Potato Island

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Sober Thought Municipality
Name: Potato Island
Nickname: Spudland
Population: 0.4%
Leader: Mayor
Legislature: Municipal House
Postal Codes: 6800-6899


Potato Island is a municipality in the Province of Braunekuste in the Gemeinde of Sober Thought. The geographic entity was named after the shape of the island and its major crop. It is twinned with the fellow agricultural centre of Brig, Mikitivity.


Physical and economic geography

The Province of Potato Island consists of a single eponymous island entirely surrounded by the ocean. The island, of course, is shaped roughly like a potato. Such soil as there is on this little rock outcropping was carried by ocean currents from rivers on the nearby mainland.

Poor soil means that the island cannot raise much hardwood, and such softwood as exists is rather slow-growing. However, its marginal soil is very productively used for agriculture by raising potatoes. Other primary industries include fishing and fowling.

There is little secondary industry on Potato Island, but much tertiary or services industry. In addition to supporting a dizzying array of governments for such a small island, Islanders welcome tourists from the mainland to see its reddish-brown beaches, wildlife and to whale watch.

Besides farming and fishing, there are few natural resources to regulate. Most of these are handled by self-governing associations for farming and fisheries, and the industries operate largely on the basis of small-holder cooperatives.


Demographics

Potato Island used to be the least populous and most rural province – even more so than Pastbeshchye – in the whole country with just 0.4% of the population of Sober Thought.

Its population is relatively stable, so its fraction of the whole shrinks with each demographic expansion. As befitting a parochial and bucolic locale in the country, its inhabitants are uniformly white, English speaking and Protestant.

The largest settled community is Princetown, containing roughly ten percent of the provincial inhabitants. The rest of the island is more or less evenly settled in low density rural settings with the occasional service village.


History

Despite its small size, Potato Island operated several levels of governments when it was a separate province. While not immediately adhering to Sober Thought, the limited obligations the federation demanded and the exclusive jurisdiction over its primary cash crop conviced Potato Island to join shortly after the Community was founded. Many of its arcane political institutions are remainders from its pre-federation history. In the entire history of Sober Thought, the Community Defence Forces never mobilized an entire Civil Guard unit from Potato Island.

Prior to its transition from province to municipality, Princetown was the only chartered municipality. The remainder of the island was covered by townships organized into three counties, which exercised municipal powers but did not have the right to territorial integrity guaranteed by the federal constitution.

As an independent province, it was party to many discussions over the years on a union of all of the then-four Coastal Provinces. Such a union was supposed to merge the island with South Island, Braunekuste and North Island. However, several referenda held under Community law to authorise a provincial merger failed to meet with sufficient public approval.

Although the overarching plan to create a single Coastal Province failed, it did lead to the creation of Bristle Island and the adhesion of Potato Island to Braunekuste. In preparation for the merger, the entire island was constituted as a federally chartered municipality rather than just its tiny provincial town and metropolis of Princetown. Both mergers and the transformation from province to municipality became effective on January 1, 2006.


Government representation

The entirety of Potato Island serves as a single electoral district for the federal House of the Federation. The residents’ votes also contribute to non-district top up seats awarded by proportional representation to candidates representing parties underrepresented in the province as a whole. The local MHF is usually from the Rural Alliance or Conservative Party (Sober Thought).

The city is represented in its new provincial capital of Grandville by several district councillors. Property taxes are low because the economy relies on agricultural staples (which, by definition, have a low profit margin) and tourism (which is subject to wild fluctuations). In short, parapublic voluntary associations take on many of the burdens provincial governments shoulder elsewhere in the country.

Every four years electors of the island choose a mayor and twenty-five municipal councillors at-large, and an additional twenty-five councillors in single member wards. The province delegates some of its powers to the municipality because of its geographic isolation from the mainland, its former status as an independent province and in deference to its peculiar needs.


Public safety

Princetown Hospital is the only full-service health care facility on the island. Out-patient medical clincs are established in a few of the other villages, while an agricultural benevolent association operates a network of inexpensive public health intiatives for its members.

The detachments of the Braunekuste Gendarmerie patrol Potato Island and keep the peace. Although armed, they rely even more than their counterparts across the country on mediation and proactive intervention.

For every 100 million national inhabitants, the province raises two companies for the Braunekustian Civil Guard. Costs and command responsibilies are shared by the provincial and federal government.

Despite the small size of its contribution to the Civil Guard, residents of the province are more likely to become full-time regular soldiers in the CDF because of limited job prospects. However, they are scattered throughout the armed forces and not concentrated in any particular unit, formation or area.


Education

For every wave of one hundred million national population, Potato Island builds two secondary schools (grades 10-12) in each of the three former counties and the now-unincorporated town of Princetown. There is an intermediate school (grades 7-9) in each of the villages, as well as six in Princetown. There are about a hundred primary schools scattered throughout the province in rural and urban areas.

Options for tertiary education at the provincially operated Island College are limited to two-year programs in agriculture, tourism, general sciences and general arts. The first two are applied programs which result in a diploma, while the other two are designed to provide the first half of a university degree to be completed elsewhere -- most often on Braunekuste since the island joined that province.

Entry to Island College is limited to students who graduated from a Potato Island school and promise to remain on the island for four years (excluding degree completion elsewhere, if applicable). Full and partial scholarships are offered to the top ten percent of students, excluding those who choose to accept federal scholarships and travel out of province.

There are a small number of trades apprenticeships and professional courses available as well by the trade unions and professional associations.


Transportation

Princetown has a medium-sized airport which used to be much better served by CommunitAir when it was still a provincial capital. Today, it is a third-line spoke to a seconary hub to several mainland cities. The CDF Air Service runs maritime patrol and search and rescue operations from Princetown.

The former capital also has a minor seaport which is the terminus of regular ferry route of STaqua to mainland Braunekuste. Small fishing fleets operate from other communities on the island. While the CDF Naval Service does maintain a presence on the island, it is very low key.

Potato Island has a rail-road bridge link to the mainland paid for by the federal government, while it is responsible for maintaining a network of rural roads. Rail service connects most of the villages with each other and Princetown, although mainly for agricultural transporation rather than public transit.