Coastal Common Sense – Tom Kertes

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Blog Info

For a Strong Economy

Coastal Common Sense is Tom Kertes’s personal blog. It is focused on ideas for building a strong local economy — for people in Prince Rupert and other northern coastal communities. The blog themes are: Common Sense, Fairness, and Saving Money.

A strong economy supports a healthy community by providing people with:

Good paying jobs and secure incomes
Affordable housing, quality health care, and a safe place to raise a family, settle down, and live out your life
Infrastructure that supports economic development and quality of life
Education, training, and opportunity
Government services that work

About Tom Kertes

Tom Kertes is a high school teacher in Prince Rupert, BC. He grew up in Cheney, WA, a small town outside of Spokane, and he moved to Canada with his now husband Ron Braun in 2007. Tom is a dual citizen of Canada and the United States.

Whether he’s advocating for clean water for all, public infrastructure for residents and businesses, keeping our local library local, reopening places of worship, tolerance and respect for everyone, or effective local governance, Tom is committed to helping build a strong community for everyone.

Tom’s passion: Literacy. That’s why he teaches Language Arts, owned a children’s book store outside of Seattle, was a college instructor in early literacy and early childhood development at Seneca College in Toronto, was an Early Childhood Educator at UBC Child Care in Vancouver, and currently volunteers as coach of the Debate Team.

Tom moved to Canada in 2007, first to Toronto and then to Vancouver. He then moved to Daajing Giids in 2016 — changing careers from communications and policy to public education. Tom taught at Tahayghen Elementary in Masset, Sk’aadgaa Naay Elementary in Skidegate, and Gidg̱alang Ḵuuyas Naay in Daajing Giids. He moved from Daajing Giids to Prince Rupert in 2018, first teaching at the middle school for five years and then teaching Language Arts at the high school since 2023.

Before teaching, Tom helped produce children’s educational television and other media as a communications advisor. He was production coordinator for Biz Kids, an Emmy Award-winning educational TV series about money and business. He also helped produce viral videos and other media campaigns that were viewed by tens of millions of people. His media campaigns were covered by the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, CBC News, the New York Times, ABC News, the Washington Post, the Guardian, and other national news outlets.

Tom was also a policy advisor at the self-regulatory College of Early Childhood Educators in Ontario, where he helped launch North America’s first self-regulatory body for Early Childhood Educators. He was an instructor of Early Childhood Education at Seneca College in Toronto and he worked at UBC Child Care as an Early Childhood Educator in Vancouver, helping care for toddlers and preschoolers.

Tom currently volunteers at:

Saint Paul’s Lutheran Church, Chair of Church Council
Navy League Prince Rupert Branch, Secretary
Prince Rupert District Teachers’ Union (PRDTU), Labour Liaison Representative and past Vice President
North Coast Labour Council, PRDTU Delegate and past President

Contact Tom Kertes

Phone/Text: 778-884-5343
Email: tomkertes@gmail.com

Blog Themes

Common Sense

The blog’s main theme is common sense — which means doing our best to make things work for everyone — by listening to each other, solving problems together, creating opportunities for everyone, and helping out whenever we can.

Life is complex. And so are communities.

Given how complex life can be, it’s common sense to recognize that doing right by everyone requires working together — with everyone chipping in. While not every idea is worth doing, we should respect our neighbours enough to hear them out.

Fairness

At the heart of common sense is fairness. At the local level, fairness especially matters because municipal governments exist to provide self-governance on matters of shared interest between neighbours. This requires both fairness and common sense.

Of course, common sense says that not everyone will agree on what is fair. It also says that we should at least try to do things fairly. Fairness is a practical matter. For example, at the local level we ask ourselves practical questions, such as:

Who should pay for my water? Who should pay for my sewer?
How will my garbage and recycling be picked up and taken care of for me?
How can I use my land or my home (whether renting the property or owning it)?
How can I start a business or how can I get a job in this community?
How does my neighbour’s land-use affect me? What restrictions can they place on me? What restrictions can I place on them?
What kind of town do I want to live in? Do I want it to be diverse and welcoming, to include all income levels, all ages, and to be a fun and safe place for all?
How can I get the local services that I need and want?
What can be done to ensure that there are local businesses to serve me?
Where will I swim or watch (or play) hockey, basketball, or the arts?
How can my town support its tax-base? What businesses will provide good paying jobs to ensure that the town is kept up for me, that housing and public places will be maintained for me, that I will have neighbours and a community to support me when I need help?
How should the road to my house be maintained? How will my house be connected to the rest of the world? How will I drive, bus, bike, and/or walk to where I need to go?
How will I have fire protection? Police protection?
How will I get to work, who will provide child care for my family, and what will I do if I am sick, disabled, or in need of elder care?
Can I afford to live here?
Through all of this, how will I make ends meet?

From the list above, it’s clear that — at one level — local government is all about me, but — at another level — it’s also about you and me. We can’t go it alone, so we work together through local government; it’s ultimately about we.

In fact, “we” is the reason for having municipal self-governance in the first place, as local governments provide the means by which we can divvy up the shared costs and responsibilities of living in close proximity to each other as neighbours.

Saving Money

City governments exist to save money for residents and businesses. Municipalities do this by pooling costs for some services, providing public utilities, preventing freeloading and externalizing (which also protects property values), and through public debt financing of infrastructure.

That’s why saving money for landowners, tenants (renters), residents, and business owners should be the point of any city government. But this requires that electors take an active role in supporting self-governance, working with their city government to maximize the public benefits that it provides.

Economy-of-Scale BENEFITS

The economy-of-scale benefits of municipal self-government come from the benefits of pooling resources to get local services at lower costs. Simply put, it costs less for many services to be done on a city-wide basis than it would to provide them on an individual basis.

For example, it costs less to help build and use the public swimming pool than it does for everyone to own a private pool. Likewise, for a gym, performing arts centre, racket court, golf course, etc.

Pooling, done right, saves money.

Public Utilities and Local Control

There are also savings gained by treating some local services as a utility — which in practical terms means entrusting the local government to run a public monopoly for some basic services (this works as long as rates, taxes, and fees — and ultimately costs — are kept under control by the city’s electors).

For example, it costs less to have a public not-for-profit water treatment and distribution system than it would to have a private for-profit system instead.

Public utilities, done right, cost less.

Prevent Freeloading and Externalizing

We also save money when our neighbours are protected by fire and police, when our neighbours are hooked up to a common sewer and water system, and when our neighbours have essential services provided through local government. We all avoid the extra costs that come from a few people “freeloading” and “externalizing” their costs onto everyone else.

For example, it costs less to have a city-wide fire department that protects all homes and businesses on an equal basis than it would cost to have only some homes and businesses protected. You wouldn’t want your property bordering a property at greater risk of an out-of-control-fire — simply because your neighbour won’t pay for their own fire protection.

We all (other than would-be freeloaders) save money when we each pay our fair share for essential (life-protecting) services provided by city government (including services like fire protection, police and public safety, and sewer treatment).

Public Debt Financing

Through public debt financing, everyone who gets the benefit of what’s being bought (sewer pipes, water treatment plant, roads, etc.) pays for it, through pooled financing over time. The infrastructure gets built now, paid for with pubic debt, and then everyone who benefits from it pays for it over time (paying as the benefits of the infrastructure are realized).

This provides a way for everyone (including people and businesses in the future) to pay their share for the costs of what benefits them. For example, it would be nearly impossible to build any infrastructure if all costs had to be borne entirely by current taxpayers and ratepayers — as there would always be a strong incentive to simply wait for someone else to pay for you.

Public debt financing makes it possible (and affordable) to gain the long-term benefits of this value by having future gains paid for over time.

Image #1 Source: Miko Fox; Image #2 Source: Northern View