Bowen Bulletin

I know that I keep going on about the Cape Roger Curtis development proposal but this thing is getting bizarre. Council has said repeatedly that they want public feedback. So the citizens of Bowen Island rose up in an unprecedented unified voice that saw over 500 of us put our names to an ad in the newspaper insisting that this project is too large. Yet council is still contemplating “the most thorough public process in Bowen’s history.”

What if we could get council to imagine that they’re the board of directors of a small company and one of their people is promoting a deal that would increase the company’s size by 40%. The first question will be “How does that fit with our strategic plan?” Of course it doesn’t but the promoter argues that the strategic plan could never have envisioned such an opportunity and you shouldn’t let it hold you back. Calmer heads may point out that abandoning long range planning for short-term opportunities is the kind of action that gets companies into trouble. But the promoter won’t go away and finally throws a full blown proposal on the table for everybody to study. All of the stakeholders that have any interest in the plan study it in detail. Most like some parts of it but, at the end of the day a lot of changes are proposed. But instead of taking the deal back and working on it the promoter insists that everybody in the company has to look at. No changes will be contemplated until everybody has had their say.

So a big meeting is called and the rank and file look straight at the board of directors and the questioning begins.

“You’ve been negotiating with these people for five years and told them two and a half years ago that we wouldn’t entertain anything that conflicted with our strategic plan. Has our strategic plan been revised in such a way that it can now accommodate this proposal?” Of course the answer is “No we are looking at the long term plan but that’s a separate process.”

“What are the alternatives to this plan?” Answer “We don’t know. The promoter tried to put something together a few years ago but we really haven’t done a cost-benefit comparison with any other plans.”
Follow up question “Why not?’ Answer “Because we’re afraid that the promoter might prefer another option, if they had one.”

Question, “So we know that the proposal is going to be revised anyway, we don’t know if we can absorb it into any kind of reasonable long-term plan, and we don’t know what our base line options are. Why are we rushing into this thing? Are we in a hurry to do this deal?”

“No, it’s because the promoter has put a deadline on acceptance of this proposal and we’re doing our best to accommodate him.”

The employees would leave the meeting shaking their heads and wondering who was really running their company.

Let’s try another analogy. Imagine that you have a very small bedroom but your spouse has always wanted a king-size bed. Hubby has gone out and talked to a really sharp bed salesman and come home all enthused about how the salesman has said that your bedroom isn’t too small at all. Lots of people have beds that take up the whole room. Don’t worry that the door won’t shut, just hang it so it opens out. Don’t worry that the bed won’t fit up the stairs, the delivery men are experts and have assured the salesman that everything will be fine. Hubby insists that it would be impolite not to look at the beautiful bed and hear about all of the wonderful features. Finally you have to scream that the bed won’t fit; you don’t want the bed, you don’t want to look at the bed and you don’t want to ever hear about the bed again. But hubby is now totally ignoring you and taking you to look at the bed.

That’s where we’re at now. Council still doesn’t seem to realize that this deal is dead. The CRC people have a very complete and professional website that has all of the information about their proposal. They run giant ads in the Undercurrent. They have a travelling sales presentation that will set-up in your kitchen if you’ll let them. They have presenters at every council meeting that has anything vaguely related to them. And, if that isn’t enough, they sponsor a newspaper that is delivered to your mailbox every two weeks. In short, anybody who wants to know about this proposal has had plenty of opportunity to do so. Yet the public continues to scream that it’s too big and they just don’t want it. Council has scheduled a public information meeting for 10 a.m. on Sunday, April 5. Don’t worry if you can’t get there until after church. This is going to be a very long meeting.