Candidate for the Offices of Mayor and Islands Trustee
Dear neighbours,
Four years ago, I wrote that while our island may be small, all oceans lead to it. That our shoreline-bounded lives connect to questions larger than us; that municipal politics happens in our backyards, but the issues we wrestle with here aren’t separate from what ripples through to us: climate change, reconciliation, affordability, housing, and a global discourse becoming more brittle and polarized with every new crisis.
I’m grateful to be returning as mayor by acclamation. My name will still appear on the ballot, however, for Islands Trustee.
For me, the deep thread through this term has been trying to hold two things at once: Bowen has real social needs, and we live within real ecological limits. We need housing, infrastructure and a community where people of different ages and incomes can stay. We also have finite land, finite water and ecosystems that need active stewardship. That is why Council directed the new Official Community Plan to be built around sustainability, reconciliation and circular-economy thinking, including the UN Sustainable Development Goals. It is why we have held to our conservation development policy, expanded watershed planning around Grafton Lake and the Art Rennison Nature Park, strengthened water conservation, and protected land through conservation and covenant. These aren’t separate environmental initiatives. They’re part of learning how to meet the needs of a changing community without losing the place we’re trying to sustain.
There are financial limits too.
In 2022 nobody could tell you what it would cost to renew Bowen’s roads, pipes and culverts. Now we can: about $90 million, on an island where a 1% tax increase raises roughly $70,000. That arithmetic is why taxes rose 14.3% in our first budget, why we have worked the increase down to 6.6%, and why Council and staff built strong asset management from the ground up, moving us away from a “don’t fix it until it breaks” infrastructure philosophy.
The result? The next four years are about carrying things through, and little of it is glamorous. Cove Bay’s water has improved in quality, but quantity remains a challenge. Snug Cove’s sewer needs a new outfall and more capacity. The new OCP has to be adopted and then made real in our bylaws. We need more diverse housing, better management of growing visitation, and continued pressure for reliable ferry service. The plans are increasingly in place. Now comes execution.
Which brings me back to the ballot.
In 2022, 1,364 Bowen voters, nearly four in five, supported renegotiating the formula that determines what Bowen pays the Islands Trust. I’ve spent much of this term digging into that question. I believe in the preserve-and-protect mandate. I also believe Bowen’s relationship with the Trust, including what it costs, should be fair and clearly defined.
Bowen is the Trust’s only municipality. I think we have something constructive to offer its future, and that the same work applies there too: holding social need, ecological limits and financial reality together with care.
Warmly,
Andrew Leonard