What’s your occupation? (Current and/or past)
I’m a Canadian! Professional hockey, RCMP, brew pub builder and owner. For the last 20 years, I have been the owner and operator of Enterprise Protection Associates. EPA provides threat assessments, and security and resilience assessments, recommendations, and implementation plans to our clients. Most of this work in the water sector, for instance city or county water systems. We do Emergency Response Planning. Disaster Response and Recovery Planning, and Security Master Planning. There is also a growing element of cybersecurity attached to that work.
How long have you lived on Bowen?
My wife Nicolette and I moved here as renters in December 2019, we bought a home and moved into it full time in August 2020. So, 2 ½ years. And we love it. Every day we look out the window and appreciate what we have here.
Who inspires you? (Real or fictional)
My Dad and Mom, Winston Churchill, Terry Fox, and Indiana Jones.
Please list any current and/or past committees or organizations you've been a part of in your career.
Part of two Strata councils in Vancouver, President of one of those; Various industry related committees at a national and international level; Board member of a service industry business.
What are your (non-housing) related priorities for the next four years?
I believe that infrastructure concerns are paramount. I recognize that other issues loom large: housing, the ferries, the environment, the park, tourism, and others. But without proper infrastructure we will not be able to support any initiatives in those other areas. We can’t build housing if we can’t supply water and sewage. We can’t build a park if there is no way to get to it. Beyond that, or actually prior to it, we need to decide where we are going: rural or urban? West Van suburb or unique environment of our own? I don’t think those are tough particularly choices, but I do think that sorting out priorities, resources, and commitments will be challenging, and require some very difficult choices.
How would you tackle the issue of affordable/rental housing on Bowen? And, Bowen will be doing a full review of short-term rental policies next year, do you have any early thoughts on this specifically (ie. Should short-term rentals continue to be allowed in secondary suites)
We need to consider more diverse ways to house. Perhaps that means make it easier or to incentivise a rental suite to be longer term. Perhaps tiny homes are a possibility. Increasing density is an option that has to be considered, although none of us wants or expects to see 12 story condo going up. Part of the problem will be where does the land required come from? We have some pretty limited geography here, and even if and when we agree that more housing is required, we will have to find the right places to locate it.
As far as the short term rental question goes, I think until we properly address the larger affordable housing question, we need to rethink this. There is possibly room for both long term and short term rentals, but in my mind the long term will take precedence.
Property taxes are set for a double digit increase next year. What will your fiscal approach be re: what municipal financial obligations are passed on to property owners?
Well, I’m a big user pay kind of guy. Those that are able to live with less service (and I’m not one of them!) maybe shouldn’t be paying as much. So waste collection, water, sewage that is provided by the municipality, those are clearly something tax payers are responsible for if they have access to them. Beyond that, the things that benefit us all and that we couldn’t really do without, whether we use them or not, are on the taxpayer as well. Here I’m talking about roads, parks, school improvements and other things that the entire community values. But perhaps there are other services, in particular those that are used by visitors, that we can get those same visitors to contribute to. Park usage, running pay per use shuttles instead of cars for visitors, there are some options we need to consider.
Assuming the land sale goes through, how will you advocate Bowen gets the best result from the proposed Cape Roger Curtis park?
I think there have to be a lot of avenues to help us get maximum benefit. And by benefit I don’t necessarily mean financial. As a first step, we cannot allow anything to occur until we really understand what the park is intended to look like and how it will impact us – both the large us, on the Island, and the smaller us – those that live there and will be most impacted. I would insist on a detailed plan from metro as to park usage, including transportation planning, parking planning, bylaw enforcement, ferry considerations, and care and control of the park. Without this kind of information we cannot really start to strategize how it can most benefit our island. I will say, while a lot of reaction to the park is understandably negative, a park is preferable to a massive house or two on huge lots.
What will your approach to tourism on Bowen be, and how would you strike a balance between the tourism economy and issues that arise from it (ferry capacity, increased strain on island services such as emergency, etc.)
Again, we need more data. I think tourism is vital but we will need infrastructure to support it. We need to attract tourists that might value the same things we do and would be willing to contribute to the upkeep of those things. It is our property taxes that support the roads that we drive on, yes, but they are beat up by thousands and thousands of off island cars as well. Other infrastructure is equally strained by tourism. I think our goal needs to be finding a way to generate more municipal revenue from tourism and turn that revenue directly to infrastructure support.
Bowen’s population rose by 600 in the past 5 years, and could pass 5,000 by the next census in four years. What is your opinion on continued population growth on the island, and the best ways to manage it?
As much as some might want to, we are not going to be able to stop people from moving onto an island that offers all the benefits this one does. What we can and must do is utilize our control over land use, via zoning and taxes, and ensure that growth is stable, and hopefully diverse as well. And by diverse, I mean not only in the social sense, but also in the types of housing we make available. We simply can’t maintain the ratio of single family homes to denser housing that we have. We will need to make room. Handled intelligently, we should be able to support some limited growth of population and use that growth to generate the tax revenues required to support it.
Water, sewage and roads will need major amounts of work in the upcoming years. What will your approach to our infrastructure be to avoid surprise or rising costs?
First, we have some commitments already in place, and we need to follow through on those. Beyond that, I think we need to have more concrete planning in place to project what we will need in the future. We all understand that budgets can often be hopeful guesses at best, but it is incumbent on the incoming council to truly have a strong grasp on needs that are short term – within a year; medium term – within 2-5 years; and long term – beyond five years. This will mean some hard choices about priorities. The infrastructure we need to live, such as water and sewage, have to take a priority. That may mean other things will suffer in the short term.
What is your position on the Bowen election Islands Trust referendum, and how do you want to see Bowen’s relationship with Islands Trust change (or not) during the next term, keeping in mind the group has applied to the provincial government for a full review of its operations.
I believe we need to take a harder negotiating position. The people who have been representing Bowen on the Trust have been doing a great job in their roles. The Trust contribution is funded by homeowner taxes. There has been ridiculous growth in assessed home values, which has led to increased portions of our taxes going to the Trust. We can’t continue to operate with the same formula in place, especially if assessed home values continue to rise. I’d like to see our representatives do their best to negotiate a new formula, one that is not tied almost entirely to a statistic that already governs our property taxes. It feels to some people like a double tax is in place.
And for fun, if you could pick a new animal to add to Bowen’s mascot roster, which would it be and why?
As I understand it there are about five mascots already. That’s plenty for me.
