Traditionally Salt Spring islanders have, from time to time been polarized by the very forces that have brought us together, that is to the say, the beautiful island lifestyle and environment, the wonderful social attributes of our community and the economic opportunities available to those who are creative and innovative.

While Salt Spring Island remains an unincorporated district in BC, without the benefit of a broad, representative form of governance, we do have an elected CRD Director and local land-planning committee of two Trustees provided by the Islands Trust. For the most part we also rely on a wealth of volunteers and people willing to provide their opinions and leadership on island matters, as with our local Chamber of Commerce, newspapers and special interest groups.

This relatively freelance approach to governance can often as not result in strong ideological arguments presented by organized groups that will tend to prevail simply by virtue of the strength in their numbers. Lack of input from a wider sampling of the community, as we have seen, has not always resulted in decisions that benefit the growing community at large and so we hope this hub provides for more of that input.

As our population increases we are seeing certain stresses and needs that have spawned the creation of new groups like our water boards and local Islanders for Self-Governance who partially sponsor this website as a service to the community.

It has been said in politics that it is really only ever about more community input and so this Hub of Community Networking for Salt Spring Island is offered to provide a non-partisan series of focused forum channels, to collect and archive our island opinions and presentations, whether in text, video or images.

It is hoped that this "Hub" can, over time accommodate a broad spectrum of submissions, thoughtful opinions and presentations as well as ongoing access to updated polls on current issues. If nothing else, this resource can aid us, including our elected officials in acknowledging and understanding, even if only in a general sense, some of the diverse sentiments pulsing throughout our community.

The goal of this website is to promote Salt Spring islanders to work together to demonstrate how three simple forces of our community: the social, economic and environmental can all be complimentary to each other rather than in opposition. Join in and voice your opinions freely.

Paul Marcano
Website Admin
Salt Spring Island, BC