When the third Saturday in October rolls around next year, voters may see a record-high number of new names on their Islands Trust ballots — and it’s likely that election will have come on the heels of a record-high Islands Trust budget.

While technically neither current trustees nor potential candidates need to make a final decision until 36 days before election day — set for Oct. 17, 2026 — the committee tasked with financial planning for the land use authority has to make its spending recommendations far sooner. Trustees on the Financial Planning Committee (FPC) met Wednesday, Oct. 22 to take their first long look at next year’s draft budget, finding a bottom line of nearly $12 million that reflects an 11.5 per cent tax hike on most islands — 33.8 per cent, if you own property on Bowen Island.

Those increases — Bowen Island municipal trustee Judith Gedye called her island’s draft number “heart-stopping” — are larger than a projected 6.7 per cent increase in planned spending, an incongruity financial and employee services director Julia Mobbs laid at the feet of reduced revenue from external sources, like grants and investment income, and internal funding, like surplus and reserve transfers. Those are projected to come in next year 43 per cent and 58 per cent lower, respectively.

“When we have [that reduction], it’s felt the same way as an increase in expenses,” said Mobbs. “That’s why we have some additional pressures for tax burden in the budget.”

Those numbers aren’t set in stone; staff offered a first-look set of potential reductions that could lower spending by almost three per cent. FPC members so far indicated they would be sending modest recommendations to Trust Council. 

“All the other committees get to have fun and create projects and build the organization,” chuckled Denman Island trustee David Graham. “And this committee has the duty of slashing everything — trying to reduce the amount of taxes being asked of the people that live on these beautiful islands.”

“We’ve got fixed costs, and we’ve got all of our wish lists,” said Gedye. “I don’t know if we can merrily go along with $12 million. It’s a very hard discussion that we have to have.”

The FPC forwarded a now-familiar recommendation to reduce the number of in-person Trust Council meetings — this time suggesting that the body hold just two of them face-to-face. There are four currently scheduled, plus a fifth meeting planned as part of the process of onboarding new trustees after the election. The proposed budget for all five is $135,000, with one already planned as a virtual meeting; each in-person meeting should be budgeted at $30,000, according to a staff report. 

The committee also voted to recommend Trust Council not advance several projects that aren’t supported by staff resources in the budget, including Galiano Island’s targeted OCP review and any such new minor projects — at least until staffing levels within the regional planning team were at least at 75 per cent.

It also narrowly voted to ask the Islands Trust Conservancy board whether it could put a portion of its private donations toward supporting any of that body’s 2026/27 budget requests — specifically noting a $1.15-million anonymous gift it received this summer.

And trustees are preparing for a higher-than-typical number of representatives on Islands Trust Council not seeking another term — possibly more than half, according to Lasqueti Island trustee Tim Peterson. 

Peterson was responding to a related budget line item: new laptop computers, both for incoming trustees and for others with machines that have been damaged or are reaching end-of-life. That business case calls for $32,400 to cover 15 new “commercial grade” laptops — $1,660 each to purchase and $500 apiece for Microsoft Office 2024 licences, according to a staff report. That total includes support and device tracking to help trustees manage what has become a significant electronic workload, and facilitate meetings held remotely. 

“My rough assessment, based on discussions with trustees, is that we’re probably going to have a very significant turnover of trustees come next election,” said Peterson. “To me, the question is, in fact, is 15 enough?”

There are 26 trustees serving terms across the Islands Trust area; more than 15 deciding not to seek another term would be well above recent years’ turnover numbers. Last term’s election saw 12 new trustees seated in 2022, along with 11 incumbents and three former trustees confirmed as either elected or acclaimed. In both 2018 and 2014, 13 election winners were new to the Islands Trust.  

Determining the scope or reasoning behind potential high turnover is difficult this far from the election, although publicly expressed moments of frustration among trustees this term have been seemingly more common than in years past, particularly — although not exclusively — among those first elected in 2022. But no trustees have officially announced intentions one way or another. Salt Spring trustee Jamie Harris did say during a particularly animated portion of that island’s June Local Trust Committee meeting he was “not running again,” but has not repeated the remark.

New for this election-year budget is a proposed $32,000 to support holding in-person first meetings of each of the four standing committees and to facilitate training early in the new term, covering topics like meeting procedures and standards of conduct.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, because I’ve been trying to get our in-person meetings reduced this whole term,” said Graham, “but in this particular case, this [may be] the first year for a very large number of first-time trustees; they need as many opportunities as they can get.”

For the election itself, Mobbs said staff were also anticipating a 50 per cent increase in the cost of holding it, specifically in what’s paid through contracts to regional districts who administer elections in the Trust area. The current budget shows $237,000 in spending for the election, including $212,103 for those regional district contracts, $10,293 in pre-election communications — such as elections advertising and non-resident notice mailings — and $3,500 in professional photographs of new trustees for the Islands Trust’s website post-election. 

Salt Spring’s fire chief says an early-morning Fulford fire last month might have been prevented, and that islanders can improve their own safety through better practices storing and charging small lithium-ion batteries.

In a report to fire district trustees Monday, Oct. 20, Salt Spring Island Fire Rescue Chief Jamie Holmes said firefighters responding to the Sept. 9 blaze — and the homeowners — were fortunate, in that both a neighbour and a firefighter who lived nearby were able to get some water into the house through an exterior window, dousing most of the flames before they spread.

Working smoke alarms had already successfully warned the residents, he said, who were able to exit the building with their pets and call 911.

But after fire crews cleared the heavy smoke from the building, they discovered the fire began at a lithium battery and quickly spread to cardboard and paper stored nearby.

“An electric scooter bike was charging, through multiple chargers and a few octopuses and other extension cords,” said Holmes. “The lithium-ion battery itself had taken off, caught the scooter on fire, which then caught the recycling on fire and started to spread throughout the lower floor of the house.”

Holmes said the number of battery fires across B.C. and Canada has been growing, almost entirely due to improper charging, care or dispoal methods.

“We’re seeing huge spikes in these fires as the batteries become commonplace in our everyday lives,” said Holmes. 

He said it is critical to use the correct charger for each battery, to ensure the charging units are CSA approved and to avoid replacing any electrical components with “knockoff” parts. Equally important is disposal, he added, as the batteries become increasingly unstable with age.

“A lot of times you’ll have old cell phones sitting in a drawer, and they rattle around and bang on each other — and as the batteries deteriorate, they can combust,” he said. “Or your cordless power tools that end up sitting in the garage getting older and older; and a lot of times they just stay plugged in, even though they’re not really holding a charge anymore. It’s important to dispose of them in a safe manner.”

“Between disposing of them safely when they’re at end-of-life, and only using CSA-approved batteries and chargers,” said Holmes, “following just those two things you will probably get rid of the high 90-percentile of fires that we’re seeing.”

Salt Spring Island’s water-wise residents will soon be able to view the fruits of their low-flow lifestyles on their phones and computers.

Thanks to securing a better-than-predicted deal from suppliers — and through shifting some fund allocations to take advantage of it — the largest water meter replacement project in Salt Spring’s history will now take three years, rather than four, according to North Salt Spring Waterworks District (NSSWD) staff, and is starting almost right away. The first 300 of what will eventually be more than 1,800 new meters will begin going in this year, as the NSSWD board voted Thursday, Oct. 23 to approve spending roughly $200,000 to make it happen. 

The eventual system-wide upgrade is about more than just satisfying water-use enthusiasts, according to director of operations Ryan Moray. Until now, staff have only replaced meters as they completely failed, or at a customer’s request, but there are problems with older meters remaining in service longer than the industry-recommended 20-year replacement interval, he said. As they age, most meters tend to start under-registering how much water flows through them — by as much as 15 per cent in some cases, according to a staff report, which adds up. 

“The new meters have the ability for the customer to be able to create a portal,” said Moray, “whereby they can log in and see their consumption, or be alerted to a continual flow — like a leak.” 

Once the new devices and the software to manage them are in place, NSSWD customers will be able to continually monitor that consumption on phones, tablets and computers. Those sorts of web-based charts, graphs and other tools should encourage more thoughtful water use, Moray said, and the data will help the district better understand where water is going.

“They’ll provide increased read frequencies,” said Moray. “We’ll have readings bounce in several times a day, versus every two months going out and reading them.”

Every year, that in-person meter-reading had been adding up to over 1,000 hours of labour all on its own, according to financial officer Tammy Lannan — the equivalent of about half a full-time employee.

“Roughly it costs us about $45,000 every year just to manually read meters and enter them in,” said Lannan. “So there’s a huge cost savings and time savings when moving [to automated meter reading].”

The most “senior” meters and those connected to the highest-use customers, such as bulk meters at stratas, will be first in line for replacement, according to staff.

“We know we have a few customers that are keen to get on the list right away,” said chief administrative officer Mark Boysen. “They have old meters, and we talk to them a lot — because they have challenges on their system.”

Boysen added staff would be working to ensure the consumption data collected would stay with the district — held on Canadian servers.

“I think we have some keen water-savers who will actually be excited to check out their water consumption, seeing how they’re doing in the summertime,” said Boysen. 

Back in 1968, an after-dusk chorus of sirens from Ganges’ fire hall was the signal for islanders that Salt Spring’s first firefighter-run Halloween fireworks display was about to start.

It was an admittedly last-minute affair, according to contemporary reports in the Driftwood, making that year’s large turnout of “youngsters” all the more remarkable. By the next year, local fire crews decided to serve up hot dogs after the show ended, keeping the festive spirit alive a little later. 

The rest, as they say, is history; and now, after 57 years, the traditional event will be held at the original Fire Hall No.1 for what is likely the final time as firefighters plan to move into their new hall by next year. It’s a moment coloured with more than a little nostalgia, particularly for the Salt Spring Island Fire Fighters’ Association (SSIFFA), who in partnership with the fire protection district have brought islanders this well-loved community event with care — and in tremendous safety — for decades.

It’s also a great excuse to make it the biggest show yet, according to SSIFFA president David Demner. 

“I guess this year feels a little bit different,” said Demner, “so we’re looking at having a bit of a sendoff. We have around 200 fireworks we’re shooting off, and some of those cakes have like 100 shots inside them. It should be really big.”

It may seem a simple enough task to set off fireworks from the Harbour Authority’s Breakwater Dock, but it’s a well-organized and highly certified group of professionals running the show. Active-duty firefighters get training through the federal government’s Explosives Regulatory Division, first becoming certified as fireworks display assistants and then as supervisors.

“Then we’re coordinating with the Harbour Authority and the Coast Guard,” said Demner. “RCMSAR patrolling, making sure there’s no seaplanes at the dock. The nice thing is that we’ve been doing it for a while — at least 30 years — so we have everything well documented.”

The association starts planning early, with a subcommittee specifically meeting to plan for Halloween — from getting permits and insurance to budgeting fireworks purchases funded by firefighters’ contributions and a receipt box at Country Grocer.

“Fireworks people don’t exactly deliver to Salt Spring,” chuckled Demner. “Fortunately, one of our members has a boat.”

Long-time attendees might remember displays being staged from the entrance to Centennial Park — and, for that matter, firefighters helping manage bonfires where the Thrifty’s parking lot now sits. But attitudes on safety have evolved a bit, Demner said, as have regulations.

“We need a certain setback where there’s nothing flammable,” said Demner. “The dock is really the only place on Salt Spring where we can do it.”

Demner said both the association and the fire district want to send the message that fireworks are best left to professionals — and they believe the better the show is, the fewer people will be reckless with explosives on what is statistically a very dangerous night for injuries. Encouraging both fire safety and personal safety is a big goal for both organizations — and seeing how much the community enjoys the show is a bonus.

“We love being a part of everyone having fun in all their Halloween costumes,” said Demner. “You know, because I’m so focused on the fireworks, I get to enjoy it mostly after, when we’re giving out the hot dogs and hot chocolates.”

Demner said the best way islanders could help out is to just come and join the event — the more the merrier.

“Show up and be happy,” he said. “Bring your kids in their costumes. It really makes it all worthwhile.”

The 2025 Halloween fireworks display is scheduled to begin at 7:30 p.m.