March 2025 News

Written By Heather Drugge

Thanks for being here

We are grateful 🥰 to be living amid the beauty of the mountains at the seaside—especially when the sun shines. We hope you’re enjoying spring, Duncan, Martyn, Greg and Heather.

Photo: Ghislaine Courcelles
Spring sunlight filters through to the road on Mt. Seymour. There’s no place like the North Shore.

What’s this?
District of North Van utility bills

West Vancouver sends out quarterly utility bills. The City of North Van sends out its utility bills in late fall. But, if you’re a District of North Van resident, you just got your bill. Surprise! This was the first year the district has sent a separate bill for utilities. In the past, utilities were itemized on your property tax bill. The good news is when you get your property tax bill this year, the amount you are paying for utilities today will not be included. It’s not another bill. It’s just coming at a different time.

This year you have an extension to pay by May 30th. But next year, your bill will be due by March 31st.

There are a couple of reasons why the district did this. One is to clearly differentiate district fees from the 19% increase in sewer costs mostly as a result of the egregious Metro wastewater treatment plant cost overruns.

Two is to accelerate collection. The district collects your money and then sends a portion of it to Metro to pay for water and sewer services. The deadline for the district to pay Metro is March 31st. In the past, the district would prepay the Metro bill and then collect your payment in July along with your property taxes. This new timing eliminates the lag, which is fiscally smarter.

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Our North Shore roots are in the trees
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Braaap, braaap, zing ding ding ding. Oh, no. There’s the sound of another tree coming down. Birds circle the area, literally in a flap because their home is being destroyed. The tree is a large Western red cedar, perhaps over 100 years old. I cry for the birds, the tree and me.

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Listen up?🎙️

North Shore Sound is a local podcast about municipal politics. It’s been sounding for a few months, and we’re excited to hear what Nick and Hassan report on next. Great work, guys!

North Shore politibytes

Curious how Prime Minister Mark Carney’s victory was represented on the North Shore? Here are the Liberal party member votes for North Shore ridings.

North Vancouver—Capilano

Total votes - 940

  • Baylis - 21 votes

  • Carney - 857 votes

  • Freeland - 45 votes

  • Gould - 17 votes

West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country

Total votes - 1,111

  • Baylis - 31 votes

  • Carney - 1,010 votes

  • Freeland - 53 votes

  • Gould - 17 votes

Burnaby North—Seymour

Total votes - 712

  • Baylis - 4 votes

  • Carney - 650 votes

  • Freeland - 44 votes

  • Gould - 14 votes

Better Drinks: save the date🍻

We’re planning our first in-person event. Better Drinks is a chance to get together and meet in real life. Perhaps you’d like to size us up in person? Maybe you’d like to meet other like-minded people here on the North Shore? If you’d like to talk to us about helping out in some way, this is a great time to have that convo.

  • When: Thursday, April 24th from 7:30 pm to 9:30 pm

  • Where: TBD. We’ll provide the location in our April Newsletter

p.s. If you want to help out and can’t wait until April 24th to get started - send us an email at hello@BetterNorthShore.ca. Joining our Chat Server (Discord server) is also a great way to get started. Join using this invite link.

Where on the shore?

Photo: Ghislaine Courcelle
The first person to send us an email with the location of this lovely, restored building will win a Better North Shore T-shirt. (Past winners are ineligible) hello@betternorthshore.ca

Better North Shore - chat server

Want to get more involved with Better North Shore?  We’re growing and making an impact, and we’ve created a private chat server—a safe space to organize, exchange ideas, and work on making the North Shore better. If you’d like to get more involved, please join our Discord Server—it’s like Slack or MS Teams, but better. Join using this invite link.

If this newsletter and our stories resonate with you and your values, please forward this to a few friends, and suggest they join our email list.  We're building a group of like-minded people who want to see the North Shore positively embrace and manage the many changes we face. Thanks, we really appreciate it, Heather, Duncan, Greg and Martyn.

Heather Drugge
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April 2025 news