I feel beyond privileged that in my decade on the island, this community trained me to be a frontline firefighter and medical first responder with a sideline in governance and organizational budgeting as a former Trustee on the Islands Trust.
Sadly, it’s from those dual viewpoints that I feel the need to raise an alarm: There is something deeply, deeply wrong at the Gabriola Fire Protection Improvement District. The body that oversees the volunteer fire department is digging deeper into taxpayer’s pockets — taxes are due to go up 37 per cent, way more than the Islands Trust — while the Board is swimming in strife and secrecy.
By my count, there are hundreds of thousands of dollars that are publicly unaccounted for as the Board conducts its business behind closed doors and does not follow its own procedures to make expenditures – including real estate transactions – public through bylaws and other means. The Board has also failed to follow its own due processes for bullying and harassment complaints, and a lot of the money going out the door is heading to HR consultants and Alberta-based lawyers in what has turned into a culture of us-versus-them discord.
We like to say we all support the firefighters, but at last week’s all-candidates’ meeting, the outgoing Chair of the Trustee Board, Paul Giffin, admitted that the Firefighters Association had voted in favour of a motion of no-confidence in his leadership. He claimed to not understand what that meant or why it would influence his decision to run for a third term — against the Governance Review’s recommendations to limit service to two terms.
So let me offer some help: When the people who keep us safe put up their hands and say they do not feel supported or safe themselves, we need to listen to them.
The province, while formerly pledging to phase out improvement districts and their century-old operating procedures, has made it clear it is up to island property owners to use their votes to call for change. Please use your vote on June 18 from noon to 7pm at the North Fire Hall to do just that.
~ Scott Colbourne
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