Town Hall Math
How $8.5 million became $21.2 million in under a year.
When, in July 2025, the Town of Qualicum Beach announced the conditional purchase of the Eaglecrest Golf Course lands, subject to public consultation, I took them at their word.
I thought I would have an opportunity to learn about the deal, weigh the benefits and risks, and decide whether I thought it should go ahead. By then, we had lived in Qualicum Beach for close to five years. We had built a house. Our child and grandchild lived here, the paramount reason we had chosen this charming town in the first place, and I had begun to form a community of my own.
This was the smallest place I had ever lived. Tiny, compared with Rio de Janeiro, where I was born, or most of the places I had lived since. That was part of its appeal.
A town this size seemed small enough that people could come together and actually solve things. How do we live well as we grow old? How do we keep our brains active? How do we continue to learn, contribute and take care of one another?
These are big questions. A small town seemed like an interesting place to work on them.
Ever the policy nerd, I threw myself heart and soul into the Eaglecrest process. I wrote to council. I went to the public consultation and council meetings. I talked to as many people as I could. And I did what I have been trained to do as an economist, data analyst and policy adviser: I devoured every piece of information I could get my hands on.
What I found astounded me. Or, more accurately, what I didn't find.
I found a sales pitch for what we were repeatedly told was a "once-in-a-generation opportunity." I didn't find meaningful data on the demand for another golf course or more parkland. I didn't find a serious assessment of the financial risks. I didn't find much consideration of what committing millions to this project would mean for everything else the Town might want or need to do. Most of all, I couldn't see the larger vision. I asked many questions. The answers left me with even more questions.
The little I could see pointed to a financial gamble that could dominate Town Hall for years.
Money is only part of that. Council attention, staff time and political energy are finite too. Once committed here, they aren't available somewhere else.
The deal went through. I went to work.
I took courses in municipal development and law. I read budgets, bylaws, council minutes, staff reports, financial plans, land documents and legislation. I filed freedom-of-information requests. And I started thinking about the next opportunity citizens would have to influence the direction of the town: the October 2026 municipal election. I am not suited for public office. It just isn't my thing. But I have spent much of the past two decades thinking about how to organize complicated information and make it understandable. So I gathered an extraordinary team, people I have worked with on many projects, and we set out to tell this story.
This project is the result.
It is independently funded: I paid for it myself, through my company, TheHesterView. No political party, candidate, developer, or outside business or advocacy organization paid for it. The numbers and documents come from the Town's own records and other public sources, obtained through freedom-of-information requests where necessary. Where information was missing, we went looking for it. Where something is our interpretation, we make that clear.
My objective is simple: to give the people who live here enough information to make up their own minds about what happened, what it means, and what they want from the people they elect next.
There is a larger question too. British Columbia gives municipalities considerable power over public money, land and development, with remarkably little outside scrutiny of how that power is exercised. Eaglecrest is one small-town story. I don't think the questions it raises are small-town questions.
That is why we built this.
