Former Langford mayor Stew Young says he is considering putting his name on the ballot in the next municipal election because the current mayor and council are “ruining” the city he spent 30 years building.
A year after his shocking defeat, Young is accusing the current mayor and council of levying unprecedented property tax increases, stalling development and wasting taxpayers’ money.
“I’m not a politician anymore and I got opinions,” Young said in an interview Tuesday. “When I see this council doing a sh— job of running the city, I’m going to say something.”
Young spent 90 minutes on CFAX on Tuesday going after Mayor Scott Goodmanson and the slate of councillors who toppled Langford’s long-standing council — save for Lillian Szpak — during last fall’s municipal election.
Young called the recent disclosure that Goodmanson and councillors spent thousands of dollars to attend a municipal conference in Toronto and another in Nanaimo since the election “outrageous and wasteful during a time of fiscal restraint.”
And Young said there’s a good chance he will run in the next election in 2026. “If we get a crazy tax increase like they’re planning — something like 50% over the next three years — damn right I’m going to run again,” he said.
Young, who is 63, said he divested most of his business interests during his last two terms, but still operates a gravel and earth slinging trucking business and does consulting with various developers and other businesses.
Since losing the election, he’s been fishing out of Pedder Bay almost every other day, he said. But you can still find him holding court with coffee at the Fountain Diner or over lunch at Liberty Kitchen.
“I hear from people every day how disappointed they are in this council, and that’s coming from people who voted for them,” said Young.
Last fall, Goodmanson, who was raised in Langford and lives in Saanich, beat the seven-term, 30-year mayor with 53 per cent of the vote, earning 4,483 votes to Young’s 3,796.
Young believes those results would be drastically different today.
In May, the new council approved a five-year financial plan that will see Langford property taxes rise 12.41% this year, with projected increases of 11.68% in 2024 and 9.5%, 9% and 8.44% in subsequent years.
Council said the increases were necessary to deal with rising costs either unforeseen or not budgeted for in past years, including additional staff and more police officers and firefighters to keep pace with the growing population, as well as the city’s share of a new West Shore RCMP headquarters — and a swimming-pool subsidy at the YM/YWCA that suddenly doubled to nearly $2 million a year.
The new council said taxes in previous years were kept artificially low, offset by drawing from municipal reserves.
A few weeks after passing the tax increase, Goodmanson and councillors Szpak, Keith Yacucha, Mary Wagner and Kimberley Guiry all attended the Federation of Canadian Municipalities conference in Toronto for a total cost to the city of $23,570. And while breakfast and lunch were included in each $985 registration fee, a Freedom of Information request by the Grumpy Taxpayers revealed that Goodmanson, Szpak and Yacucha also submitted expense claims for the meals.
The Grumpy Taxpayers said Langford accounted for a third of the 15 delegates who attended the FCM conference from the region’s 13 municipalities. Victoria sent four, while neighbouring Colwood sent none.
The city defended politicians double-billing for meals, saying in a statement it has long been the practice for City of Langford elected officials to claim the full per diem when attending a conference, noting the $60 per diem amount in the travel expense policy has not been adjusted for inflation since 2006.
In his CFAX interview, Young called council going to the FCM “the biggest waste of taxpayer money,” saying in 30 years in office, he never went once “because I can get all the information I need in Langford.”
Young said he attended a few Union of B.C. Municipalities conferences during his tenure to network with provincial politicians who were making decisions in Langford.
FOI requests obtained by CFAX also revealed the city spent $19,000 in media training for the mayor and councillors in July, August and September, including a session to train the mayor for the opening of the new Tesla facility.
Young said he extended invitations to talk with Goodmanson and other new members of council after the election, but no one responded.
“It’s unfortunate that they haven’t taken [advice] from previous council or even myself and the offer is there,” Young told CFAX.
His advice to Goodmanson is “get out there and speak from your heart and your truths and make sure people understand where you’re coming from … they want to know who you are as a politician, not who you pay to tell you what to say.
“Not every politician gets everything right all the time, but you learn from it and move forward.”
