Courtenay mayor and council prepare for new term

Winners of Courtenay’s local election are bringing a range of perspectives as they return to the council table. 

As council was sworn in last week, newly elected Mayor Mannos Theos and a pair of councillors spoke with DIG FM and CHLY about their priorities for the term, including property taxes, infrastructure, public safety and housing. 

Theos previously served six terms as a city councillor, before losing his seat in the 2022 council race. He said taking on the mayor’s seat is an exciting opportunity, but also comes with greater responsibilities as the new public face of the community.

 “The new council has a wonderful opportunity to have a fresh start. And new beginnings are very exciting because they give a chance for renewal of ideas and the opportunity to do things with a different approach,” said Theos. 

Theos said one of the biggest issues he was hearing from residents during the campaign period was the increase of municipal property taxes and the challenges that residents and small businesses are facing. 

“So what I was hearing at the doors was to have disciplined spending, to focus more on the needs of our community rather than the wants. You know, addressing some of those infrastructure deficits that have been needing a plan and a strategy for the last few years, rather than investing into new infrastructure, that may not be required just yet,” said Theos. 

He said he will also advocate to the provincial government around a strategic plan to address safety concerns he heard on the campaign trail. 

“The second-biggest issue was around public safety, around people feeling that they can walk our streets and feel safe and welcomed and comfortable. And the homeless situation that people are seeing in our community, that was a significant issue, and I believe people were looking for us to put forward a strategy to address people with mental health disorders and addictions, that they will not be on our streets,” said Theos. 

He addressed the issue of updating aging infrastructure within the city. 

“ We need to have a strategy and a plan to address those needs. Quite often, from my perspective, we need to address the needs over the wants. And when we’re looking at potholes on our roads and roads that need repair, to me, that is the work that we need to do first and foremost. And then secondly, we can look at adding any cycling lanes or anything that you know, is more of a secondary issue to our residents. And I think once we start focusing on the primary infrastructure before we add new infrastructure, we will go a long way in maintaining and keeping up with the current infrastructure deficit that not only our community has but most communities, if not all [has] across Canada,” said Theos. 

Newly elected councillors Rosanna Chamberlin, Kelly Matthews, Dick Clancy and Thomas McDevitt join incumbents Wendy Morin and Evan Jolicoeur to make up the new council.

Morin served two previous terms as city councillor and received more votes than any other candidate this election with 4,253.

Morin said she hopes to continue working on several initiatives from her previous terms, including food security, affordable housing and reconciliation. 

“The anti-racism strategy that I had proposed and was passed unanimously by council. I think with so many newcomers in the community as well as obviously K’ómoks First Nation and other Indigenous members of the community, it’s super important to have that strategy. And also our reconciliation framework to continue working on that especially with the treaty coming up, treaty happening with K’ómoks First Nation. And I think just a lot more around housing. We have the new housing authority with the regional district,  I was appointed to the regional district last night at the meeting, I’m really excited to get moving on that for some below market housing,” said Morin. 

She also pointed to ongoing infrastructure projects and the need to maintain parks and green spaces as the city grows.

“I think it’s critical that we have a lot of green space and playgrounds and parks. And so we’ve got some amazing planning going on with Harmston Park, and Lewis Park is coming up. We also have the downtown revitalization plan. All these things are coming together, and I’m really excited to see what the public contributes to that conversation around that planning,” said Morin. 

Morin spoke about returning to council with a new set of faces and potential challenges. 

“This council will be different because people, you know, campaigned on a lot of different views. And so I anticipate that there will be more kinda divided votes on things. But I also think there’s gonna be a lot of things that we’re gonna be aligned with that we’re all gonna agree on,” said Morin. 

She expects there may be more divided votes, as different councillors bring different priorities to the table, but said that doesn’t necessarily mean they won’t be able to work together.

“You know, you hope that your council has been elected to represent the community’s views, and I think that’s what happened this time. There is a majority of councillors who were elected who have similar views and then a couple of others that had differing views. So I think it, you know, you do need to work for the entire community, absolutely. I think recognizing that you wanna leave the campaign behind, but also recognize that, you know, the people who voted you in, you need to represent as best you can,” said Morin. 

Newly elected councillor Kelly Matthews is preparing for his first term in the city. He said environmental concerns will be a major focus throughout his term, particularly water security and preparing the community for the impacts of climate change.

“Water’s a big one, as we know in the valley. It’s becoming a greater concern. Climate change as well with the heat domes and such. So yeah, that’s going to be my focus for the next three to six months and for the full four years,” said Matthews. 

He emphasized the importance of maintaining the city’s infrastructure to prepare for future climate-related challenges. He hopes to develop a long-term plan to make Courtenay more resilient to climate emergencies and water scarcity. 

“That to me, is part of climate resilience and making sure that Courtenay’s resilient overall as we’re preparing our infrastructure for the flooding and also the potential heat waves and stuff that are coming,” said Matthews. 

Matthews said he hopes to bring environmental concerns into council discussions, even when other councillors have different priorities.

“People have a variety of different priorities. I would say there’s probably seven different priorities with the seven different councillors. But like I said, I’ve made it pretty clear that my concern is for these much larger issues and try and find that blend when working on any particular issue, and make sure that those issues are top of mind for everyone, and I think that’s part of it as well is hoping to maybe make people more aware that where environmental concerns are not on their radar necessarily, they didn’t campaign on it, but I’d like to bring that awareness to those councillors that haven’t brought that to the forefront,” said Matthews. 

Mayor Theos said it’s healthy to have different perspectives to shape decisions. 

“Everyone brings their own perspectives forward, and that’s healthy. Having debate that is well-rounded often brings the best results to a decision. So I will be open to listening and hearing those perspectives. And where again, we all come from different backgrounds and those perspectives will be valued and understood,” said Theos.