Nonpartisan Hacks

What does it actually take to bring 289 kilometres of century-old railway back to life?

In this episode of Nonpartisan Hacks, Joel Grenz and Sean Wood take the show on the road — or rather, the rails — recording aboard a high rail vehicle rolling from Parksville to Coombs with returning guest Thomas Bevan, CEO of the Island Corridor Foundation.

Bevan walks Joel and Sean through the history of the old rail corridor, from its origins as a resource-extraction line built on a 19th-century land grant, through decades of decline, to the Foundation’s current work managing wildfire risk, negotiating trail agreements, and finding revenue that keeps 289 kilometres of land productive without waiting on government to decide the corridor’s fate.

Listen in for:

Why the Island Corridor Foundation’s strategy is "one mile at a time" instead of holding out for a bullet train

How the Cameron Lake Fire changed the Foundation’s approach to vegetation management

Why rails and trails aren’t an either/or on Vancouver Island

The economics of managing a 100-foot-wide, 289-kilometre non-profit land base

What’s next for Coombs, Ladysmith, and the Colwood Crawl corridor in Greater Victoria

What it’s actually like to record a podcast from a moving high rail vehicle

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🎵 Theme music: "Cruising" by Sky Gienger via Uppbeat | License: JNRTTK70QSW4XR8V

Shayla Day was homeless from age 11 to 21, addicted to narcotics by 16, and overdosed 44 times. Today she's helping to lead a regional response to homelessness.

In this episode of Nonpartisan Hacks, Joel Grenz and Sean Wood sit down with Shayla Day, founder and CEO of Day Homes Society, a nonprofit serving the Oceanside region with outreach, food support, housing navigation, and community coordination. Day also chairs the Oceanside Homeless Task Force and co-chairs the Oceanside Community Action Team.

Day walks Joel and Sean through how she went from the street to running frontline social services, what "Housing First" actually means (it's not what most people assume), and how a coordinated regional network of shelters operates across Vancouver Island.

Listen in for:

How Shayla went from living on the street to helping run Oceanside's homelessness response

Why "Housing First" doesn't mean what most people think it means

How SROs, detox, and treatment centres fit into a proper continuum of care

What a CAR 87 program is

How a region-wide network of shelters trades and tracks clients so people don't fall through the cracks

Why accountability, not just compassion, determines whether social services actually work

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Your city council raised taxes 5.8% this year. So why did your bill go up 13%?

In this episode of Nonpartisan Hacks, Joel Grenz and Sean Wood pull apart the property tax bill that lands in every homeowner's mailbox each spring, and explain why it's really six or seven different bills stapled into one. Recorded on Sean's deck in Parksville, BC, the two councillors walk through who actually sets each line, why your assessment doesn't move your taxes the way you'd think, and what, if anything, you can do about the total.

They also get into the mechanics that rarely make the news: how the regional hospital district and library board raise your taxes without a single headline, why the province's homeowner grant has quietly lost value for decades, and what changed this year in BC's property tax deferral program.

Listen in for:

Why your property tax bill is really a bundle of separate invoices from separate governments

How the assessment-versus-rate math actually works (and why a bigger assessment isn't always bad news)

The real story behind Parksville's 5.8% increase versus a resident's 13% bill

Why BC's homeowner grant has been quietly losing value since the 1950s

What changed in BC's property tax deferral program this year

What you can actually do if you think your taxes are too high

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🎵 Theme music: "Cruising" by Sky Gienger via Uppbeat | License: JNRTTK70QSW4XR8V

What happens when the province doesn't move fast enough and people in your city can't wait?

In this episode of Nonpartisan Hacks, Joel Grenz and Sean Wood sit down with Marianne Alto, Mayor of the City of Victoria, recorded live at the AVICC convention. Victoria isn't just BC's capital city, it's a mid-sized municipality shouldering an outsized share of the region's housing pressures, homelessness, and mental health and addiction challenges, all while the provincial legislature sits in its front yard.

Mayor Alto talks candidly about what it looks like when a city decides to stop waiting: building 97 new shelter and transitional housing spaces, creating a first-of-its-kind Community Safety, Wellbeing, and Partnerships department, and funding nonprofit service providers when senior governments can't or won't. She also shares what she's learned about courage, accountability, adaptability, and why standing in a room full of people yelling at you is sometimes just part of the job.

Listen in for:

How Victoria exceeded its provincial housing targets — and why Mayor Alto was "jumping up and down" to be picked first

Why Victoria carries more than 80% of the region's social services — and what she's doing about it

The story behind the Dollar Place facility: two public meetings, hundreds of angry residents, and a decision she'd make again

How the city's Community Safety and Wellbeing Plan is funding nonprofits to do what the province hasn't

What she told her council on inauguration day: "Listen, think, and then do good work"

Advice for elected officials deciding whether to run again — including a frank conversation about vitriol in public life

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Find all our episodes at nonpartisanhacks.com and drop us a line.

🎵 Theme music: "Cruising" by Sky Gienger via Uppbeat | License: JNRTTK70QSW4XR8V

What happens when serving your community means risking your personal safety?

In this episode of Nonpartisan Hacks, recorded live at the AVICC convention in Victoria, Joel Grenz and Sean Wood sit down with Marianne Meed Ward — Mayor of Burlington, Ontario and co-founder of Elect Respect — to talk about the growing crisis of harassment, abuse, and outright threats facing elected officials at every level of government. Marianne has received death threats, been told by police not to attend her own public meetings, and watched a colleague leave elected life entirely because of the abuse. Rather than stepping back, she helped launch a national movement.

Elect Respect is now a cross-country campaign with hundreds of elected officials and over 60 municipalities signed on. The pledge is simple: commit to respectful democracy, lead by example, and ask the same of colleagues and constituents.

Listen in for:

The real-life incidents — including death threats linked to a local development application — that pushed Mayor Meed Ward to act

Why the tools available to municipalities to deal with misconduct are dangerously limited (and easily weaponized)

How social media, bots, and post-COVID anonymity turbocharged political toxicity at the local level

What Elect Respect is actually asking people to do, and how any elected official or member of the public can sign the pledge today

Why changing the culture has to start with politicians themselves

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Find all our episodes at nonpartisanhacks.com and drop us a line.

Sign the pledge: electrespect.ca

🎵 Theme music: "Cruising" by Sky Gienger via Uppbeat | License: JNRTTK70QSW4XR8V