Langley Township Council Meeting Report--Monday Afternoon, Oct. 26, 2009
Notes from Langley Township Council's special meeting Monday afternoon, Oct. 26, 2009 (see the full agenda and all the reports here). I won't have an evening report as I missed the meeting due to not feeling well. My understanding from Coun. Fox this morning was that all the developments from last night's meeting were approved.
In a 5-4 vote, Council referred a recommendation to establish a property endowment trust to a Council Priorities Committee meeting (referral moved by Dornan, seconded by Bateman; Richter, Long, Kositsky and Ward opposed). I'm grateful for the opportunity to look at this further, as I am legitimately on the fence on this one still. Judging by the comments at the table, it's a tie vote (Green, Richter, Fox, Dornan in favour, Long, Kositsky, Ferguson and Ward opposed), and I'm undecided. I'd like to see some hard numbers from the consultant and our staff. Frankly, I think a business plan is in order--what are our projected revenues? What are our projected expenses? How much land has to be sold to make it work? What happens if we don't hit a certain threshold of sold property? There are still a lot of questions. And I can't shake this nagging feeling that when government tries to compete with the private sector, government usually loses. I'm alaso concerned that Vancouver is the only municipality in BC using such a system. Over the past 35 years, no other local government has followed their lead. Why? At the same time, I want to be responsible with the land portfolio and the Township's assets, and look at how revenue can be generated for capital projects. Needless to say, I need some firmer numbers than are in the report right now.
After a presentation from staff, Council voted unanimously (moved by Fox, seconded by Long; Ferguson absent) to approve the 2009 Snow and Ice Control Policy. After Snowmageddon last year, we have tripled our snow plough fleet (from three to nine heavy ploughs), doubled our snow removal budget, and added a mechanism to do side streets. See the presentation here:
After receiving a presentation from staff--and dealing with another verbal dust-up between Mayor Green and Coun. Richter--Council voted unanimously to refer two soil deposit application reports back to staff for more work. Council wants to look at different ways to increase fees, penalties, and other stipulations for fill applications.
Council voted 7-1 (moved by Fox, seconded by Dornan; Richter opposed and Ferguson absent) to send the Langley Events Centre's liquor permit application to public meeting, as per our usual procedure. LEC presently uses special event permits to serve alcohol at games and events.
Council voted 8-1 to defeat a staff recommendation to reopen the secondary suite bylaw (moved by Richter, seconded by Green; only Richter in favour). The majority of Council felt the approach suggested was too harsh in light of the fact that we get less than 40 complaints about suites a year, and most of those are about multi-suite homes, which are not part of this bylaw anyway.
We voted 8-1 (Richter opposed to both) to refer two staff reports to budget deliberations. One dealt with the climbing cost of planted area maintenance, and the second on pavement management.
We voted unanimously (moved by Fox, seconded by Bateman) to refer a Heritage Advisory Committee recommendation that we spend $500,000 over five years to repair the cement portion of Old Yale Road to our budget deliberations.
In a 5-4 vote, Council referred a recommendation to establish a property endowment trust to a Council Priorities Committee meeting (referral moved by Dornan, seconded by Bateman; Richter, Long, Kositsky and Ward opposed). I'm grateful for the opportunity to look at this further, as I am legitimately on the fence on this one still. Judging by the comments at the table, it's a tie vote (Green, Richter, Fox, Dornan in favour, Long, Kositsky, Ferguson and Ward opposed), and I'm undecided. I'd like to see some hard numbers from the consultant and our staff. Frankly, I think a business plan is in order--what are our projected revenues? What are our projected expenses? How much land has to be sold to make it work? What happens if we don't hit a certain threshold of sold property? There are still a lot of questions. And I can't shake this nagging feeling that when government tries to compete with the private sector, government usually loses. I'm alaso concerned that Vancouver is the only municipality in BC using such a system. Over the past 35 years, no other local government has followed their lead. Why? At the same time, I want to be responsible with the land portfolio and the Township's assets, and look at how revenue can be generated for capital projects. Needless to say, I need some firmer numbers than are in the report right now.
After a presentation from staff, Council voted unanimously (moved by Fox, seconded by Long; Ferguson absent) to approve the 2009 Snow and Ice Control Policy. After Snowmageddon last year, we have tripled our snow plough fleet (from three to nine heavy ploughs), doubled our snow removal budget, and added a mechanism to do side streets. See the presentation here:
After receiving a presentation from staff--and dealing with another verbal dust-up between Mayor Green and Coun. Richter--Council voted unanimously to refer two soil deposit application reports back to staff for more work. Council wants to look at different ways to increase fees, penalties, and other stipulations for fill applications.
Council voted 7-1 (moved by Fox, seconded by Dornan; Richter opposed and Ferguson absent) to send the Langley Events Centre's liquor permit application to public meeting, as per our usual procedure. LEC presently uses special event permits to serve alcohol at games and events.
Council voted 8-1 to defeat a staff recommendation to reopen the secondary suite bylaw (moved by Richter, seconded by Green; only Richter in favour). The majority of Council felt the approach suggested was too harsh in light of the fact that we get less than 40 complaints about suites a year, and most of those are about multi-suite homes, which are not part of this bylaw anyway.
We voted 8-1 (Richter opposed to both) to refer two staff reports to budget deliberations. One dealt with the climbing cost of planted area maintenance, and the second on pavement management.
We voted unanimously (moved by Fox, seconded by Bateman) to refer a Heritage Advisory Committee recommendation that we spend $500,000 over five years to repair the cement portion of Old Yale Road to our budget deliberations.
posted by Jordan Bateman @ 1:48 PM
