Let them keep it!

Mahon Hall should be allowed to return to the Farmer's Institute with a minimum of scare tactics coming from self-proclaimed local government bodies like the PARC or the Islands Trust. The fact is that a bureaucrat will see a hole in the floor or the roof as an opportunity to spend $100,000 of our taxes while a farmer is likely to just fix the damned thing without calling for a task force committee to do another option’s study and add another regulation to the Community Plan in the process.

Remember, it was the original Farmer's Market that invited everyone to come and sell their wares at what used to be a truly community based Saturday Market. Surely we can’t forget that it was a local farmer Dick Royal who had the temerity to boycott it for the rest of his days as soon as our community-based PARC regulated it and segregated out the un-creative people from the creative ones. Farmers like Mr. Royal had honour.

What a horror it must be for people like Mr. Curtin to imagine that Mahon Hall might maintain its independence and perhaps hold a few open flee markets to support its maintenance. Yup! Or better yet, remember last year when the farmers went hat-in-hand to the PARC to ask if they could sell their fresh vegetables in the downtown market area? It wasn't just a simple no they got but a full-blown back-room legalistic bylaw that they were confronted with. Sorry those 'fresh' vegetables are just going to have to wait. Hope it doesn't rain on Saturday... good luck with your livelihoods but we're OK, see ya ‘round.

And this silly insinuation that the Farmer's Institute is not a broad enough based community group? For crying out loud they may be all that's left of Saltspring's original and diverse grassroots community. The Fall Fair has always been a successful and inclusive event unlike things like the Islands Trust's Community Plan and it’s coming 300 infractions ‘nobody moves nobody gets hurt’ policy.

I hope Mahon Hall is returned to the grassroots community and not this rare strata of bureaucrat who moves here with nothing better to do than meddle in local government concepts that seek to spend and regulate us into oblivion!

From my experience as a former member of the PARC and candidate for the Trust I have seen first hand how tax dollars are allocated; from $20,000 software/hardware upgrades to proposed $14,000 surveys to find out if we want a pool or a rink! Keep in mind too that the Islands Trust is spending close to $1500 an hour ($3.5 million/yr.) protecting us from ourselves. You really have to wonder... when are we going to take back our community and end this expensive, spiraling plunge into regulatory madness?

The farmers are being handed Mahon Hall back on a silver platter, watch for the silver tongues that whisper in their ears... fear fear fear. It is nothing but another real estate grab. Power seems vested in those that accumulate great debt in the name of managing our affairs.

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