Saturna Island Property Owners Association (SIPOA)
P.O. Box 27, Saturna, British Columbia V0N 2Y0
SIPOA@saturnacan.net
Page 1 of 2
March 22, 2010
Mr. Michel Bourassa
Chair
Saturna Island Parks & Recreation Commission
Dear Michel,
Thank you for your response to the SIPOA letter requesting information about the budget
and financial statements of the Saturna Island Parks & Recreation Commission (SIPRC),
and your detailed letter explaining your group’s goals and activities.
I would also like to thank you for providing links to CRD online documents, as an
additional source of information on SIPRC’s budget and expenditures.
Your letter stated the SIPRC goals, presumably in order of priority, as follows:
Parks Portion of the SIPRC goals
1. Continuing improvement to public waterfront accesses;
2. Thompson Park improvements (picnic shelter);
3. Ball Field – licence maintenance, and management of the grounds;
4. Picnic Tables at the Ball Field – for the Lamb Barbecue;
5. Fog Alarm Project assistance;
6. East Point Park – improvements; and
7. Lyall Creek – waterfront trail management.
Recreation Portion of the SIPRC goals
1. Community Activities – funding of assorted activities, on an annual basis; and
2. Recreation Centre – funding of equipment ($9,200).
In your letter, the stated goals of SIPRC for the Parks portion of its mandate are clear, but
no financial information is provided to illustrate the level of investment achieved by
SIPRC to reach each of those goals.
In SIPRC’s Recreation portion of its stated goals/activities, the only figure disclosed
relates to the disbursement for equipment purchases for the Recreation Centre. We
assume that this is a total over several years, but without further details on this, this
remains an assumption.
It would be useful, and surely not too onerous, to provide local taxpayers with a breakout
of SIPRC’s disbursements over the past few years, for each of the above goals, in the
Parks portion, as well as the Recreation portion of its budget.
Given that the total SIPRC budget is $22,360 for 2010 – based on a 45 % assessment
level – this budget presents the potential of reaching $50,000 at 100 % of assessed value,
excluding inflation.
Saturna Island Property Owners Association (SIPOA)
P.O. Box 27, Saturna, British Columbia V0N 2Y0
SIPOA@saturnacan.net
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When compared to other Southern Gulf Islands, the SIPRC’s current budget projections
seem far from enormous. However, they do represent a taxpayer contribution, and its
allocation should be disclosed to the public.
When establishing priorities and allocating public funds, an open and transparent
approach brings many benefits:
1. Focussing attention on goals, priorities, and their achievement;
2. Clarifying priorities;
3. Enabling the measuring of results achieved;
4. Establishing accountability; and most importantly;
5. Eliminating doubts – which engender rumours – in the management of public
moneys.
While we understand that the members of your group are all volunteers and have limited
time available to answer inquiries, the refusal to share detailed information with Saturna
taxpayers, by taking refuge behind the skirts of the CRD, is perplexing. We are certain
that the SIPRC budget is not written on a paper napkin... We are convinced that, should
the SIPRC wish to be more open with Saturna islanders, it would be able to publish its
budget and activities – and especially the amounts of recreation funds available for the
asking, which go largely unspent from year to year, according to the attached summary
of expenses found in the SIPRC Year End reports, on the CRD website, under “Minutes”
– without undue duress.
SIPOA does not ask the SIPRC to contravene CRD policies and directives regarding
disclosure of financial information. As a matter of fact, we will contact the CRD
regarding those policies, to obtain a clarification. We note that the Galiano Parks and
Recreation Commission has published its financial data clearly and openly, without
drawing the wrath of the CRD on their collective heads.
We would like to point out that all other groups financed by Saturna taxpayers, such as
the Saturna Island Fire Protection Society and the Islands Trust, had no problem at all in
sharing the requested information with us. Their reports are posted on their website.
They did not feel that it was a hardship to provide budget and financial statements.
Once again, we sincerely thank you for answering our questions so thoughtfully, and we
hope to hear from you soon, about the future goals and budget allocations of the SIPRC.
Sincerely,
Bernie Ziegler
President, SIPOA
Attach.