In advance of the Fulford-Ganges Road improvement project, officials told us they’d counted more than 4,000 vehicles passing by the Driftwood office on busy days, and at the time we felt that number had to be a little on the high side.
What a difference a year can make. After watching cars back up on either side of single-lane alternating traffic, we can all probably agree if anything that feels a little low.
Similarly, when we learned that the Islands Trust’s chief administrative officer counted 189 meetings for that organization last year — between various committees, Trust Council and the Islands Trust Conservancy — our first inclination was again of disbelief. But considering the amount of work laid before trustees and staff at those meetings, once again it feels like maybe that number isn’t high enough.
To be clear, this is not to suggest there should necessarily be more meetings; rather that perhaps in determining the scope of the Islands Trust’s work, we might all be better served by titrating it to a meeting schedule that’s workable for the kind of citizen governance we value.
A quick count of Capital Regional District meetings from their published calendar puts that body’s number — again, including committees and commissions — at around 300 per year. Obviously there are matters of scale at play, some meetings are longer than others and there are spectacular differences between how — and why — the two organizations operate. But apples and oranges are still both fruit; one might reasonably note that the Islands Trust executes a fraction of the CRD’s governance responsibilities, and in a public meeting tempo far closer to that of the larger body than one might expect.
We repeatedly hear from trustees post-election that the workload is higher than expected — making it even less likely for islanders holding down jobs to stand for these important positions. And staff are clearly working long hours right alongside them.
There surely is a solution more elegant than “do less.” But we worry about the impact on islanders if we choose, essentially, “meet more.”