Comox director Ken Grant takes issue with the assignment of weighted votes for decisions about the regional water supply system, based on previous year’s consumption in the Comox Valley.
The bylaw and policy direction by the regional Water Committee in 2012 require that the per cent of water consumption for the previous year be compared against that in 1995. If a participant’s amount of consumption increases by 4.17 per cent or more, then that participant shall receive an additional vote.
The number of votes per committee member remains the same as last year. Of 13 votes, Courtenay receives seven, Comox three, and rural areas each get one vote.
“On an annual basis I bring this up as being the wrong way to be doing the voting,” Grant said at the Feb. 22 water committee meeting. “When you look at Courtenay, they’ve gone up almost 10 per cent since 1995. We on the other hand have gone down by almost three-and-a-half per cent, and yet that gets us farther away from getting another vote on this board. When I look at the structure and see that one community can out-vote everybody else, that’s just simply a bad structure. It’s also a bad structure when you get rewarded for consumption in 2022. That may well have been a good system back in 1995, but it no longer is. I think it’s time we look at that.”
Grant brought up the issue last year. The committee chair said it would be looked at, but it never came back to the table. He hopes a more equitable plan will take shape before the next election.
Area C director Edwin Grieve said the issue is worth considering. He notes Courtenay’s population is 28,420 while Comox is 14,806. On a per capita basis, he notes that Comox is using 159.5 cubes per capita, and Courtenay 189.23.
“That’s considerable,” he said. “There’s got to be some ways we can get people to be more conscious about water use.”
Courtenay director Melanie McCollum questioned if population versus consumption is the most equitable or rational way to determine the structure.
Grant motioned for a staff report about options to find alternative voting structures for water. The motion carried unanimously.
reporter@comoxvalleyrecord.com
Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter