Aug.10, 2023, email to Publisher Mike Van Santvoord from Tony Gregson, DenmanWorks Chair.
“Denman Works recognizes that Denman Island Bus Service contractor (publicist), while entitled to an opinion on Grapevine editorial policy, HAD NO RIGHT (emphasis added) to use her position to threaten a withdrawal of advertising. Despite this unfortunate incident, I would like to assure you that Denman Works will continue to look to the services of the Grapevine for advertising and dissemination of information about our programs.”
Gregson has not employed the services of The Islands Grapevine (TIG) for any advertising and dissemination of information about their tax funded programs since. Instead, Gregson then removed TIG publisher Mike Van Santvoord from the Denman Works (DW) Board without allowing him to speak to the Board prior to a vote, ignoring DW’s own bylaws. He also fired Van Santvoord from his job managing the visitdenmanisland.ca website without cause. The demand for TIG to change its editorial policy, OR ELSE the tax funded advertising money would go elsewhere, was an attempted extortion. And those funds did go elsewhere, including to Hornby Island publications. 
As of TIG’s Monday, Aug.12 deadline, repeated requests to have access to the DW meeting minutes have gone unanswered. As residents and DW members, we are all entitled to see the meeting minutes, by law. Up until 2018, the year Gregson became Chair, the meeting minutes were posted on the DW website. At the 2024 DW Annual General Meeting, Gregson did not have an explanation as to why the minutes were no longer available. The minutes reflect who attended the meeting, all votes taken, and all disbursements of public tax funds. Gregson is reluctant to share this information, or any information with Denman residents, and provide the record of DW votes and where public tax funds have been disbursed, or even their meeting times and office hours.
At the same time, a small but vocal group attempted to organize a boycott of TIG for our reporting on the clear misuse of these public advertising funds. There has been no accountability for Gregson, while TIG publisher Van Santvoord has been smeared, and then unjustly punished. In addition, some of those who supported the misuse of public funds, declared their intention to drive TIG out of business, and they now publish a twice monthly newsletter with paid advertising, while asking the Denman community to donate $15,000 to sustain it. Gregson is currently a regular contributor to The Barnacle newsletter.
Our most recent attempt to settle these matters privately, was when we promptly accepted an offer from the CVRD to support a facilitated resolution of this conflict. Comox Valley facilitator Karen McKinnon reached out to us and recommended a quick resolution between the parties involved. A month later, we were contacted by McKinnon, telling us that this was not a situation she believed was conducive to a mediated solution. It turns out that Karen McKinnon is the sister of a local acolyte who has been adversarial toward TIG, publicly endorsing the attempted extortion.
TIG has received broad support from our readers, contributors, and our advertisers, including unsolicited donations, and hundreds of signatures on a petition rejecting the misuse of public funds to target TIG, and we are very grateful for these efforts. Some residents telephone us or approach us in person to show their support, with most people expressing that they are afraid to speak up publicly for fear of being targeted, on social media and elsewhere. This is the chilling effect of cancel-culture. Smearing someone with false accusations can cause damage, especially to a person who is self-employed.
The weaponization of public funds to bully and extort a local small business person, who’s livelihood supports his rented home as a single father, should not receive support from anyone with an ethical compass. It is the opposite of embracing respect for community values. The administration of public funds is distinct and different from that of independent private sector funds. While TIG has now made the necessary adjustments to sustain itself financially, and on this unfortunate anniversary, we continue to demand accountability for those responsible for these injustices.
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“The surest way to work up a crusade in favor of some good cause is to promise people they will have a chance of maltreating someone. To be able to destroy with good conscience, to be able to behave badly and call your bad behavior ‘righteous indignation’ — this is the height of psychological luxury, the most delicious of moral treats.” ~Aldous Huxley
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