Setting the record straight on property taxes
Property owners will have seen this year’s tax bills. And of course renters pay property taxes through their rent. And everyone may have seen some misinformation circulating about Victoria’s 2025 …
governance
The Citizens Assembly Amalgamation Report – and Minority Reports
The Victoria-Saanich Citizens’ Assembly on Municipal Amalgamation released its report on July 10. The Assembly had announced its recommendation – amalgamate – in April, before the report was written. The …
Citizens’ Assembly recommends Saanich and Victoria amalgamate
Update July 8, 2025: the Citizens Assembly still says “The final report will be published here and submitted to councils of both municipalities in May 2025.” It hasn’t been published …
Ten advocacy tips
As someone who has done advocacy work and advised on advocating to governments for many years, and who is the recipient of advocacy on a daily basis, I have some …
Crystal Pool – preventing cost overruns
Now that the Referendum is over, I’ve been asked how we keep the costs of The Crystal Pool Replacement Project under control. Given that it’s the most expensive project Victoria …
Public input: most oppose Police budget increase. And what that means.
On Thursday, Council will hear a report from City staff on a recent round of public input on the budget, indicating that: the number one topic addressed was the proposed …
Crystal Pool – is Dave on the “No” side? No.
I was told by a friend who is very connected and politically astute that some people perceive my efforts to get more information out to voters on the Crystal Pool …
Crystal Pool Motions (it got spicy today)
Today we had an interesting discussion on a motion relating to the Crystal Pool project (CP) referendum. The first item in the motion put forward by a couple of Council …
Crystal pool project costs
– Image: City of Victoria I just wanted to clarify a few points about the Crystal Pool Replacement Project costs. Some basic info is on the City’s website, but there …
More on the OCP Update survey
I recently wrote a short blog post about online, self-selected surveys like the current OCP Update survey – pointing out that they are only one element of a much larger …