Why run for Trustee?

I’m interested in the Islands Trust for local reasons, and regional reasons.

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LOCALLY

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I’ve never before been part of a community that has so much and complains so bitterly about how powerless it is to act.

There seems to be a profound lack of will to take responsibility for the tremendous wealth present here, and a corresponding absence of impetus to invest that wealth in common well being and resilience.

I see very much a desire for somebody else to do something - about development, about resources, about adaptation, about sustainability, about housing.

I think we are the somebody we are looking for.

If something is to be done, we will have to do it.

 

If the people refuse to act, there’s nothing the Trust can do.

 

REGIONALLY

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I don’t think that the current arrangement whereby we encourage battling for scraps of the last shreds of the original expropriation - pressing continually for the commodification of ever more finely subdivided sections of land seized by violence - is a good one.
 

I’m very interested in the Island’s Trust as defined primarily by geological and ecological boundaries. I think this structure has a lot of potential to operate pragmatically within the larger context of the Salish Sea Bioregion as we confront the unfolding of the future.
 

I think the inhabitants of this region could work cooperatively to build resilience and adaptability, to construct systems of self-reliance and trade, to thrive and prosper on the basis of something other than accumulation through increasing land valuations.
 

 The Trust is built on exclusion, expropriation, and exploitation. This is not a foundation that can survive unchanged. And change is coming. There is insufficient dialogue. There is insufficient provision of opportunity for free, informed, and prior consent. There is an unwillingness to accept responsibility.
 

I don’t have a solution to the situation that exists between settlers and indigenous people. I’m ignorant and was raised without any manners. But I’m willing to talk about it, and insist that it be talked about, in public, often.