Salt Spring residents vote Saturday on Island’s future

Salt Spring Island residents head to the polls Saturday to vote on whether the community should incorporate as a municipality.

Preliminary results will be posted on the Capital Regional District website Saturday night. Official results are expected Monday.

This will be the second incorporation vote in 15 years. The first, held in 2002, was rejected by 70 per cent of Island residents.

Former B.C. Liberal community minister Peter Fassbender in March ordered the municipal incorporation vote after a committee studying the issue recommended it go ahead. The ninemember volunteer committee started its work in 2015, with $255,000 in provincial funding.

With a population of 10,640, Salt Spring is B.C.’s largest unincorporated community. It is also the largest of the 13 major Gulf Islands. (The island was incorporated in 1873 after a number of prominent residents asked the provincial government to take action, but 10 years of disagreements and lawsuits led to the municipality being dissolved.)

Islanders are represented by a single director elected to the 24-member CRD board and two are voted to the Islands Trust.

Incorporation would mean electing a mayor and six councillors. The island would still have representation on the CRD and Islands Trust boards.

Those on the Yes side believe incorporation will allow Salt Spring Island to control its own destiny, while those on the No side are worried about development, fearing incorporation will lead to a building boom and change the island’s peaceful character.

Voting is scheduled for 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. For more information on the vote, including the committee’s report and voting locations, go to bit.ly/2f5cMP1.

Information from the No side is at positivelyno.org, while the Yes side’s website is yestosaltspringmunicipality.org.