Campbell River Mayor Walter Jakeway and I had a long chat on the phone yesterday. Jakeway has made headlines for his vociferous stance against double-digit property tax increases in his community of 31,000 people. Despite his strong (and often caustic) comments, the majority of his council went another way—approving a 13.6 per cent tax increase.

Campbell River has been living high on the hog for some time—making a tax fortune off of Catalyst Paper. At one point, Catalyst was paying more than $5 million a year to Campbell River in property taxes—not to mention employing 468 people. Catalyst was being taxed at 13 times the residential rate and four times more than the services they were consuming.

Now Catalyst is broke and Campbell River council seems terrified to cut much service, instead heaping a 13.6 per cent increase on to taxpayers. No wonder Jakeway and his two allies on council are calling for a tax revolt.

Apparently these free-spending councillors enjoy living in a river. We only wish, for taxpayers’ sake, that it was Campbell River—not Denial River.