Weekend Activities

Here is this week's Tourism Langley fresh sheet of what to do around town.

Tourism Langley has also issued its first quarterly newsletter. Click here to read it.

Heather Stillwell is Ill

Longtime Surrey School Trustee Heather Stillwell has apparently been diagnosed with breast cancer. My understanding is that she will be consulting her doctors in the next few days to determine a course of action.

I've only met Heather twice over the years, but both times she has asked me about my family and gently reminded me to keep them my top priority.

Wherever you stand on Stillwell's politics, I am sure you join me in offering prayer and encouragement as she faces this battle.

Mosquito Wars

The Advance has a good piece on our efforts to fight the mosquito population.

My Letter to Anne Patterson

On Wednesday, a small group of south Langley residents protested property tax rates. The Advance has the story here. Organizer Anne Patterson emailed me that morning and asked me about taxes. Here is my reply to her:

I think when one looks at the facts behind property taxes (and not simply the percentage increase--which, admittedly, looks ugly on paper) in the Township, a clearer picture emerges. It would have been great to have had you at some of our budget meetings, the open houses, or the public hearings before decisions were made on the 2008 budget.

Here are some facts that I have kept in mind when considering Township budgets over the past three years:

1. Township tax rates are still lower than Abbotsford's, Langley City's, Delta's, and other communities. In 2007 (the latest stats available), we see the following municipal mill rate (that is, the amount per $1,000 of assessed property value):

Abbotsford 4.49
City of Langley 3.734
New Westminster 3.7295
Maple Ridge 3.6338
Pitt Meadows 3.3515
Delta 3.177
Township of Langley 2.9138

Even with the 5.95% increase, we are still lower than all of these communities, most of which saw increases of more than 4%.

The biggest cost driver in tax increases are assessed values, as many rural properties have seen their worth skyrocket due to the real estate boom. We adjust the tax rate every year to make sure it goes down by the average amount a property increases, but some owners have seen their properties become worth much more than the average increase.

2. Property tax increases over the past three years have gone to public safety improvements. The tax increases from this term have generated about $9.5 million in revenue to the Township. The Township has spent $9.5 million more on police and full-time firefighters.

3. Yes, property taxes across the region have increased faster than the rate of inflation, as measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI). The CPI is a measurement Statistics Canada uses to gauge the effect of inflation for Canadian families. But the CPI measures things families purchase--gas, groceries, clothing, pets, housing, TVs, prescription drugs, and other family items that the Township doesn't buy. The Township buys mainly fuel, labour, and construction materials--costs that have gone up far more than the CPI would take into account. Construction costs alone have gone up roughly 1% a month over the past couple of years.

4. If a resident doesn't receive municipal water, garbage or sewer service, they don't pay for it. Those are done through utilities which only charge the service users. Well owners, for example, don't get charged for water infrastructure because it would be grossly unfair.

I agree we must keep taxes as low as possible, and I am committed to doing so. At the same time, we owe it to future generations of Langley residents to build the infrastructure that will keep them safe and healthy (nothing will ever get cheaper--if only the Council of the 1960s had followed Abbotsford's example and put water mains in the rural areas, we wouldn't have had the big well meter debate!), and we have a clear mandate from our current residents to improve public safety (police and fire). We have to balance both the present and future needs of the Township.

I hope this helps clarify some of the issues for you, Anne. Thank you for the e-mail and the chance to explain a little bit of the Township's situation. If you or your group have further questions, please don't hesitate to contact me.

Jordan Bateman
Councillor
Township of Langley

A community like Langley has many different viewpoints on an issue like taxation. Look at my post on medians, for example--some people want the trees and plants, even if it costs more to maintain long-term. Some want the public art, which would be cheaper to maintain but offer a different kind of beauty than the cherry blossom trees. And others wants cement or concrete to save the maximum amount of money.

Another Langley City Bus Loop Attack

Langley Times reports that six teenagers swarmed a 36-year-old man and beat him up pretty badly on Wednesday night. The incident occurred at the Langley City bus loop, reinforcing its very bad reputation for safety.

Lashing McVeigh; Another City Candidate

Predictably, the Times (which has tomorrow's news already up online--bless them!) has several letters from the HD Stafford crowd spanking Alison McVeigh for deciding to run in the Township. The writers are pretty familiar to anyone who has been following the story:

Tracie Northway: "Don't make the same mistake we did."
George Tylor: "There is no leadership or problem solving when you decide to close a school that is so critical to a community, as was Stafford."
Carol Joyce: "Why, if it is just a 'handful of parents' who are 'still steaming,' or as we were often called, a 'vocal minority,' she would be hesitant to run in the City again. Surely that small number of votes could not make a difference to her chances!" (In a community where a Trustee was elected with 1,144 votes and where turnout hovers at less than 20%, any motivated group that turns out will have a huge impact on the results.)
Susan Semonick: "This type of thing only makes my suggestion of amalgamation of the electoral ballot even more important for the people to attain voter parity." (I totally agree that all Langley School Trustees should be elected by all Langley voters.)

Meanwhile, Stafford parent Rob McFarlane has announced that he will run for a City School Board seat this fall--even as his kids start at Rick Hansen Secondary in Abbotsford. That brings the City Trustee race to three (incumbent Stacey Cody and the gone-very-quiet Graeme Shepherd)--all Stafford conversion opponents. Two will be elected.

Fort Langley Mosquito Update

The mosquitoes in Fort Langley have been terrible this year. The Township has been spraying (including, I understand from our staff, using a helicopter on parts of McMillan Island, with Kwantlen First Nations permission), but the GVRD has thus far refused to spray on Brae Island or in Derby Reach park.

That is about to change: Township staff told Council today that the GVRD has agreed to a more balanced approach to mosquito treatment that considers the interests of the surrounding community. As a result, they are moving forward with assessing and treating Brae Island as soon as possible.

To help speed the process up further, we have offered the services of our mosquito control contractor, Culex, to get onto Brae as soon as possible (hopefully today).

This has been a terrible year for mosquitoes along the Fraser, but we will continue to do everything we can to make things better.

Public Art in Medians

I'd be interested in hearing what you think about this idea. One of the increasing cost drivers in our budget is planted area maintenance--specifically the beautifully-planted medians we have throughout the Township. It costs money to maintain those, to the tune of $1.5 million a year (that's equivalent to a 2.5% tax increase). We continue to build these, especially in Willoughby, and most folks think they add a lot of beauty.

On a seemingly separate issue, we often hear that Langley could use more public art installations.

In Los Angeles, the city had similar issues. To bring their maintenance costs down, and to add public art, L.A. has put some art into their medians. (See this LA Times story for more.)

So my question is, would you support public art in some of our medians? You could have contests for high school and college students; you could do an open call for professional artists.

Tories, Fed Libs in Dead Heat

The Ottawa Sun reports that a Decima poll shows the Tories and federal Liberals in a dead heat in terms of voter support:

Conservatives 33%
Liberals 31%
NDP 15%
Green 11%
BQ 8%

More on the poll here.

Carbon Tax Debate

The carbon tax debate rages on in the papers:

Aldergrove Star editor Kurt Langmann says go small and beat the tax.

NDP leader Carole James is continuing her Axe the Tax campaign.

The BC Trucking Association is continuing its push for a tax break.

SFU professor Mark Jaccard examines the NDP's plan to follow the Denmark model. Denmark pays $1 per litre in gas tax, and charges households far more than industry.

More on the Prairie School

Add Times editor Frank Bucholtz to the growing list of people wondering why the City tore down the historic Langley Prairie School. Frank's column has more.

And the Times had an interesting piece on the 364 bylaws we recently voted to repeal.

Two Cents Becomes Ten

Talk about dog-piling on the consumer... the gas companies apparently took the opportunity of the 2.34 cent carbon tax to hike gas prices by 10 cents! The Vancouver Sun has more.

Meanwhile, Paul Willcocks looks at the politics of the carbon tax on his blog.

Website Glitches

Sorry about the site being down... we forgot to pay our carbon tax. Actually, we had to renew our domain registration. I'm pleased to say that Sam has decided we will be here through June 30, 2013. Heaven help me.

In a strange coincidence, the commenting system is acting funny. Sorry about that, too.

Happy Canada Day!

Have fun, be safe, and enjoy this great country!

June's Most-Read Posts

Another month is in the books, and here's the top 5 posts from June 2008:

1. Beijing and the MLB Draft
2. Generation Gap on Bill C-61
3. SkyTrain to UBC--Or Light Rail Everywhere
4. 200th Streetcars in Vancouver Province
5. IPI Update

Once again, thank you for reading and for all your comments (583 of them this month, or almost 20 a day).

Langley Amateur Radio Field Day

Langley Amateur Radio held their annual field day down at Campbell Valley Park Saturday, participating in a 24-hour contest with radio groups from across North America.

They invited me to stop by, and I had a good time learning about amateur radio, their role in Langley's emergency planning, and eating pancakes.

CUPE 403 Ratifies Agreement

CUPE 403 announced on their website that their members have ratified the tentative agreement struck with the Township. Two more votes remain--one with the Metro Vancouver Labour Relations Bureau, and one with Township Council.

Skeeters Enjoy Fort Feast

The mosquitoes are bad in Fort Langley right now--Thomasso notes on his blog that they actually chased people off the Brae Island beach on the hottest day of the year.

The Township, as part of our West Nile virus control program, does a lot of spraying for mosquitoes, but we are hampered by Metro Vancouver's outright refusal to take care of their regional parks. Every year, we ask them to take care of their bugs, and every year, they say no. Brae Island includes several patches of standing water, which just breed more mosquitoes.

Monday Morning News

Strange day today, sandwiched between a weekend and a holiday. I'm working--but is anyone else? Starbucks was quiet...

Anyway, here's what I'm reading this morning.

The Surrey Leader reports that no one is even making any noise about running against Dianne Watts this November. Bob Bose and Gary Robinson have both ruled themselves out.

The notorious City flophouse, once the home of former City Mayor Joe Lopushinsky, burned down on the weekend, says The Times.

The BC Trucking Association estimates that the average owner-operator will pay $1,000 in carbon tax this year. They want a tax break from the Provincial Government.

Utah is moving to a four-day work week. They say closing buildings on Fridays will save 3,000 metric tonnes in carbon emissions every year (Treehugger).

Bill Clinton is still upset with Barack Obama.

Suburbia isn't going anywhere anytime soon (Dave Writes).

Jokes of the Week

About.com has their weekly list of the best political jokes. My favorite is from Stephen Colbert: "Well, ladies and gentlemen, the big story out there continues to be the high cost of gasoline. Four bucks a gallon. I have stopped traveling anywhere that is not downhill."

Canada Day 2008

Driving past McLeod Athletic Park today, I see the team is already busy setting up for Canada Day. The Langley Times has details.

Two Days Until Carbon Tax

No matter where you stand on the carbon tax, political animals have to be greatly intrigued by the fallout.

I mean, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, as left as left can be, coming to the rescue of Gordon Campbell against Carole James? Along with David Suzuki? And the Western Canada Wilderness Committee? Who saw this coming? Vaughn Palmer is practically giddy over the irony.

Meanwhile, the BC Liberals' lead in the polls has slipped to 10 points. Analysis here and here.

Richmond for McVeigh

Over on his website, blogger Keith Richmond makes the case for Alison McVeigh, the three-term City School Trustee who will seek a seat in the Township this fall.

What To Do This Weekend

Tourism Langley has two fresh sheets out this week, one for
June 27 to July 4, and one specifically for Canada Day.

Township Notes

The Advance has stories on the CUPE tentative agreement and Council's vote to take 364 old bylaws off the books.

Heritage Society Not Happy With Langley City

City Council's decision to tear down the 93-year-old Langley Prairie heritage school has the Langley Heritage Society upset, reports the Advance. From the story:

"It's a real shame," said Langley Heritage Society vice president Mike Frost, "that the City was not interested in protecting this incredibly important landmark."

Society representatives are "saddened and appalled" by the demolition which began June 23.

A few years ago the Heritage Society drew up a list of what it considered historically important buildings within the City and gave a list to the municipality. The society contends the City did nothing with the heritage list and is questioning why the school couldn't be saved and reused, for possibly an arts centre.

"The society "fears that the destruction of Langley Prairie School takes the City of Langley one step closer to creating an anonymous, faceless cityscape, unconnected to its history and indistinguishable from any other place," said a press statement from the heritage group.

No to Commuter Rail; Yes to Light Rail

Shane Dyson has a letter in today's Advance beseeching the local MLAs to push for commuter rail:

Since we now have Langley MLA Mary Polak joining Fort Langley-Aldergrove MLA Rich Coleman in the cabinet, perhaps both will speak out in favour of commuter rail service through the Fraser Valley.

I hope they never do! Commuter rail would do very little to service the transportation needs of the south Fraser... we need light rail or community rail. And rail advocates need to be clear on that.

I'm going to assume that Shane is being imprecise with his language, but it's an important distinction, and one we should remember. Commuter rail (see the Wikipedia entry here) is the West Coast Express style of service--heavy trains, peak periods only, heavily subsidized by tax dollars, and serving simply to take people out of our community and deposit them in downtown Vancouver so they can go to work (as if it's 1970 all over again!).

Every study I've seen show that a very, very small percentage of south Fraser residents need such a service. The far more pressing need is an interurban service, connecting communities like Surrey, Langley, Abbotsford and Chilliwack to one another. This can then lead to a route extension to the north Fraser, or simply tie in with SkyTrain. But the interurban style of service needs to be the priority first--not commuter rail.

Interurbans are generally light rail, which is cheaper and cleaner to operate, runs more frequently, and connects the jurisdictions where Langley people actually travel.

Anyway, I'd be very disappointed if our MLAs spoke out for commuter rail, as it is an expensive, less-worthy option than an interurban. We need the interurban first.

For more on the differences, click here.

Surrey First Maps Its Strategy

Surrey First, Dianne Watts's new "un-slate," had a big bash last night, and made several announcements that will affect the civic election this fall...

1. Barinder Rasode has been named Surrey First's only "non-incumbent" candidate for Council. This is a huge coup for Rasode, a longtime Surrey community activist. She joins incumbents Linda Hepner, Mary Martin, Barb Steele, Tom Gill, and Judy Villeneuve. The five incumbents are a lock for re-election, and with Rasode having shown well in 2005 (although losing as part of Bob Bose's Surrey Civic Coalition slate), she has a very good shot as well.

Adding Rasode also reinforces the idea that Watts's coalition is not based solely on political philosophy; both Rasode and Villeneuve would be considered centre-left, while the other four are centre-right. "It's a big tent," as they say.

2. Surrey First will only run those six candidates for the eight seats, meaning folks can vote for them and two others (hello there, Marvin Hunt). Another smart play by Watts. It would be very tough to knock off the three non-First incumbents, and why pick another fight with Hunt or Judy Higginbotham supporters? Watts knows that a 7-2 vote is as good as a unanimous one.

3. Surrey First has announced it will not run candidates for School Board, choosing to focus instead on City Hall. Another good move, as it spares unnecessary conflict with various groups. Why pick a fight with a Heather Stilwell, for example? It also removes the idea that Surrey First is power-hungry, and wants to control everything within the municipality.

There are weak rumours in Surrey that Bob Bose may run for mayor, choosing to go out in a blaze of glory. I don't see it.