VOTE JOHN DACOMBE FOR COURTENAY COUNCIL

Lower taxes

Lots of Courtenay residents are asset rich and cash poor, with incomes that don’t match their houses. So property taxes that increase far above rate of inflation, year after year - while incomes don’t – are unsustainable. And commercial tax rates and fees are far higher, a massive disincentive to running a business in Courtenay.
What are my solutions to this? If elected I will be introducing motions within the first 100 days to significantly reduce City costs in both the near- and long-term:
1. Water: This is the City’s largest and fastest-growing annual operational cost and the vast majority of water is lost to leaks, lawn watering and wastage. So the fact that universal volumetric water metering is only now being started, and far too slowly, is fiscally unsound.

Let’s be clear: any candidate who does not support universal volumetric water metering will fail in their attempts to lower your tax burden.

Metering must be sped up and priced so as to lower costs for average and below-average users. And fines for offenders during water restrictions need to be large enough to change this anti-social behaviour.

These measures, and the estimated 20% reduction in leakage that comes from metering, will save up to $3M/year once fully implemented.

2. Bylaw enforcement: Fines, not warning after warning, because right now the City spends almost $1M/year on bylaw enforcement, brings in almost zero fine revenue, and doesn’t change any anti-social behaviour. Residents who do the right thing should pay less in taxes; residents whose actions threaten the health, safety or environment of our community should pay more through fines. I will introduce motions in the first 100 days to scrap the current bylaw enforcement policy and increase fines for some offences. Savings and increased revenues will be about $1M/year.
3. Cancelling a new seasonal pool at Lewis Park, unless it is fully funded by all governments in the Comox Valley, will save $20M-31M. Courtenay taxpayers are about 40% of CV residents. They should not be bearing 100% of the construction and operational costs of the CV’s only outdoor public pool.

4. Reducing costs of some capital projects: the Back Road roundabout is a good example of an unnecessarily expensive and complicated project that could have been completed for far less. I will vote against projects in the 2026-2030 Capital Plan if they can be replaced with lower cost solutions. Based on 2025/26, savings will be $1M/year.

5. Cancelling other projects in the 2026-2030 Capital Plan altogether: I will vote against the South Courtenay Sewer extension project, saving taxpayers $25M. Municipal boundaries should not have been extended in this area, and this is currently a low-density area that doesn’t need a sewer. If developers want to

densify it in the future, they can pay for a sewer.

And I will vote against further EV charging infrastructure, saving $3.5M. I own an EV. This infrastructure is needed, but at this point the private sector in Courtenay has assumed the cost of extending this network further.

6. Consultants: Unnecessary consultant contracts are a problem at both the City and CVRD (which City taxpayers help fund) - like the contract that failed to find us an RV dump station, or public opinion polls that poll 300 residents out of 30,000, or the consultant who chaired meetings for eight years. Ending these will save at least $100k/year.
6. Not expanding municipal boundaries further: The City has significant financial obligations because of municipal boundary extensions approved by pro-expansion Councils in the early 2010s, including $25M to expand sanitary sewers to the Royston border (which, as above, I will vote against) and however many millions it will take to upgrade Fraser and Comox Logging Roads. Municipal property taxes from development in these areas will never come close to covering the infrastructure upgrades needed. I will vote against further municipal boundary extensions, which are bad for taxpayers, residents, and the environment in both the near- and long-term and are the single biggest cause of higher property taxes everywhere.

7. Tax exemptions: ending these for the Island Corridor Foundation (ICF), for-profit developments under the Downtown Revitalization Tax Exemption program, and for any religious institution that promotes bigotry, racism and conspiracy theories will save at least $89k/year.