02/19/2026
About six weeks ago, I pulled on a thread.
When we learned Bowen's annual contribution to the Islands Trust was set to increase by 32%, I was startled. My immediate ask -- what would Bowen be getting in return? I didn't expect where the inquiry would take me.
That one question dropped me, layer by layer, into the architecture of our relationship with the Trust -- the statutes, the policies, the allocation formulas, the budget documents that most of us (myself included, until recently) have never had reason to examine. What started as a tug on one thread became one of the most absorbing projects I've taken on as Mayor -- consuming every free moment this past month, pulling me deeper into a tapestry I hadn't appreciated until I started following the weave...
.. and the question changed.
It stopped being about value-for-money. The Trust does valuable work. The Conservancy protects ecologically significant land. The preserve-and-protect mandate has shaped Bowen in ways that benefit everyone who lives here. I'm not interested in debating whether the Trust has value. It does.
But value wasn't the problem I was finding. The problem was fairness. The question morphed: is the formula doing what it's supposed to do, by its own rules?
The result is a 45-page analysis -- grounded entirely in the Trust's own data, their own policies, and the Islands Trust Act. (find it here:
https://bowenisland.civicweb.net/document/338710 ).
I believe it's the most detailed independent examination of the Bowen-Trust financial relationship ever undertaken. In 2022, 79% of voters told us they wanted the requisition formula renegotiated. This work honours that mandate — not through rhetoric, or an impassioned discourse on value for money, but through evidence.
Monday, February 23rd at 1:00 PM, Islands Trust staff will appear as delegates at our regular Council meeting to respond to the questions and issues raised. I'd love to see you there — it's the kind of conversation that benefits from having the community in the room. Or, jump on the livestream wherever you are.
Can't make it? Write to [email protected] — your comments become part of the public record
Read the report here (even just the summary in the first few pages gives the key findings): https://bowenisland.civicweb.net/document/338710
