A commentary by a Salt Spring resident who is a journalism professor at the University of Victoria

Good journalism is sunlight. Bad politics hides in the dark. Last week we learned — only because it was reported in The Driftwood, Salt Spring Island’s award-winning newspaper of record — that to save a few thousand bucks from an $11-million budget, the Islands Trust will no longer require itself to publish public notices in print.

Our trustees now deem their own clogged website and American-owned Facebook to be all that’s needed. This on small islands where many residents were born before the internet, where others lack stable access, and where the power is sometimes off for days.

Public notices are a cornerstone of democracy. They are meant to inform us about important meetings, development permits and rezoning applications. We also learned (again, only thanks to The Driftwood) that the Trust spends some $450,000 a year facilitating development permits, of which developers pay merely one tenth.........

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