[5:00:17] Voice 10: if we just focused on it.

[5:00:26] Trustee Patrick: Well, what do you think, Director Cermak?

[5:00:30] Trustee Patrick: Because we're not going to finish today.

[5:00:33] Trustee Patrick: It's now three o'clock.

[5:00:36] Voice 9: Thank you, Madam Chair.

[5:00:37] Voice 9: I think another meeting is essential I think you're absolutely right I think we need a meeting

[5:00:43] Voice 9: whereby you can feel comfortable going through all the materials with a fresh mind I'm not hearing

[5:00:49] Voice 9: that you're comfortable forwarding it to trust council and I don't think we're going to be able

[5:00:53] Voice 9: to meet that deadline so I think we can have a bit of a runway in front of us that you not just

[5:00:59] Voice 9: because of this but because there's the other resolution about having the CAO a new CAO and

[5:01:04] Voice 9: and et cetera, et cetera.

[5:01:05] Voice 9: So I'd say take your time with it.

[5:01:08] Voice 9: We can certainly set up another meeting if you wish.

[5:01:11] Voice 9: And I think the only thing that I would report at Madam Chair

[5:01:15] Voice 9: is when we do go to Trust Council that the timeline,

[5:01:18] Voice 9: the final deliverable is I think quite obviously

[5:01:21] Voice 9: gonna be extended beyond this fiscal year.

[5:01:24] Voice 9: And I think that's okay because this is of such weight

[5:01:26] Voice 9: and importance that we wanna get it right.

[5:01:28] Voice 9: And I think that was the misstep we made

[5:01:30] Voice 9: at the last Trust Council.

[5:01:32] Voice 9: So happy to

[5:01:33] Voice 9: schedule another meeting

[5:01:33] Voice 9: whenever we can find time to have that meeting no

[5:01:36] Trustee Patrick: i think that's important and i encourage all of

[5:01:38] Trustee Patrick: you to go out and look at municipal every municipality in this province has my law

[5:01:45] Trustee Patrick: enforcement policies and some are really good and interesting and innovative and thoughtful

[5:01:49] Trustee Patrick: and get your brain going so uh trustee graham all right

[5:01:54] Voice 6: thank you chair i can appreciate how

[5:01:56] Voice 6: difficult it is to schedule an extra meeting considering how busy everybody is um but why

[5:02:03] Voice 6: Why don't we just make this the priority of our next regular scheduled regional planning committee meeting?

[5:02:07] Voice 6: There's no panic on this material.

[5:02:10] Voice 6: We don't have to have it done today.

[5:02:13] Voice 6: It's better to do it right, take our time, make this a priority at our next regional planning committee meeting.

[5:02:19] Voice 6: That would be my suggestion.

[5:02:22] Trustee Patrick: Which is, sorry, I have to look for my agenda that's in front of me.

[5:02:26] Trustee Patrick: Oh, we don't, we have dates.

[5:02:29] Trustee Patrick: Oh, we have dates here.

[5:02:31] Trustee Patrick: we got to go through and talk about that but february 7th is the next one that's proposed i

[5:02:35] Trustee Patrick: see here so um oh was that uh a shock or um so i'm hearing well if that's the appetite is not

[5:02:50] Trustee Patrick: run a special meeting and just uh have the next meeting be that uh trustee trustee sir mac there

[5:02:55] Trustee Patrick: we go director sir mac is that uh are you anticipating this to be a busy meeting or

[5:03:01] Trustee Patrick: for is that possible uh

[5:03:04] Voice 9: thank you madam chair I think you know as always you have top priorities

[5:03:07] Voice 9: uh that we want to report to every meeting about housing and about um uh you know the top two

[5:03:14] Voice 9: priorities enforcement and the other oh my gosh I too am having the end of the day kind of moment

[5:03:19] Voice 9: here um happy to prioritize but as always you know you'll have staff bringing information forward to

[5:03:25] Voice 9: you at the regular business meeting so you know we can handle this different ways I think as a

[5:03:30] Voice 9: regular business meeting we bring staff regular items to that meeting and if you want to focus

[5:03:36] Voice 9: on that i do think that this group and i've been talking to this ao about it about having a couple

[5:03:42] Voice 9: extra special business meetings and as you know we did that last year and i think we did the year

[5:03:46] Voice 9: before we tend to do it in this sort of spring in the april or something like that so i think

[5:03:55] Voice 9: inevitably we need another meeting or two throughout the year to deal with the fresh

[5:03:59] Voice 9: water and to deal with the violent enforcement and possibly with housing um but we can certainly

[5:04:05] Voice 9: prioritize that that's up to the discretion actually of you and the chair the chair

[5:04:09] Voice 9: specifically the next meeting so if you want to have a maybe it's at that meeting if things get

[5:04:14] Voice 9: knocked off or don't get it done we explore having a special business meeting sometime between

[5:04:18] Voice 9: february and may the the two proposed regular business meetings so i'm saying in maybe march

[5:04:24] Voice 9: or april so i i'm at your disposal if you want to have a special business meeting between now and

[5:04:29] Voice 9: there great but of course we're getting into holiday season it gets difficult um and usually

[5:04:33] Voice 9: we do it in spring for those types of reasons so all right

[5:04:37] Voice 9: trustee

[5:04:40] Trustee Patrick: worthwick i do have something

[5:04:41] Trustee Patrick: to add yeah

[5:04:44] Voice 7: i was just going to say that i mean i i hear where you're coming from trustee graham but

[5:04:47] Voice 7: i do think we're probably going to have enough to talk about on this subject that it might warrant

[5:04:51] Voice 7: a special discussion um so yeah i was going to ask uh do we need a motion to schedules yes we

[5:04:59] Trustee Patrick: We would need a motion to schedule

[5:05:00] Voice 7: a special meeting.

[5:05:01] Trustee Patrick: I

[5:05:01] Voice 7: am prepared to make such a motion.

[5:05:04] Voice 7: I move that the Regional Planning Committee request staff to schedule, sorry, Rob, a special

[5:05:17] Voice 7: business meeting for the purpose of discussing bylaw enforcement best practices manual.

[5:05:27] Voice 7: Is that right?

[5:05:28] Voice 7: And policies.

[5:05:30] Voice 7: And policies.

[5:05:33] Voice 7: Yeah. I don't know if I've got a specific date for say,

[5:05:43] Voice 9: I can make a recommendation

[5:05:44] Voice 9: for that. Please.

[5:05:45] Voice 9: You know, I think all of you should be checking your calendars. I'm conscious that

[5:05:49] Voice 9: we're probably losing quorum, but I would recommend mid January. So whatever, if you

[5:05:54] Voice 9: make changes, you want to talk about it, you make changes and then we can feed that back

[5:05:58] Voice 9: into the February 7th meeting if there's any last minute changes. And then those changes

[5:06:03] Voice 9: is could go to trust council if you know if you

[5:06:05] Voice 9: see what i'm saying in march so

[5:06:07] Voice 7: if you have a

[5:06:07] Voice 7: meeting

[5:06:08] Voice 9: that feeds into your february 7th meeting so that's the ideal

[5:06:11] Voice 9: uh so yeah so before the i

[5:06:16] Voice 9: mean i would just say in january and then yeah

[5:06:19] Voice 3: perfect

[5:06:20] Voice 9: it'll pull you guys perfect

[5:06:25] Trustee Patrick: there we go

[5:06:26] Voice 9: yeah sure perfect yeah all

[5:06:28] Trustee Patrick: right is there a second

[5:06:29] Trustee Patrick: HAB

[5:06:34] Voice 3: -Masyn Moyer- There's

[5:06:35] Trustee Patrick: still four of us.

[5:06:36] Trustee Patrick: HAB-Masyn Moyer- For is warm.

[5:06:38] Trustee Patrick: HAB-Masyn Moyer- That contain up to see if five or five of us. Okay. Seconded by trustee Elliot any discussion. I'll call the vote. All those in favor. And that carries. Super. Okay, then we're going to move on because we got into this meeting 11.1 we have our

[5:07:04] Trustee Patrick: our proposed meeting dates for 2025.

[5:07:08] Trustee Patrick: There's two motions there.

[5:07:10] Trustee Patrick: I hope people looked at their calendars.

[5:07:15] Trustee Patrick: And I know this is an 18-month thing.

[5:07:18] Trustee Patrick: Is someone ready to make that motion?

[5:07:21] Voice 10: I can make the motion.

[5:07:23] Trustee Patrick: Go ahead, please.

[5:07:26] Voice 10: I propose that Regional Planning Committee

[5:07:29] Voice 10: adopt the meeting dates of February the 7th,

[5:07:31] Voice 10: May the 9th, July the 18th, October the 31st

[5:07:36] Voice 10: for the 2025 calendar year

[5:07:38] Voice 10: and February 6th for the 2026 calendar.

[5:07:42] Trustee Patrick: Is there a second?

[5:07:45] Trustee Patrick: Second by Trustee Graham.

[5:07:47] Trustee Patrick: Any discussion?

[5:07:49] Trustee Patrick: All the vote.

[5:07:50] Trustee Patrick: All those in favour?

[5:07:54] Trustee Patrick: And that carries.

[5:07:57] Trustee Patrick: And there's one more motion there.

[5:07:59] Trustee Patrick: Trustee Boland, if you can.

[5:08:01] Voice 10: Sure.

[5:08:02] Voice 10: I move that Regional Planning Committee

[5:08:05] Voice 10: schedule all the proposed

[5:08:07] Voice 10: Regional Planning Committee meeting dates

[5:08:09] Voice 10: as electronic meetings.

[5:08:11] Voice 10: Is there a second?

[5:08:12] Voice 10: Dr. Borthwick

[5:08:14] Trustee Patrick: any discussion

[5:08:16] Trustee Patrick: call the vote all those in favor

[5:08:21] Trustee Patrick: that carries too

[5:08:22] Trustee Patrick: all right

[5:08:24] Trustee Patrick: snuck through with form

[5:08:25] Trustee Patrick: bye thank you

[5:08:27] Trustee Patrick: thank you go take care of that cat

[5:08:31] Trustee Patrick: and that's it

[5:08:32] Trustee Patrick: I think at the end of the meeting

[5:08:34] Trustee Patrick: we're only 10 minutes over

[5:08:35] Trustee Patrick: all tired all exhausted

[5:08:36] Trustee Patrick: enjoy your long weekend

[5:08:40] Trustee Patrick: and Remembrance Day

[5:08:41] Trustee Patrick: I guess is another thing to remember

[5:08:43] Trustee Patrick: But have a great weekend and see you, I guess, at December Trust Council.

[5:08:50] Voice 6: Make it sure.

[5:08:51] Trustee Patrick: All right.

[5:08:52] Trustee Patrick: Thank you, guys.

[5:08:52] Voice 6: Thank you, everybody.

[5:08:53] Voice 6: See you.

[5:08:53] Voice 6: Bye-bye.