Blogathon Recap

It occurs to me that 49 Blogathon posts is a lot of material to wade through, so here is a handy index we have put together, listing all of our work Saturday and Sunday.

#1 Introduction Pt. 1 (JB)
#2 Introduction Pt. 2 (SK)
#3 The United Way of the Lower Mainland (JB)
#4 Murrayville (JB)
#5 Aldergrove (JB)
#6 Walnut Grove (JB)
#7 Langley City (JB)
#8 Living in Murrayville (SK)
#9 Living in Walnut Grove (SK)
#10 Living in Langley City (SK)
#11 Langley's Changing Demographics Pt. 1 (SK)
#12 Langley's Changing Demographics Pt. 2 (SK)
#13 Langley's Changing Demographics Pt. 3 (SK)
#14 Kid City Pt. 1 (JB)
#15 Kid City Pt. 2 (JB)
#16 Infrastructure: 208th Overpass (SK)
#17 Langley Political Scoundrels (SK)
#18 Infrastructure: The Walnut Grove Pool (SK)
#19 Notable Moments in Langley Politics (SK)
#20 South Langley (JB)
#21 Fort Langley (JB)
#22 Willoughby (JB)
#23 Residential vs. Industrial (JB)
#24 Gloucester (JB)
#25 Pork Barrel Politics (JB)
#26 Brookswood-Fernridge (JB)
#27 Willowbrook (JB)
#28 RCMP Weekly Report (JB)
#29 TransLink Funding Woes (JB)
#30 Mayors: DW Poppy Sr. and Jr. (JB)
#31 Mayors: George Preston (JB)
#32 Mayors: Bill Blair (JB)
#33 Mayors: John Scholtens (JB)
#34 Mayors: Kurt Alberts (JB)
#35 Mayors: George Brooks (JB)
#36 The Week's Best Late Night Jokes (JB)
#37 City and Township Reunification (SK)
#38 Infrastructure: The Golden Ears Bridge (SK)
#39 Three Books I've Read Recently (JB)
#40 Three Books I Plan To Read (JB)
#41 Infrastructure: 200th St. Interchange (SK)
#42 Infrastructure: Langley Events Centre (SK)
#43 Sunday Soapbox (Open Thread)
#44 The Resilient Energy City (JB)
#45 Sam's Fave Blogs
#46 Jordan's Fave Blogs
#47 LP.com Milestones (JB)
#48 Post 4,999: Sam Looks Back
#49 Post 5,000 Jordan Looks Back

Over at Fraser Valley Pulse, our friend and fellow Blogathoner Kristi Ferguson featured a number of Langley charities, including:

Langley Environmental Partners Society
Critter Care Wildlife Society
Harvest Box Program
Fraser Valley Pregnancy Centre
South Fraser OnTrax
Ishtar Transition Housing Society
Clothes 2U
Langley District Help Network
Pacific Riding for Developing Abilities
PuCKS
Langley Meals on Wheels
Langley Animal Protection Society

Blogathon #49: Post 5,000!

Five years and 51 weeks ago, we restarted Langley Politics Dotcom. After 311 weeks of continuous blogging (and this 24 hour blogathon), we have reached Post #5,000. It's a milestone we are very proud to have hit.

But far more impressive than our 5,000 posts is the fact that you all have commented more than 45,000 times on this blog. Our present commenting platform has logged 34,749 Dotcomments, and before that, we had more than 10,000 on our old system. 45,000 Dotcomments! Who says there isn't interest in local politics?

I believe more strongly than ever that government and politicians need to change the way they communicate with people. It's up to us to come to you, not the other way around.

Yesterday morning, at the Aldergrove Fair parade, a resident tweeted me to let me know where she and her family would be sitting. I met them through Twitter, but slowly they are becoming friends in this strange new Internet-y way. Earlier this morning, I posted a Facebook status that I was enjoying the summer rain falling outside my window. A neighbour who I know mainly through Facebook immediately replied. These interactions are no different and no less valid than the comments here on this blog, or the e-mails that come in through my website or the Township's website. We can be more connected than ever, but it's up to us as politicians to take the first step to build the platform for those conversations.

This blog is a vital piece of that puzzle. With Twitter, I have just 140 characters to make my point. So I sometimes need to link to a post here. On Facebook, I can import a note, relaying information I've posted here. It all works together.

We'll keep trying new things here and keep talking about the issues facing our community. Langley is an incredible place to live, work and raise a family, and I thank God every day that we found our way here in 1988--and that I've been able to stay and serve this community.

One last thing: this wouldn't have been nearly as much fun, or as successful, without Sam. He thought I was crazy when I suggested bringing LP.com back in 2003, but it's turned out better than we had ever dreamed. My kids call him "Uncle Sam" for a reason--he's a great friend and ally.

Thank you for commenting, for reading, and for sticking with us. We appreciate it greatly, and we plan to keep on going.


We're done! Langley Politics Dotcom has blogged for 24 straight hours to raise money for the United Way of the Lower Mainland. We are part of a massive 24-hour blogathon featuring bloggers from around the world. IT's NOT TOO LATE! Click here to support us by making a pledge to the United Way.

Blogathon #48: 4,999

This is it! Post #48 of the Blogathon and post #4,999 for Langley Politics Dotcom. It's 5:30 am and I'm exhausted. This has been great fun doing this sort of writing exercise for charity, but I'm glad I don't have this writing schedule every day!

I have absolutely loved working on this blog. From the humble beginnings when we had to hand-code each update and then were shut down by our former employers, to doing one of the craziest things we've ever done which is this Blogathon. I've thoroughly enjoyed every bit of it.

I credit this blog with me actually being involved in local politics instead of being just an armchair politician. I've now worked at the very grassroots of our democracy and it has been one of the most satisfying journeys of my life. And to think it all started because Jordan and I were standing next to each other at church one Sunday and I asked him about Township council and the LLT vs. LCC shenanigans. We both realized our mutual passion for politics and that's led to a fantastic friendship. And it has been my privilege to help him achieve his goal of being on Township council. And he's been a hugely instrumental in me accomplishing many of my own goals.

Local government isn't sexy. I mean, who wants to discuss sewers and water mains and DCCs? It's not exactly riveting stuff when compared to the House of Commons or the BC Leg. But, I think -- and I say this to so many people -- that local governments are the most important to the average person. This is where it's determined how many police officers or firefighters there are to save your life or your home. This is where you get fresh water to drink and to flush your toilets. This is where your pot holes get filled and snow gets cleared. This is where you can or cannot build a house or a grocery store. This is where your kids learn to play hockey or soccer or baseball. The local level of government is where the rubber literally hits the road.

All those reasons are why we started this website and I'm glad you've all been along for the ride. The next post is our 5,000th and I hope you're all there for 5,000 more.

Langley Politics Dotcom is blogging until 6 a.m. Sunday to raise money for the United Way of the Lower Mainland. We are part of a massive 24-hour blogathon featuring bloggers from around the world. Click here to support us by making a pledge to the United Way.

Blogathon #47: Looking back at 4,998 Posts of Langley Politics

As the minutes tick by, it is hard to believe the Blogathon is almost over, and how close we are to our 5,000th post here on Langley Politics Dotcom. It is a remarkable accomplishment, as we have stuck with this blog, posting continuously for almost six full years. For those of you who would like a quick trip down memory lane, here are some of our milestones:

July 31, 2003: The first post in our relaunch (we had blogged for about six months in 2000-2001) featured a story on possible federal candidates for the upcoming federal election. We floated the possibility of Dean Drysdale, John Scholtens or Peter Fassbender for the Tories (of course, no one had heard of Abbotsford councillor Mark Warawa back then) and Bill Brooks, Ginny Hasselfield and Kim Richter for the Liberals.

May 17, 2005: Post #1,000 covered the defection of Tory Belinda Stronach to Paul Martin's Liberal government.

May 12, 2006: Post #2,000 looked at Langley City Council's decision to debate and pass its 2006 budget bylaw in Harrison Hot Springs.

June 27, 2007: Post #3,000, patting ourselves on the back.

July 17, 2008: Post #4,000 looked ahead to our fifth anniversary.

July 30, 2008: We celebrate five years of continuous blogging. We also looked back at our mainstream press coverage and some other fun memories.

Ah, good times.


Langley Politics Dotcom is blogging until 6 a.m. Sunday to raise money for the United Way of the Lower Mainland. We are part of a massive 24-hour blogathon featuring bloggers from around the world. Click here to support us by making a pledge to the United Way.

Blogathon #46: Jordan's Favourite Blogs

It being, oh, 4:30 a.m., I left Sam the low-hanging fruit in the political blogosphere and let him post his favourites first. I read all of his political ones, and Godin too, and they're great. Here are a few more:

Sacha Peter's Double Blind (doubleblind.ca): Sacha stretches my brain on economic stuff, and his political insights are usually bang-on.

Keith Richmond (keithrichmond.blogspot.com): Your best local source and debate space for Langley School Board issues. I thank my lucky stars that Keith blogs on the School District, because I just don't have time to get out to their meetings.

Gordon Price's Price Tags (pricetags.wordpress.com): Sure he hates Gateway, but he's a Vancouver latte-drinkin', bike-ridin' hippie type, so how would he know what we South Fraser folks need (kidding, everyone). His urban design posts are excellent and always leave me thinking.

Brent Toderian's blog (planetizen.com/blog/10088): Vancouver's chief planner doesn't blog nearly enough, but when he does, it's gold.

South Fraser OnTrax (southfraser.blogspot.com): Joe and Nathan do a great job offering (usually) balanced commentary on transportation and planning issues.

Frances Bula (francesbula.com): I carry a completely professional torch for Frances, the best civic affairs reporter in Canada. Her lecture in journalism school on the importance of local government steered me to a municipal hall beat, which in turn led me to run for office. That gives me an idea: the next time you disagree with one of my Council votes, I suggest you write Frances Bula. She got me into this mess.

Public Eye Online (publiceyeonline.com): How did Sam miss this one? How else would I have ever heard of Lesley du Toit?

And a special shout-out to our Blogathon buddy, Fraser Valley Pulse. You're doing great, Kristi!


Langley Politics Dotcom is blogging until 6 a.m. Sunday to raise money for the United Way of the Lower Mainland. We are part of a massive 24-hour blogathon featuring bloggers from around the world. Click here to support us by making a pledge to the United Way.

Blogathon #45: Sam's Blog Selections

Jordan and I are taking turns to talk about our favourite political blogs that we like to read. My list isn't very long. I have tended to focus my own blog reading on business stuff so I have a bunch of techie and marketing blogs, which I'd be happy to share with you for shits and giggles.

1. Slashdot (http://slashdot.org/)-- More of a clearing house for tech and science related stuff. Not that I'm a big science buff, but when I can pull out facts at a dinner party and look like a really smart guy... I thank Slashdot.


2. Ars Technica (http://arstechnica.com/) -- Again, a bit techy but far more accessible and reader friendly than Slashdot. I prefer this site, to be honest. But I don't rely on it as much to make me look like a genius at those same dinner parties.


3. Seth Godin (http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/) -- Jordan's going to be pissed at this one because I've totally stolen it from him!! Seth Godin is a marketing guru who has no problem thinking outside the box, calling a spade a spade and challenging marketers to be better. I (heart) Seth Godin.
   


4. Age of Persuasion (http://cbcpodcasts.wordpress.com/) -- This is a series of podcasts from Terry O'Reilly, a Toronto advertising genius, that actually airs on CBC Radio. This links to the most recent season of audio. The official website is http://www.cbc.ca/ageofpersuasion/

But, when I read political blogs... I first start with Langley Politics Dotcom (Duh!) Then I check these out:

1. City Caucus (http://www.citycaucus.com/) -- I think they stole our idea, but they do it really, really well and have turned in to some media success (regularly panelists on NW and CBC). Plus, they have Francis Bula (http://www.francesbula.com/) writing for them.


2. North Vancouver Politics.com (http://northvancouverpolitics.blogspot.com/) -- My friend and former business partner, Barry Forward, started this after seeing our blog (ed - are you noticing a trend here, folks!).


3. Paul Willcocks (http://willcocks.blogspot.com/) -- Victoria Times Colonist columnist (say that 10 times fast) who supplements his newspaper column with some other inside bits on his blog. I really like Paul's common sense approach to his provincial political analysis.


4. Warren Kinsella (http://www.warrenkinsella.com/) -- And how is a day complete without a read with Canada's own Prince of Darkness, Ontario's answer to Karl Rove and James Carville put together and take-no-prisoners political operative? Remember that Chretien guy? Well, Warren was the spinmeister at that helm. He left when PMPM became Liberal leader, but now he's back with Iggy.

Langley Politics Dotcom is blogging until 6 a.m. Sunday to raise money for the United Way of the Lower Mainland. We are part of a massive 24-hour blogathon featuring bloggers from around the world. Click here to support us by making a pledge to the United Way.

Blogathon #44: The Resilient City

Last week, I came across this blog post on The Dirt, called "How to Design Resilient Cities." Wherever you stand on the issues of peak oil or climate change, I think there's merit in exploring how a community like ours can become more energy-efficient and pollute less. The blog post quotes seven signs of a resilient city:

"Renewable Energy City: Urban areas will be powered by renewable energy technologies from the region to the building level." As an example, the authors point to the German city of Freiburg, also known as the "ecological capital of Europe," as a renewable city. Freiburg has incorporated renewable energy into many sections of the city (e.g. SolarRegion Freeburg). The authors also cite the use of LEED, home solar panels, and innovative community financing schemes for solar and wind power.

"Carbon Neutral City: Every home, neighborhood, and business will be carbon neutral." The authors note the range of green rating systems (LEED, BREAM, Green Globes, and the New South Wales BASIX approval system).

"Distributed City: Cities will shift from large centralized power, water, and waste systems to small-scale and neighborhood-based systems"

"Photosynthetic City: The potential to harness renewable energy and provide food and fiber locally will become part of urban green infrastructure." The authors cite the city of Vaxja in Sweden, which has developed a locally-based renewable energy strategy that takes "full advantage of its working landscapes, in its case the abundant forests that exist within close proximity to the city."

"Eco-Efficient City: Cities and regions will move from linear to circular or closed-loop systems, where substantial amounts of their energy and materials needs are provided from waste streams." Ideas noted here include William McDonough’s Cradle to Cradle (C2C), and viewing cities as a "complex set of metabolic flows."

"Place-based City: Cities and regions will understand renewable energy more generally as a way to build the local economy and nurture a unique and special sense of place."

"Sustainable Transport City: Cities, neighborhoods, and regions will be designed to use energy sparingly by offering walkable, transit-oriented options supplemented by electric vehicles." As an example, Vauban, Germany (part of Freiburg) has re-designed its transport networks so many of its streets are now cut-off to cars. A majority of people don't even own a car, and use bikes and public transportation to get around. Also, NYC and Chicago were lauded for their green plans.

It's some interesting stuff, but the examples do show you how far we as a region are lagging behind some other places when it comes to dealing with these issues.

I think Langley is making progress on a number of these fronts, however. Local governments across the Province, including ours, are aggressively working to reduce our carbon emissions. Out of a motion I made last term, Council is awaiting the arrival of a pre-feasibility study on a district energy pilot project. As I have previously blogged:

It is also interesting to discuss some of the issues around energy. For example, Abbotsford has very grave and real concerns about Metro Vancouver's push toward garbage-to-energy plants. Abbotsford is worried about air pollution. But in a conversation I had with our environmental coordinator Ryan Schmidt, Ryan brought up another concern: should we as a region become energy-reliant on a process that needs garbage to function? What then would be the impetus for our region to reduce our waste?

Good question. In the end, there are some pretty good possibilities out there with geothermal, solar, heat capture from sewer and ice arenas, and even anaerobic composters for farm waste.

One area worth exploring in this blog post is "photosynthetic city." While the Swedish example focused on the forests surrounding the community, I think we have a legitimate case to look at our agricultural land and see what waster there can be turned into energy.

It's a bright, new, green world out there, and communities like Langley Township have an opportunity to lead the way, as long as elected officials like myself ensure that the economics, science, and sustainability of these projects are in place.


Langley Politics Dotcom is blogging until 6 a.m. Sunday to raise money for the United Way of the Lower Mainland. We are part of a massive 24-hour blogathon featuring bloggers from around the world. Click here to support us by making a pledge to the United Way.

Blogathon #43: Sunday Soapbox

It's 3 a.m., Sunday morning, which means we're due for our weekly Sunday Soapbox, a thread where you can post anything that's on your mind but doesn't fit anywhere else.

Here's a Wordle word cloud showing what we have blogged in the past seven days (click to enlarge):


Langley Politics Dotcom is blogging until 6 a.m. Sunday to raise money for the United Way of the Lower Mainland. We are part of a massive 24-hour blogathon featuring bloggers from around the world. Click here to support us by making a pledge to the United Way.

Blogathon #42: Langley Events Centre

The final infrastructure project I want to look at as "transformational" is the brand new Langley Events Centre that officially opened in June of 2009. Again, this one is pretty new and the exact impact to the community is truly yet to be seen. Opponents have said it would be a "White Elephant." Proponents, whom I side with, say that it will be booked in some capacity almost every single day of the year.

History
How did the complex come about? The Township was in the planning stages of building a new hockey arena for the Langley Chiefs, and looking to work with Trinity Western. BCHL rules stipulated the required seating capacity for their team's arenas and the George Preston Arena (the former home of the Chiefs) did not meet that requirement. The building became truly multi-purpose when Gary Geisler, head of the Langley Gymnastics Foundation, came to Council. LGF had been looking for a new home after outgrowing its old facility near the Langley Airport and came to council requesting some funding as well as a location. Enterprising minds realized that they could kill several birds with one stone if they could combine an arena and set of gyms with a gymnastics training facility and maybe put a recreation centre in there as well. Willoughby seemed like the perfect fit for the facility. Land was available, facilities would be needed in that area and it was right on a major transportation route.

At the same time, the Township had also asked MLA Rich Coleman about provincial funding. Coleman was Minister of Forests and realized that he could help fund it from his ministry if BC wood products were used. In December 2006, Coleman came back with the word that he had secured $15 million for the project. One of the best Christmas gifts a town could get!

The owners of the Langley Chiefs put together the Langley Development Group and won the construction bid by putting up $15 million of their own. Then the Township put in $19.9 million. Trinity Western University was on board with the Langley School District to build a world-class CIS-rated gymnasium that would house athletics year round to the tune of $6.5 million. Gymnastics added another $1 million.

On Time, On Budget
Construction started shortly after and the facility was completed in the Spring of 2009, in time for the BC Gymnastics Championships. The project was on time, on budget and looks to be everything that was promised it would be. A rink that can also host concerts and events. A world-class gymnastics facility that could train future Olympians -- just like the Walnut Grove Pool has done. A university gym that will be home to CIS and high school basketball and volleyball. Semi-pro basketball. A state-of-the-art community rec centre. Gorgeous banquet facilities.

White Elephant
Of course there were detractors. It was too expensive, they said. Langley could do with something more modest. It'll never be used. It's a waste of money.

I say that's nonsense. To me, the decision to build this facility was like the 208th Street overpass and the Walnut Grove Pool. It's about vision and planning and foresight for the benefit for the community. Ask any Abbotsford resident what they think of the massive tax hikes they are currently enduring to build only a hockey rink!! They would kill to have a facility twice the size for only $19.9 million of local money, which was covered through DCCs, the Long Term Financial Plan, and surplus, not through property tax hikes. Between the Langley Chiefs, TWU Athletics (which is moving their entire Human Kinetics faculty to the LEC permanently), the Vancouver Titans, Langley Thunder senior and junior lacrosse, Langley Gymnastics Foundation and the Township of Langley, hardly a day will go by that the Langley Events Centre won't busy and in active use.

Community Impact
Willoughby and the rest of Langley will find that the LEC will become the focal point of major events for the Township. From sports tournaments to concerts to community activities, the impact to Langley will be huge in terms of the impact on the local economy. Residential and commercial development around the complex will accelerate. That development will also bring increases to transit (such as rapid buses and, perhaps, light rail). Visitors will go to nearby stores and restaurants and spend money. And the residents of both the Township of Langley and the City of Langley will be able to take pride in a fantastic facility.

Langley Politics Dotcom is blogging until 6 a.m. Sunday to raise money for the United Way of the Lower Mainland. We are part of a massive 24-hour blogathon featuring bloggers from around the world. Click here to support us by making a pledge to the United Way.

Blogathon #41: 200th Street Interchange

The penultimate infrastructure project that I'll be taking a look at is the 200th Street Interchange at Highway #1. Probably most readers of this blog use the interchange often and undoubtedly you all have pretty strong feelings about whether it was a good project or not. I know where I stand on it. But before I get into that, let's look at the history of the project.

Single Point Interchange
Highly controversial from the moment it was announced under the then NDP government after years and years of the Township begging for improvements. As you will recall, this was pretty much the principal and only route to Walnut Grove from the rest of Langley, unless you went 20-plus blocks to the east and took Glover Rd. The traffic for this was increasing day by day. Then you can compound that issue the other biggie: it was also the principal method of gaining access to Highway #1. With the planned increase in residential and commercial development for the Willoughby area, it was foolhardy for Langley's main highway interchange to only be one lane in each direction.

Once the province's announcement of the interchange expansion was made, the cheers from Langley were short lived. The interchange design was to be of a completely new concept that had hardly been tried and tested anywhere else. It was to be a Single Point Interchange (SPI) design, meaning that it was not to be an expansion of the existing cloverleaf design that just about every other highway interchange in North America employed. But, why the SPI design? Because, it wasn't to be a project funded and built primarily by the Ministry of Transportation -- it was to be a P3 project. A road building company was to take on the financial responsibility of building the interchange using the sale and/or lease of commercial buildings built on the lands adjacent to the project; lands the Ministry of Transportation owned that the present interchange sat on.

Immediately, the Township protested along with residents, a few of whom were traffic engineers. They claimed that it was a flawed design and that the province needed to rethink the plan. One former engineer was Jacob de Raadt. He was particularly vocal in his opposition, even founding on opposition community group with an impossibly long name that I can't for life of me remember. Something to do with "real cloverleafs" or something to that effect. I remember when this blog was first started and Jordan and I posted under pseudonyms that I used to give de Raadt all sorts of grief. Mostly because somehow I knew that no matter how much we all bitched and moaned here, the Ministry of Transportation was not going to change its mind.

"Secret" Emails
However, the MoT did do a review of the project as a result of an internal email from a MoT engineer claiming that the SPI would not function as advertised. Somehow Langley Politics Dotcom got a copy of that email. I honestly can't remember how we got it, but we posted it to this website and fireworks ensued! However, when the review was completed it said that the dissenting engineer was wrong and that the SPI would work exactly as modeled. You can read that report here.

Zoning Blockade
Township council did its best to get out of the SPI design. It dragged its feet at every opportunity to rezone the former MoT lands now owned by B.A. Blacktop, the project leaders, for commercial purposes. One unintended consequence of the filibustering was that Langley lost the opportunity to be the home of the Ikea store that now resides in Coquitlam. Eventually, however, political pressure from Victoria was brought to bear and council was basically informed that it was SPI or nothing. The choice was theirs, but those were the options available.

The rest is history. The zoning went through, the SPI was built and commercial buildings have been going up on the land where traditional cloverleaf on/off ramps would have been. And, of course, the famous "dip" that B.A. Blacktop had to fix at their own expense on the south side of the freeway.

Does It Work?
I know many, including my good friend Jordan, still firmly believe that the 200th Street Interchange is an absolute disaster and that it just doesn't work. I disagree, which will probably put me in the minority of Langley residents.

**Warning: I'm neither a scientist nor a traffic engineer, so if I screw up this explanation... Anyway, you've been warned.**

The reason I think it works is because of an obscure lesson that I remember from my Physics 11 teacher. He showed us an example of a bridge on a highway and explained why traffic backs up whenever you have a psychological feeling of being hemmed in on your sides, such as when you enter a bridge deck and railings suddenly appear on on either side of you. You instinctively hit the brakes. Thus traffic backs up when there are lots of cars, such as at rush hours. Sure, I thought, that makes sense.

Then my teacher blew my mind. He showed us how at rush hour, despite the low speed with which drivers crossed the bridge, the same volume of cars crossed the deck per hour as when it wasn't rush hour and cars were driving at higher speeds. What? How is this possible, I wondered? Well, obviously cars are closer together during peak times than at non-peak times. But, the same amount of cars make it across the bridge per hour? A totally bizarre phenomena, but it's true. The math checked out when he ran the equations.

As applied to the 200th Street Interchange, the key word here is volume. While we as drivers may feel that we are not "free flowing" over the interchange, I think that the same volume of vehicles make it through as would on a cloverleaf design. That's why the interchange "works."

Now, was the SPI a good idea? Would it have been better for us to have free flowing cloverleafs instead of a traffic light in the middle of an overpass? Is the increase in traffic to the commercial buildings going to worsen the amount of cars going across the overpass? I'm not sure. Many of those questions can only be answered over time. Not that that's an ideal way of finding out if the MoT's math on traffic volumes will hold up, because if there is a problem it's not so easy to fix.

Present and the Future
With the SPI being built, the area around it has seen rapid development. The uncertainty for land developers was erased and now we have Thunderbird Village, the South Carvolth business parks and, eventually, the Golden Ears Bridge. For the Bridge, I imagine that Translink would not have situated it north of Langley if the 200th Street Interchange was not there. It would probably be in Surrey.

Langley Politics Dotcom is blogging until 6 a.m. Sunday to raise money for the United Way of the Lower Mainland. We are part of a massive 24-hour blogathon featuring bloggers from around the world. Click here to support us by making a pledge to the United Way.

Blogathon #40: Three Books I Plan To Read...

Council is presently on a five-week meeting hiatus, which lessens my reading load by a few hundred pages of bylaws and development applications every week. That's a good thing, as my reading pile keeps growing. Here's some of the items I want to get to, with a handy-dandy description from Amazon (I'd summarize myself, but hey, it's 1:30 a.m.).

Three Books In My Reading Pile:

- Welcome to the Urban Revolution: How Cities are Changing the World by Jeb Brugmann. In Welcome to the Urban Revolution, internationally recognized urbanist Jeb Brugmann turns traditional thinking about globalization on its head to show that the city isn't a backdrop to global change; it is a central driver of change- political, economic, social, and environmental. This powerful reappraisal of the global role of cities brilliantly synthesizes urban studies, economics, and sociology to show how cities create but can also help solve some of the 21st century's major challenges, including poverty, inequality, and environmental sustainability.

- Who's Your City by Richard Florida. The world is not flat, and Richard Florida is the man to tell you why where you choose to live is more important than ever. Passionate and thoughtful, this book is an indispensable guide to the way our cities really work. The spirit of Jane Jacobs lives on.

- Ecocities by Richard Register. Most of the world's population now lives in cities. So if we are to address the problems of environmental deterioration and peak oil adequately, the city has to be a major focus of attention. EcoCities is about re-building cities and towns based on ecological principles for the long term sustainability, cultural vitality and health of the Earth's biosphere. Unique in the literature is the book's insight that the form of the city really matters - and that it is within our ability to change it, and crucial that we do. Further, that the ecocity within its bioregion is comprehensible and do-able, and can produce a healthy and potentially happy future.


Langley Politics Dotcom is blogging until 6 a.m. Sunday to raise money for the United Way of the Lower Mainland. We are part of a massive 24-hour blogathon featuring bloggers from around the world. Click here to support us by making a pledge to the United Way.

Blogathon #39: Three Books I Recently Read...

Our bleary-eyed Blogathon goes on... I love to read. I read pretty much anything I can get my hands on, but for the past four years I've been focused, for obvious reasons, on books about urban planning. Here are three books I have recently finished, and one I'm reading now.

Three Books I Recently Read:

- Urban Planning Today by William S. Saunders, Editor. Two professors--one from Harvard and one from Yale--bring together a collection of essays on topics from "Humane Density" to "The Politics of Megaproject Approval." I know, exciting stuff. The most interesting essay involved a design process for Omaha, Nebraska, which outlined how planners built consensus in putting together essentially an Omaha OCP.

- City of Glass by Douglas Coupland. I love Coupland (Life After God and jPod were unbelievable), and had read City of Glass a few years back. I found it while cleaning out the garage recently, and it's just as I remembered--a pithy, fun, bang-on love letter about Vancouver. It's an A-Z of Vancouver, with some short stories as well. I love the entry on "Real Estate!":

Real estate gets an exclamation point because it's Vancouver's biggest sport, way ahead of skiing and sailing, and is disturbingly central to the civic psyche. Real estate agents are local celebs of sorts, and the weekly homes section of the paper is scrutinized like a fortune cookie. Those people who own property resemble Microsoft employees who check their computers every few hours to see their net worth... If the conversation is ever lulling with a Vancouverite, bring up the subject of real estate and sit back to watch the conversation go on autopilot.

- The Walkable City by Mary Soderstrom. I wasn't thrilled with this one. It tried too hard to use imaginary conversations between 19th century Paris planner Baron Georges-Eugene Haussmann with Jane Jacobs. It just didn't flow for me, and I felt the ideas got lost.


The One I'm Reading Now:

- I'm about three-quarters of the way through Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us) by Tom Vanderbilt. It's fantastic. Clear, engaging and puts language to things we have all experienced but few have ever thought about. It is also helping me understand the Township's traffic engineers a little better. Well worth a read if you're into transportation issues.


Langley Politics Dotcom is blogging until 6 a.m. Sunday to raise money for the United Way of the Lower Mainland. We are part of a massive 24-hour blogathon featuring bloggers from around the world. Click here to support us by making a pledge to the United Way.

Blogathon #38: Golden Ears Bridge

I know that the Golden Ears Bridge is barely out of its wrapping and has yet to show exactly what benefits it results in for Langley. But I think it'll prove to be hugely transformational and it, without a doubt, will change the nature of Lower Fraser Valley and its relationship to the rest of the Metro Vancouver region.

Up until June 16, 2009, Langley was physically hemmed in by Surrey to the west, Abbotsford to the east, the US/Canada border to the south and the Fraser River to the North. With the opening of the Golden Ears Bridge, the river is no longer the barrier it once was. Sure, the Albion Ferry was there, but we all know how long it took to use it. Four, five and six sailing waits were not uncommon at peak times. Not exactly reliable, especially when it comes to lower weight commercial traffic. For heavy commercial trucks, the Port Mann Bridge was the only route and the traffic there wasn't predictable either. Now, getting to the north side of the Fraser River is a relatively simple trip.

I believe that opening up traffic between Ridge-Meadows and Langley changes both communities' standings in the region. Now it's not nearly as difficult to access either place and that could potentially mean economic clout. Intermodal yards on both sides of the river are now equally accessible. Langley and Port Kells in Surrey have significant industrial businesses that now have more access to the other side of the river. It gives Port Coquitlam and Ridge-Meadows better access to the border. It enables the communities to draw even more significant corporate investment from companies that are looking for cheaper areas to do business in but may have felt they were isolated from the rest of the region. I probably could find more examples, but you get the idea of what I'm driving at. When future transit decisions are made or regional planning is proposed, leaving Langley and Maple Ridge out of the discussions will be at the detriment to the entire Metro Vancouver region.

And, of course, you and I can get to the Tri-Cities and Ridge-Meadows in a fraction of the time that it took before.

Of course, we have to pay tolls now to use the bridge. Part of me resents it, but I'm finding that the idea of tolls on more bridges makes sense to me. There's a real cost to using infrastructure like roads and bridges and I see that cost every time I use them. It's much the same to me as when I see my gas gauge dip lower each time I drive in my car. Or when I eat food from my fridge. There's a real cost associated to my use of a resource. I don't have to like it. Hell, I hate having to pay every time I fill my tank. Especially since I remember how much cheaper things like gasoline used to be years ago. But, times have changed and this is economic reality we live in today.

I don't think the bridge would have been built at this time if Langley hadn't opened itself up to development over the past ten years. Our population has grown significantly with estimates of future growth to be even higher. I'm sure that's a major reason that Translink moved the project ahead when they did. As I said in my 208th Street overpass post, it was gutsy political decisions from previous councils that made that possible.

I'll leave you with this question: Imagine if Langley didn't have the growth it has seen and the Golden Ears Bridge wasn't built for another 10 years from now, where would that leave this community in terms of its influence in the region?

Langley Politics Dotcom is blogging until 6 a.m. Sunday to raise money for the United Way of the Lower Mainland. We are part of a massive 24-hour blogathon featuring bloggers from around the world. Click here to support us by making a pledge to the United Way.

Blogathon #37: Reunification

Reunification between Langley City and Langley Township is always a sticky topic. But, it's the elephant in the room in Langley politics and it might as well be me, Sam Kirk the non-politician, who talks about it.

When you look back at why the City ceded from the Township, I can't say that I blame the Langley Prairie business owners and residents. This was a classic example of the Urban vs. Rural tension that has existed in Langley since Day 1. When Reeve George Brooks said his famous "Not one nickel for street lights in Langley Prairie" quote, it demonstrated a lack of understanding of the importance that the Urban brought to the Rural and vice versa. And because of that lack of understanding, we have a divided community today.

When I talk to people today, especially those that have only recently moved into the area (and there are A LOT of those people when you look at the population numbers from 1986 and compare them to today), I always get asked, "Why are there two separate Langleys?" Few today even know of the street light issue in the 50s. To them, the border between the two communities is invisible and they wonder why that invisible line even exists.

So, here's what I think: Reunification between the City and the Township will happen at some point and I can't see why it shouldn't be sooner rather than later.

Not so different anymore
I suppose that some in the City might feel I still don't understand the differences... and therein lies the essential issue at hand today. In 1950, the issues were real front and centre, but today, I honestly think those issues no longer exist. In 1950, the farmers many miles away didn't want to pay for something that they felt was unnecessary, while the Langley Prairie businesses were paying a bunch of tax money into a municipality and seeing very little in return. Today, in 2009, the boundaries of urban, developed Langley City are against the Township of Langley that is just as urban, just as developed. The argument that Langley Township is rural and couldn't possible understand City issues rings pretty hollow to me.

By and large, I see the issues that urban Langley Township face are much the same as urban Langley City -- sustainable development, fostering business growth, dealing with aging facilities, crime as well as population growth, to name but a few. Having been a resident of both, I think the two communities are much more alike than either would care to admit.

Why Reunify?

• No more fighting! Who can remember why we were fighting in the first place?
• Maps would be easier to understand! I jest, but I'm also serious.
• Taxes could be potentially be evened out. You wouldn't get one property with a far different tax bill than one across the street because of an invisible line.
• No more duplication of services. Engineering, planning, emergency services... especially no more fighting over the RCMP bill every time the contract comes up for renewal.

What could end up being the barriers to reunification?

• City Hall and Township Hall: There are two bureaucracies in Langley and that would take some real work to sort out the duplications of service.
• Casino: With several millions of dollars in gambling revenue coming into the newly debt-free City, residents there might feel like they can go it alone. And it can. But why? Just because it can?
• Rural Langley: Many in the rural areas may still feel that the urban doesn't belong in Langley and don't want to add to what they already don't like. But we're a community, people! We're the sum of our parts! Rural is good for Urban, Urban is good for Rural.
• Long memories and loads of resentment: I'm just going to say it -- some people are just really bitter about the past. But for the sake of all of Langley, we need to get over events that happned more than 50 years ago. United, Langley could be a powerhouse in the region. Divided, our influence in Metro Vancouver is reduced.

Anyway, that's how I see it. It might not be universally popular to talk about reunification, but I think the conversation needs to be started again some time and it might as well start now. What do you think?

Langley Politics Dotcom is blogging until 6 a.m. Sunday to raise money for the United Way of the Lower Mainland. We are part of a massive 24-hour blogathon featuring bloggers from around the world. Click here to support us by making a pledge to the United Way.

Blogathon #36: The Week's Best Late Night Jokes

Hey, it's late at night, and I'm blogging about the week's best late-night political jokes (via the fine, funny folks at About.com). Here's my favorite this week from Conan O'Brien: "To commemorate the 40th anniversary of the moon landing, the three astronauts from Apollo 11 visited the White House. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were allowed to set foot inside the White House, while Michael Collins was forced to drive around in circles outside.."

Be gentle. We've been blogging for 17.5 hours straight.


Langley Politics Dotcom is blogging until 6 a.m. Sunday to raise money for the United Way of the Lower Mainland. We are part of a massive 24-hour blogathon featuring bloggers from around the world. Click here to support us by making a pledge to the United Way.

Blogathon #35: The Mayors: George Brooks

Mayor George Brooks. Who, you may say? Don't remember that name? Well, you'll likely remember his famous line: "Not a nickel for street lights in Langley Prairie!" Brooks was reeve of the Township from 1950 to 1955 and it was on his watch that the City of Langley seceded.

Under Brooks's leadership, Township Council--made up predominantly of farmers--refused to pay for urban services to be installed in the Langley City commercial core. With roughly 2% of the Township's land base, the merchants were paying 20% of the taxes, but getting very little in return. It's little wonder why 80% of land owners in Langley Prairie endorsed secession. As a City of Langley backgrounder recalls:

Few services were being afforded the burgeoning area whose tax dollars were being funneled into rural Langley. There were no sewers, no water system, no street lights. When a request went out for a few street lights, and Reeve George Brooks replied, "Not a nickel for street lights for Langley Prairie," the people of the area knew something drastic had to be done.

Warren Sommer's Nothing Without Effort calls Brooks "outspoken" and reports he "became the object of considerable ill feeling as the secessionist movement came to a head."

What if Reeve Brooks had recognized the economic importance and, frankly, political pragmatism, of properly funding the Prairie commercial core? What if he had been a peacemaker, and not quite so "outspoken"? One wonders if history might have turned out differently, and Langley would have been spared that messy divorce 54 years ago.

Nonetheless, Reeve Brooks may have had the single greatest influence of any mayor on this community.


Langley Politics Dotcom is blogging until 6 a.m. Sunday to raise money for the United Way of the Lower Mainland. We are part of a massive 24-hour blogathon featuring bloggers from around the world. Click here to support us by making a pledge to the United Way.

Blogathon #34: The Mayors: Kurt Alberts

When I was elected to Council in 2005, the first person to call me and congratulate me was Kurt Alberts. It was a classy gesture by the three-term Mayor, especially considering what a pain-in-the-you-know-where I was as first a newspaper reporter and then muckraking blogger. We agreed to get together for lunch before being sworn in.

I was pretty nervous walking into Adrian's at the Airport that afternoon, but Kurt and I had a good conversation. We agreed to leave any personal issues in the past and try to find common ground in our agendas. We also wanted to keep the lines of communication open.

Over the next three years, my perception of Kurt changed. His vision of an Arbour Ribbon, of a Fort-to-Fort Trail, purchasing the Fort Langley waterfront, and pursuing the Langley Events Centre, resonated with my desire to balance urban and rural needs and provide recreational opportunities for kids. He supported full-time fire fighters, as I did. When I did disagree with him (on slot machines, for example), we were able to leave the debate at the door of the Council chamber and not get personal.

Elected life is not as black and white as I thought it would be. Even as a reporter, I never really grasped how a councillor often has to vote 100% in favour of something they may only support 51%. Votes are "yea" or "nay."

Kurt had a completely different style than his predecessor John Scholtens. This was no doubt the result of his completely different background--he wasn't a farmer or a businessman as most Langley mayors have been; he was a planner, having spent many years on Township staff. Kurt never hesitated to slow a process down if he sensed opposition forming to it.

When he decided to take on secondary suites, for example, he took his time. We processed that bylaw to death, taking it to multiple open houses and forums, talking about it all over the place, and nursing it along, every step of the way. The result was that a bylaw that split other communities passed peacefully in the Township of Langley. When it finally came to the official public hearing, hardly anyone spoke, and most were supportive. The wrinkles had been ironed out in the previous meetings, and people felt comfortable with the bylaw. It passed with little fanfare but has made a world of difference to young families needing mortgage help and to people looking for rental accommodation in the always-tight Langley market.

The cost of this different approach was that it took Alberts longer than Scholtens to accomplish things. But progress was made: when he was defeated after nine years (as the fourth-longest serving mayor in Township history), two fire halls were staffed full-time, the Fort-to-Fort Trail had been built, and the Langley Events Centre was well on its way to completion. Huge swaths of the Township had been protected for current and future park area, and several heritage sites were saved.

A few weeks ago, the Events Centre opened, and the crowd gave Kurt a standing ovation for his service to our community. I'd like to think it was a thank-you, not just for his time as mayor, but his years as a planner as well.


Langley Politics Dotcom is blogging until 6 a.m. Sunday to raise money for the United Way of the Lower Mainland. We are part of a massive 24-hour blogathon featuring bloggers from around the world. Click here to support us by making a pledge to the United Way.

Blogathon #33: The Mayors: John Scholtens

What can I say about John Scholtens? If you were here in the 1990s, you probably already have a pretty non-negotiable opinion of the man. As a reporter covering Township politics during his second term as mayor (1996-1999), John was always good to me, even when he probably wanted to smack me upside the head for some of the questions I was asking, and the things I was reporting.

That LLT Council built some pretty important pieces of our community: the Walnut Grove pool, the 208th Street overpass, the Aldergrove water treatment plant, hiring 16 new RCMP officers, and Aldergrove downtown revitalization. He hired Mark Bakken, who has turned out to be an absolutely brilliant CAO. Even turning our arenas over to a private firm to operate has been a positive move. Coun. Dean Drysdale quarterbacked a plan to get the Township's general taxpayers out of debt--a feat we hold to this day. They froze property taxes, by managing a (I can still hear John's voice in my head) "a 9% growth in commercial and a 15% growth in industrial". They weren't perfect (no government ever is), but they did a lot of good things. All of that controversy just seems like a lot of water under a long-forgotten bridge. The day we renamed the Willowbrook library in honour of Muriel Arnason proved that point: all four mayoralty candidates in that messy 1999 election were there and very gracious to one another (Scholtens, Kurt Alberts, Steve Ferguson and Heather McMullan).

There were significant flaws in the process of how Scholtens's team operated. That's probably the most significant lesson to be gleaned from their time: people care about this community, and they want to have a legitimate say in the process of how it is governed and developed. Give them the opportunity to speak--and not just at all night public hearings in rural schools. I think John, as a businessman, was completely frustrated by his first term as mayor, and pushed too hard in the second.

One thing you may not know about John is that he has a great sense of humour. At my 2007 fundraiser, tickets were $60. John pulled me aside and wrote me a cheque for $99. Anyone here in the '90s will get that joke.

When John left office, there were 75,000 people living in Langley Township. Today, that number is more than 100,000. So for you 25,000 newcomers, I apologize for the "oldtimer" nature of this post.


Langley Politics Dotcom is blogging until 6 a.m. Sunday to raise money for the United Way of the Lower Mainland. We are part of a massive 24-hour blogathon featuring bloggers from around the world. Click here to support us by making a pledge to the United Way.

Blogathon #32: The Mayors: Bill Blair

Bill Blair was a longtime councillor before winning the mayor's seat in 1981. He died in office in 1985, but his short four years of leadership were among the most pivotal in Township history.

Blair was a dairy farmer (I drive by his old farm on 216th, across the street from Langley Airport, about a thousand times a week--or so it feels sometimes) who, after being elected mayor, found himself on the frontline of managing urban growth in Walnut Grove and throughout the Township. Naturally, he had concerns about the impact of urban development on the rural way of life, but he didn't let that prejudice him against growth. Instead, he found ways to leverage that development to do great things for the Township. He led the community admirably through the early 1980s recession, making some tough choices along the way. He championed Gloucester, despite the impact on farmland.

Under Blair, the Township became a functioning part of the region. In those days, the Township ran its own water, sewer, and garbage systems. For a year or so, it even had its own bus system. None of these were affordable long-term, so mayors like Elford Nundal and Blair moved the community into a stronger relationship with the Greater Vancouver Regional District. Deciding to join the GVRD was vital to the sustainability of Langley.

Four months after being re-elected in 1984, Blair died. His stint in the centre chair was short, but memorable. You have to hand it to someone who clearly enjoyed rural support and the rural lifestyle, but made the right decisions for Langley's urban corridor. He must have felt like that proverbial young man who dates a girl his parents loathes, and who ends up defending mom and dad to his sweetheart, and his sweetheart to mom and dad. These were difficult decisions.

W.C. Blair Recreation Centre was named in his memory. The late Muriel Arnason once told me that Bill Blair visited every inch of the Township every week he served in office. No wonder he knew the community so well.


Langley Politics Dotcom is blogging until 6 a.m. Sunday to raise money for the United Way of the Lower Mainland. We are part of a massive 24-hour blogathon featuring bloggers from around the world. Click here to support us by making a pledge to the United Way.

Blogathon #31: The Mayors: George Preston

I didn't know George Preston well, but I--and many other Langley residents--felt our community lost someone special the day he died in January 2006. A few weeks before he passed, I had taken new Langley MLA Mary Polak into his car dealership to meet him. He was very kind to both of us, cracking jokes with that twinkle in his eye.

When Preston defeated D.W. Poppy Jr. for the mayor's chair in 1971, it signalled a changing of the guard. Preston was a businessman, not a farmer, and he wanted to bring a business philosophy to Township Hall. As Warren Sommer wrote, "Under Preston and his successors, councils would place increasing emphasis on providing appropriate services for suburban residents while fostering the health of the farm-based economy."

Most notably, Preston led the charge to build the Langley Civic Centre (now named in his honour) in Brookswood. He was in the mayor's chair when the NDP brought in the Agricultural Land Reserve, which triggered a need to develop a Langley-wide community plan. In essence, zoning was brought in on Preston's watch. He lost the election in 1975, but came back in 1979, serving until 1981, meaning he oversaw the groundwork for Walnut Grove.

But it's what Preston did after politics that is so inspiring. He gave generously to every cause he could, and for more than 20 years, was the first person anyone would call when they were planning a charitable event. It was for his philanthropy, more than his politics, that he was honoured as a freeman in 2002.

The first motion I authored as a Township Councillor was one to honour George by renaming "Preston's Palace," as the local papers had dubbed Langley Civic Centre while it was being built. When Mayor Alberts announced the "George Preston Recreation Centre" at George's memorial service, the ovation was long and loud. It was a perfect fit. Here is that motion, which was passed unanimously by Council in January 2006:

WHEREAS George Preston, a remarkable leader and philanthropist in our community, has passed away;

AND WHEREAS Mr. Preston was a freeman of the Township of Langley;

AND WHEREAS Mr. Preston was twice mayor of Langley Township, governing this community during two pivotal terms, and was a two-term president of the Langley Chamber of Commerce;

AND WHEREAS Mr. Preston was tireless in his support and philanthropy of community organizations like Langley Memorial Hospital, Langley Community Music School, Special Olympics, the Langley Fire Department, the Langley RCMP, Shriners, Kinsmen, K40, and Rotary, among many, many others;

AND WHEREAS Mr. Preston was mayor when the Langley Civic Centre opened in November 1973, and has been a longtime supporter of countless sports teams;

THEREFORE be it resolved that this Council move to rename the Langley Civic Centre the "George Preston Recreation Centre,"

AND FURTHER be it resolved that the ceremony take place at a date of Mrs. Iris Preston's choosing.

I think our community still misses George greatly. All of us who love Langley should follow his example of generosity and kindness.


Langley Politics Dotcom is blogging until 6 a.m. Sunday to raise money for the United Way of the Lower Mainland. We are part of a massive 24-hour blogathon featuring bloggers from around the world. Click here to support us by making a pledge to the United Way.

Blogathon #30: The Mayors: D.W. Poppy Sr. and Jr.

Over the next five or six posts, I'm going to profile some of the Mayors of Langley Township who have inspired me, got me thinking, or who I feel shaped this community in a strong way. I have known some of them personally, while others passed away long before I came to Langley. I should mention that I'm an ex-journalist, not a historian. I apologize if any of my historical details are suspect, but I hope long-timers can look past that to the core of what I'm trying to communicate.

I'm going to start with the two D.W. Poppy's. DWP Sr., who went by the name Dave, was reeve from 1908-1913 and 1919-1923. DWP Jr., who went by the name Bill, was mayor from 1956 to 1971.

In 1910, the BC Electric Railway (or as we call it, the Interurban) arrived in Langley. Imagine the changes that brought--quick, easy access to New Westminster and the markets north of the Fraser. Reeve Poppy probably made a speech very similar to the ones we heard on the Golden Ears Bridge--"a great accomplishment," "vital for commerce," etc. According to A Langley Story, Poppy was the first president of the Langley Board of Trade, which pressed for as much transportation access to the north Fraser as possible, most notably a boat that could outrun the train to New Westminster. Even then, the leaders of our community spent a lot of time talking transportation.

Poppy Sr. again became reeve after the election in 1919, hot on the heels of the conclusion of World War I. More than 360 men from Langley had enlisted in the armed forces, with 38 never coming home. The community must have been heartbroken and relieved all at once. Still, the soldiers who came home caused a land rush in Langley. The servicemen were given loans to buy property, and many did.

Poppy Jr. took office in 1956, a year after Langley City seceded. One wonders if Poppy would have held it together had he been in the mayor's chair, and not George Brooks. In 1957, the Albion Ferry opened, and in 1958, Poppy oversaw the centennial celebration of Sir James Douglas's proclamation of British Columbia as a Crown colony at Fort Langley. Princess Margaret and Premier W.A.C. Bennett were on hand for that one. Progress rolled on, the Township grew to more than 20,000 people under Poppy's watch, Highway 1 was built, Trinity Western College opened its doors, the Township added a recreation department, and Brookswood began to develop.

The Poppys saw a lot of change but managed it as best they could. In many ways, Langley grew up under their stewardship--especially Junior, who watched as the seeds of urbanization were sown around him. In 1990, Bill Poppy was given the freedom of the Township, the highest honour our community can bestow on a citizen. He was held in high regard until he died in 2004. We blogged about his http://www.langleypolitics.com/2004/08/d.html.

I don't believe I every met Bill Poppy. I would have liked to have asked him about the challenges he and his father faced as thousands of people poured into the Township. How did they cope with the change? How did he handle the City's secession--and all the bad blood that had accrued between the two municipalities? What decisions would have he liked to have had back?


Langley Politics Dotcom is blogging until 6 a.m. Sunday to raise money for the United Way of the Lower Mainland. We are part of a massive 24-hour blogathon featuring bloggers from around the world. Click here to support us by making a pledge to the United Way.

Blogathon #29: TransLink Funding Woes, Commuting and PM2

Transportation issues have been all over the news this week, as the timeline for a TransLink funding solution draws nigh. Both Black Press and the Globe and Mail have stories on the continuing standoff between the Mayors' Council and the provincial government.

Meanwhile, South Fraser OnTrax blogger Nathan Pachal continues to explore how to attract drivers onto transit. Charlotte, NC, has figured out how: according to the Overhead Wire blog, 72% of riders on their new light rail line haven't used transit before.

In other transportation news, the Port Mann/Highway 1 project has a new website: www.pmh1project.com. And Vancouver Sun columnist Harvey Enchin explains why concentrating jobs in an urban core like Vancouver inevitably leads to some car use in the suburbs:

As if to highlight the futility of the anti-car crusade, CMHC recently published a comparison of neighbourhoods that clearly demonstrated why we have suburbs and the need for commuting.

Those of you with inherited wealth, no kids or a lucrative career in drugs or stock fraud may be able to afford a $1-million teardown on the west side or be content in a 550-square-foot condo in the heart of city.

Neither situation works for the average family. The qualifying income for a standard two-storey house in Vancouver is $125,800. Median income is around $62,000.

Fine, you say, families can go live and work in Langley. Ah, but here's the rub.

Residents of the central area, according to CMHC, have 22,000 jobs within one kilometre from home.

On the fringe of downtown, in Kitsilano, for instance, there are 11,000 jobs within one kilometre. Increase the radius to five kilometres -- a gentle bike ride or short bus trip away -- and the number of jobs jumps to 252,000 downtown and 229,000 jobs in the adjacent area.

In Langley, and similar suburbs, there are just 970 jobs within a kilometre and only 26,000 within five, a tiny fraction of the number available to inner-city folks.

(clipped)

Speaking of Prius, it -- and vehicles like it -- is the future. People are not going to give up private automobiles. Neither will they stop raising children or wanting backyards for them to play in.

They will be forced to live in the suburbs and to drive their cars -- powered perhaps by electricity, hydrogen or corn oil -- to work. They will still need roads, bridges and places to park. To deny them that is an attack on the family, pure and simple.

Langley Politics Dotcom is blogging until 6 a.m. Sunday to raise money for the United Way of the Lower Mainland. We are part of a massive 24-hour blogathon featuring bloggers from around the world. Click here to support us by making a pledge to the United Way.

Blogathon #28: RCMP Weekly Report

7:30 is the girls' bed time, so I'm doing some tucking-in, story-telling, and good-night-kissing (have I mentioned that being a dad is great?). Plus the summer rain and thunderstorm is a nice touch. 8 pm will be another quick and easy post, looking at some transportation news that has been in the headlines this week.

With my 8:30 p.m. post, I'm going to shift gears and start looking at the political careers of several different Township Mayors--the Poppys Sr. and Jr., George Preston, Bill Blair, John Scholtens, Kurt Alberts, and George Brooks. Should be good stuff. I'm especially intrigued by Poppy Sr. and Blair, who took on some tough challenges.

In the meantime, here is an excerpt from Langley RCMP Superintendent Janice Armstrong's weekly web report:

This past week, our Community Safety Officers, our Core Enforcement Team in Aldergrove, our partners at the Township's Fire Department and Bylaws all focused their attention on a problem house in the 1700 block of 264th Street. As a bit of background, the property contained a number of structures including a couple of houses and a barn. Residents living in one of the houses and barn had been served eviction notices by the property owner but he had little success getting rid of his problem tenants,some of whom were known to police as prolific offenders. Fire Services had already condemned the house and barn and it was slated for destruction. On the 17th of July, police were conducting surveillance on the property and noted one of the tenants using an industrial sized fuel container to fuel up vehicles that drove onto the property. Fire Service and Bylaws re-attended the property with police for an inspection. More problems were noted with the residence and barn and an immediate destruction of the buildings was proposed as a result of the safety risks located. The owner of the property agreed to have the buildings destroyed immediately and equipment was brought in to tear down the structures. The main tenant will receive about $2,500 in fines for contravening the Fire Services Act. His van was also seized as a result of previous motor vehicle infractions. Of particular note, when the buildings were being demolished, nearby neighbors gathered on the side of road and began clapping. You might only imagine the torment that neighbors go through when they have to contend with problem households like these ones. I can't say enough about the cooperation we enjoy with our Bylaw Department and Fire Services. Excellent work by all involved!

Langley Politics Dotcom is blogging until 6 a.m. Sunday to raise money for the United Way of the Lower Mainland. We are part of a massive 24-hour blogathon featuring bloggers from around the world. Click here to support us by making a pledge to the United Way.

Blogathon #27: Willowbrook--the Good, the Bad, & the Future

Willowbrook, known officially to regional planners as the Langley Town Centre, has been an incredible success. When one considers that the GVRD, Township and the City (along with the Ministry of Transportation) all have stakes in Willowbrook, it has come together beautifully.


Willowbrook: The Good

When it comes to retail, no town centre outside of Vancouver has done as well as Willowbrook. It brings a lot of money into our community as people from Surrey (and now Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows) come to shop here. Over the past 25 years, Township Council and staff have relentlessly pushed big-box retail into the town centre, protecting Langley from urban sprawl and creating synergy among groups that are usually competitors.

Wal-Mart, loathed in many communities, has been a net positive for us. They are a strong anchor tenant for 64th Avenue, and the development's work to restore Jeffries Brook's fish habitat has been outstanding.

The Township moved its municipal hall into the area in 2005, and that has enhanced access to municipal services for thousands of Willowbrook residents.


Willowbrook: The Bad

Traffic in Willowbrook can be bad, very bad, especially north-south along 200th at peak time. Throw in a few trains a day, and there is a significant problem. While some transit exists, it's all bus, and does not attract many choice riders.

Office development, as contemplated in every town centre plan, really didn't materialize at the level we were hoping. We're hoping that Carvolth (the development just south of the 200th Street freeway interchange) will house more office space.

Density in the surrounding area has been restricted to low-rise apartments and townhouses. There had been the hope for towers, but without adequate transit, those just aren't going to materialize.


Willowbrook: The Future

How about a light rail nexus, with trains running east-west on the old Interurban line, and streetcars up and down 200th? Sounds good to me! The trains could serve some higher density residential in and around Willowbrook Mall.

I suspect the Mall will undergo a major facelift and expansion within the next decade or so, otherwise, it will feel quite dated. Some kid-friendly amenities, stores oriented to the outside, and even some on-site residential towers could be in the mix. The roof could be used for solar panels or gardens.

As transit in the area improves, I think you'll see some of these parking lots either shrink or go underground, allowing "densification" of commercial and residential uses on some of these massive lots.


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Blogathon #26: Brookswood-Fernridge--the Good, the Bad, & the Future

Brookswood-Fernridge both is and is to come. The first generation of suburban development came fast and furious in the 1960s and 1970s, and thanks to the controversial mid-'90s Township Council decision to concentrate growth in Willoughby, the next generation in Brookswood-Fernirdge is likely still a decade off.


Brookswood-Fernridge: The Good

Brookswood has lots of trees, a nice commercial core, the well-used George Preston Recreation Centre, and a wonderful regional park (Campbell Valley). Entire generations of children have grown up in this community, and it's done well, especially when on considers that it developed without much of a plan, and the Township had to play catch-up with services for many years.


Brookswood-Fernridge: The Bad

In 1972, according to Warren Sommer's Nothing Without Effort history book, Brookswood's development was panned by consultant Eugenia Bedford, prmopting the Township to bring in stronger zoning and planning requirements:

Brookswood has changed. No land was left for an elementary school that would be needed. No provision was made for safe school paths for the existing elementary school. No provisions for small, intensely developed playgrounds were made. However, a commercial area was zoned. The developers moved on to other areas, the builders are moving on, the real estate people will leave when the last house is sold. And the District is stuck with providing the services. There was no legislation allowing a municipality to demand these services from the developer... this planning report should have been done before the area was subdivided.

The Township learned its lesson and changed the way it planned communities. The very negative report was right from a process angle, but Brookswood's residents and the Township came together and created a very livable community.

Once upon a time, Genstar owned Sunrise Lake and the surrounding property. Township Council of the early 1980s could have bought it for $1 million and used it for both a public water feature and drainage servicing for future development. They didn't, and the Lake is now privately held by a number of land owners.


Brookswood-Fernridge: The Future

Development in Brookswood, under the 1995 Council decision, is on hold until five things happen:
- revisiting and redoing the Brookswood Official Community Plan
- developing neighbourhood plans for each stage and area
- addressing servicing, the most significant issue of which isn't water or sewer (thanks to High Point), but drainage. While the Township has a covenant to use Sunrise Lake to store stormwater, it seems highly unlikely that the Lake's neighbours would ever allow that to happen without a protracted, messy public and court battle. So other options will likely have to be found.
- addressing environmental issues, not the least of which are Brookswood's many significant trees (remember last term's attempt to bring in a Brookswood tree bylaw? The community overwhelmingly rejected it.)
- addressing school/park issues, although we have a good head start on this with current Township holdings.


Langley Politics Dotcom is blogging until 6 a.m. Sunday to raise money for the United Way of the Lower Mainland. We are part of a massive 24-hour blogathon featuring bloggers from around the world. Click here to support us by making a pledge to the United Way.

Blogathon #25: Pork Barrel Politics

It's suppertime, so I need a short and sweet post to give me some time to get something to eat, and leave it to the federal minister responsible for economic development in Quebec to bail me out. According to Canoe News, MP Denis Lebel has funneled more than $6 million in federal grants to his riding of Roberval—Lac-Saint-Jean in the past two weeks.

Among the grants was $94,770 for a butcher shop. Brings new meaning to pork barrel politics! Back at 6:30!

Blogathon #24: Gloucester--the Good, the Bad, & the Future

One may not think of an industrial park as a neighbourhood, but Gloucester is an incredibly important economic engine for both Langley and the region. Located at Hwy. 1, just down Hwy. 15 from the Aldergrove border crossing, Gloucester has been a resounding success. I cannot tell you how many times John Scholtens touted a "15% growth in industrial" during the tumultous LLT years.

While Township Council now routinely makes decisions to rezone and grant development permits on massive projects within Gloucester (and we rarely, if ever, have a member of the public comment on it at public hearing), the original plan was very controversial. It took an appeal to the provincial government's Environmental and Land Use Cabinet Committee to overturn an ALC decision to keep the Gloucester land in the Agricultural Land Reserve. The ALC chairman was so upset, he resigned his post. It took three years to resolve the ALR issues. In 1982, Council (under the leadership of Mayor Bill Blair) voted 6-1 in favour of Gloucester. Even Coun. Muriel Arnason voted for it. Still, the ALC tried one last ditch effort to keep it in the ALR, but cabinet overruled them in April 1982.

Township planner John Geragthy says there is an important lesson to be learned from a Gloucester public hearing in the early 1980s. They held the meeting at the Aldergrove Legion Hall, and the Legion's bar was open. Apparently, it was a well-lubricated crowd. That was the last Township public hearing to offer drink service!


Gloucester: The Good

Gloucester's success can be traced to its location and its land prices. It was simply cheaper to buy serviced industrial land in Gloucester than it was anywhere else, which led to the building boom.

Gloucester is wholly owned by the Beedie Group, which has guaranteed very specific building design standards. For an industrial park, there is quite a few trees and some greenspace.


Gloucester: The Bad

Setting aside 90 acres for the golf course just didn't work. The course was never built.


Gloucester: The Future

Township staff have told me that Gloucester has given up on the golf course plan, and will be coming forward with a plan to take half that space for more industrial, and make the other 45 acres parkland. The Super 8 hotel has also been talking about applying for a pub licence.

The bigger question is what happens when Gloucester fills up (it is roughly two-thirds developed). There are some possibilities for densifying within the industrial park itself, but there will be immense pressure to take some more of the ALR land surrounding it--either north or east into Abbotsford.

There has also been talk of using the roofs of these massive buildings for things like greenhouses, urban gardens/green roofs, and even solar panels.


Langley Politics Dotcom is blogging until 6 a.m. Sunday to raise money for the United Way of the Lower Mainland. We are part of a massive 24-hour blogathon featuring bloggers from around the world. Click here to support us by making a pledge to the United Way.

Blogathon #23: Residential vs. Industrial

We interrupt our series on neighbourhood planning with this late breaking news. Well, it broke yesterday, but it's pretty interesting. Blogger Frances Bula reports on a debate Vancouver City Council is having, not amongst themselves, but with their planning staff, over a proposal to build two residential towers (one market condos, one rental) near the future SkyTrain station on Marine Drive.

Planning staff don't like it because it's an industrial area, and they foresee all sorts of issues:

Head city planner Brent Toderian emphasized that allowing residential leads to land speculation and gets in the way of residential development. There was also lots of emphasis at the meeting on the project's proximity to the waste-transfer station and potential problems with smells.

As well, Metro Vancouver's planning department and Ports Canada, which has suffered itself from the incursion of residential onto industrial land, have sent in letters opposing any move to allow industrial land to be converted to even partial residential use.

It's kind of no-lose for Vancouver--there are many sustainability arguments to be made for the mixed use residential towers near a SkyTrain station. But protecting industrial is also an important goal of every municipality. Indeed, Vancouver politicians and staff are often critical of the erosion of industrial land uses in a regional setting. Now the decision hits very close to home.

I have a lot of respect for Vancouver's chief planner, Brent Toderian. In a decision like this, his recommendation against residential towers would hold a lot of weight with me.


Langley Politics Dotcom is blogging until 6 a.m. Sunday to raise money for the United Way of the Lower Mainland. We are part of a massive 24-hour blogathon featuring bloggers from around the world. Click here to support us by making a pledge to the United Way.

Blogathon #22: Willoughby--the Good, the Bad, & the Future

It's tough to judge Willoughby right now, as it is very much a work in progress. Huge swaths of land have been developed, but almost half of Willoughby is still without a neighbourhood plan. And only 18,000 of the projected 65,000 future have moved in. This has all come about after a 1996 Council decision, a controversial one in front of a packed house at Christian Life Assembly, to focus development in Willoughby, not Brookswood.


Willoughby: The Good

No Township community has been planned with as much sensitivity to the environment as Willoughby. Wildlife corridors and tunnels, greenways, tree protection and replacement policies, and natural drainage have all been embraced in the various neighbourhood plans. Indeed, when Willoughby is built out, there will be far more trees there than before development started. It will be an urban forest, as developers must plant two trees for every one that comes down.

Willoughby will aslo feature almost twice the density of Walnut Grove. While this has been criticized in some quarters, it is absolutely vital to get the kind of transit service, urban amenities, and town village feel we are striving for. It also includes a mix of housing types--condos, townhouses, rowhouses, fourplexes, duplexes, and single-family homes.


Willoughby: The Bad

The Township tried a bonus density scheme in the Routley neighbourhood, hoping to entice more amenities and greenspace in return for extra density. Developers were not interested; bonus density was scrapped from future plans. The land values, while high for Langley, simply were not at the necessary level to get developers to pursue bonus density.

Very recently, I think the majority of Township Council made an error by amending the Jericho sub-neighbourhood plan to allow a strip mall at 200th and 80th without including residential. As I wrote on Tuesday:

Frankly, we don't need more commercial on 200th Street--we need residents to encourage improvements in transit. We had a choice of one of two paths for 200th Street. We could choose to be a sprawling, commercial strip mall corridor like South Fraser Way, or we could choose to embrace sustainable, smart growth principles and stick to our decade-long plan and work to encourage the Willoughby Town Centre and Langley Regional Town Centre. Following the developers' advice and allowing essentially a commercial strip mall there, with very few residents nearby, would jeopardize all of that effort, and I could not support it. Those stores will only be accessbile by cars until the developer gets around to building residential nearby--which could be 10 years off. We owe it to future generations to make the tough decision necessary to ensure 200th becomes a smart, pedestrian-friendly, transit-oriented corridor. Unfortunately, the majority of Council disagreed with both staff and me, and the amendment passed 5-3 (Bateman, Richter and Ward opposed).

Further compounding this planning folly, Council voted 5-3 (Bateman, Richter and Fox opposed) to approve a second amendment to allow a 15,000 sq. ft. anchor tenant in the strip mall. This will draw even more cars.

Willoughby: The Future

More development, more innovative planning, more great families moving into Willoughby.


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Blogathon #21: Fort Langley--the Good, the Bad, & the Future

I need to write faster; I'm starting to cut these a bit close. Half-an-hour isn't much time to write if you need to eat, or visit the bathroom, or make a phone call, or step blinking into the sun for a moment.

Anyway, Fort Langley, the Birthplace of BC, is both a desirable place to live, and a wonderful place to visit. Recreational investments like the Fort to Fort Trail, Spirit Walk, and Bedford Rowing Club have added vitality to our waterfront. The previous Council's decision to purchase the Bedford House property is one I think will be looked back on very favourably--it secured contiguous waterfront access to Bedford Channel for the first time in a generation.


Fort Langley: The Good

By virtue of being an older community, and the floodplain surrounding it, Fort Langley is extremely walkable. The community plan, passed in the mid 1980s, has protected that Fort Langley feel. The heritage design guidelines, while some people complain they are too broad ("That house should be Georgian, not Victoria"), have greatly improved the look of the Village. There's an old story of Bedford House owner Herby Feishcel battling either the planning or heritage committee to get his small Glover Road pub approved. They frowned on the design because it wasn't "Fort Langley" enough. Then Herby brought in some photos of old Fort Langley, with the mud and the dirt and the ramshackle facades. "Is this what you want me to build?" he asked. Needless to say, a compromise was reached.

The Fort Hall is a perfect "anchor tenant" and landmark, and the business core has come together beautifully with artsy, innovative shops and restaurants. People want to spend time in Fort Langley.

Not widely known is the fact that an individual businessman named Eric Woodward has purchased several of the buildings in the Village and done a masterful job of renovating and restoring them. This was a much-needed facelift.


Fort Langley: The Bad

The heritage design guidelines came along because of a few less-than-heritage-feel buildings in the Fort. In particular, that single story cinder block building at the foot of 96th Avenue could use a major rebuild to better fit the character of the Fort.

Fort house prices are always a bit higher than anywhere else because they are a limited supply, yet in constant demand.


Fort Langley: The Future

On July 31, the Albion Ferry shuts down. While some folks outside Fort Langley lament its passing and wonder how the businesses will survive, most Fort merchants are glad to see it go. The Albion brought heavy platoons of through traffic down Glover every 10-15 minutes, and very few cars ever stopped. The Albion's demise will make Fort Langley even more pedestrian-friendly and allow merchants to hold more walking events like the Cranberry Festival.

The Langley Centennial Museum continues to be an issue. There is no consensus in the community or on council about what to do with it. It has become completely overshadowed by the Fort Langley National Historic Site. There are several lots the Township owns between the Fort NHS and the Museum that have historically been earmarked to pay for a Museum expansion.

Bedford Landing will continue to develop. That's a beautiful neighbourhood and the people I know who live there are thrilled with it.


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Blogathon #20: South Langley--the Good, the Bad, & the Future

South Langley is one of the great, unique features of the Township. Breathtakingly beautiful, it also serves the ever-important purpose of agriculture. High Point, located at the foot of 200th Street, is a high-end community built around extending that rural, horse-owning lifestyle to urbanites. It has been very successful, and it's sewer line is a huge boost to Brookswood, Fernridge and south Langley. It took a long time to get that project started (who can forget the 1997 all-night public hearing when Vicwood wanted the golf course and housing development?), but when one considers that both a mobile home park and a landfill were proposed for the site in the 1980s, the wait was worth it.


South Langley: The Good

South Langley's best asset is that, for the most part, government has stayed out of owners' way and let them put together some absolutely incredible farms and estates. It's truly beautiful, as we all know. The nickname "Horse Capital of BC" is well-earned.

The rural plan, which included the encoruagement of wineries, has been a great success. That rural plan was the first in the province for a suburban municipality, and it has held up very well since the late 1980s.

More recently, the Circle Farm Tour, Campbell Valley riding trails and other investments have reaped rewards for locals and tourists alike.


South Langley: The Bad

Water is a much more significant issue in rural Langley then in rural Abbotsford next door. In the 1960s and 1970s, Abbotsford took the provincial government up on offer to fund 75% to 90% of a municipal water system. Langley did not. Today, all through rural Abbotsford, people are on municipal water mains. Township farmers, meanwhile, rely on their own wells. It saved quite a bit of property tax dollars at the time, but it's a decision I wish went the other way.

The speed humps on 0 Avenue moved a significant amount of traffic to 16th Avenue, instead of diffusing it throughout the network. The Township is still trying to come to terms with the fallout of that decision.

The single worst thing in the Township is actually a provincial government policy: the Right to Farm Act. This Act, brought in by the NDP during the mushroom wars of the late 1990s, means the Minister of Agriculture has to sign off on any Township bylaw affecting the rural areas. This has crippled the Township's ability to mitigate future disuptes in the rural area, as an owner can do virtually anything they want in the name of farming--even if it negatively impacts the neighbourhood. For example, the Township had passed a mushroom composting moratorium, but that was struck down in the late '90s. Less than a decade later, there were incredible complaints about the Truong farm (which was ultimately shut down after the tragic deaths of several farm We run up against Right to Farm constantly, whether it be our gravel extraction moratorium (an issue that has popped up with the Aldergrove fish farm application), soil deposits, and even siting of barns (chicken barns' exhaust systems facing neighbours' homes 100 feet away).


South Langley: The Future

I suspect 16th Avenue will eventually be a provincial highway, much like Glover Road. It now serves too important a regional purpose for Victoria to ignore forever.

Challenges will continue to arise wherever intensive, intrusive agriculture pops up--whether it be aggressive soil deposits, greenhouses, or mushroom barns. Right to Farm will continue to cause issues for residents who will feel that their neighbours have more rights than they do. We need to ensure we have a good relationship with Victoria to keep the peace in south Langley.

The rural-urban interface will become more important than ever, as the Township pursues its Arbour Ribbon and other policies to keep the uses separate. As even more people move into the urban areas of Langley, the rural area will feel pressure; future Councils will need to work long and hard to balance the needs of the entire community.


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Blogathon #18: Walnut Grove Community Centre

The next major infrastructure project that I'll be looking at is the Walnut Grove Community Centre. I see this as a transformational project because a) it's a one of the best facilities of its kind in Metro Vancouver, b) it was built in spite of great controversy, and c) I can't even imagine it not being a part of the fabric of this community.

Some of you may question my pick, but I think it bears out because it was a product of the tumultuous Langley Leadership Team era. Love 'em or hate 'em, the LLT did have a vision and built many things and made decisions that I'm personally thankful for as a current Langley resident. I may not always have thought so at the time -- in fact, I was not a fan of the LLT's way of doing municipal politics. But, when I look back in retrospect I see wisdom in the results even if I disagreed with the methods at the time.

Now, I don't want to get into it too heavily here, but there is an aspect that I want to touch on about development in Langley. When I look at the arguments surrounding all of the controversial projects in Langley, there seems to me to be a common undercurrent. Those that approve of major infrastructure projects tend to come from the built-up areas. Those that object often seem to be from the more rural areas. Urban vs. Rural. It's not a new thing. As you'll read in my next post, you'll see that it's been a hallmark of Langley from the very start. Almost like it's a part of the DNA of the community. Street lights on Langley Prairie, anyone?

As I say, I don't want to get into that too deeply right now. But I think it's important to point out because many of the projects I'm discussing (including the one below) are facilities that a growing community requires. But they often take foresight to make them come on stream in time for those that require them, despite the objections from residents who think they might never use them.

But, enough editorializing! On with the show...

Walnut Grove Community Centre
Built at roughly the same time as the 208th Street overpass, it was a centrepiece of the Langley Leadership Team's vision for the future growth of Langley. In the late 90s, Walnut Grove was just coming into its own. It was one of the newest town centres. New homes were being built like crazy, commercial space was starting to fill out and the promise of a revamped 200th Street interchange and a new overpass on 208th Street meant that Walnut Grove wouldn't continue to be somewhat orphaned from the rest of Langley.

Next door to Walnut Grove Secondary School was a very small community centre. It's clear in hindsight that it would never have been adequate to handle the incoming residents that were moving into the new houses and streets. But in the late 90s, the idea of spending tax dollars on a pool and associated amenities was controversial. At that time, the population of Walnut Grove was growing and would soon be more populous than the other built up areas of Langley such as Brookswood, Murrayville, Aldergrove and Langley City. But they didn't have an ice rink, a pool or a fitness centre. For a pool, residents had to drive 20-plus minutes to Murrayville to the W.C. Blair Pool or go to the outdoor pools in Ft. Langley or Langley City (and then only in the summer months). For ice rinks, there was the new Twin Rinks in Langley City, the Aldergrove Arena and the Langley Civic Centre (now George Preston Rec Centre). Or, the residents need to go to a neighbouring community such as Surrey.

So the LLT-dominated council decided to build a pool adjacent to the existing community centre. Critics bashed the idea and the plans as being too lavish and fought hard to kill the project. But, it went through and the pool was built.

Was it a good idea?
As you can probably guess, I'm a fan of the facility both when it was being built in the late 90s and today. I'm especially a fan of it now that I'm a Walnut Grove resident. So, I say it was the right project for Langley at the right time. Notice that I didn't say it was solely a good project for Walnut Grove. That's deliberate because I think that this is a facility that benefits the entire community.

Today, new or emerging town centres are clamoring for new or updated facilities. Pools are expensive both from a construction aspect as well as an ongoing maintenance aspect. But, they make great community centres as they allow for additional facilities such as exercise/fitness centres, meeting rooms, parks and rec programs and libraries. Today, Aldergrove desperately needs a great pool to serve as a focal point for indoor community activities. The proposal of adding a pool onto the existing Kinsmen facility seems like a perfect fit to me. But, the Township would not be able to afford the facility if they had to build another pool elsewhere in the municipality because the existing ones were inadequate to keep up with the population.

I'm sure that Willoughby would love a pool, but that community now has the Langley Events Centre with its parks and rec facilities, so that's just not in the cards. The Walnut Grove Pool is more than able to accommodate residents from Walnut Grove and Willoughby. W.C. Blair pool will require extensive upgrades to bring that 25 year old facility to modern standards, but that's certainly cheaper than building a brand new facility. To my mind, that leaves the Township the ability - if the funds are available - to fund a new pool where one does not exist but is badly needed -- Aldergrove.

Now, I'm sure the council of the day didn't contemplate this exact scenario 15 years ago. But, councils that have a certain amount of foresight make good decisions such as the one to build the Walnut Grove Pool.

World Class
And it should be noted that the pool hasn't just been for Walnut Grove or other Langley residents. The pool is such a good facility that it plays host to swim clubs and tournaments that draw from all over the province and even the rest of North America. The Township even won awards for the design of facility.

A number of years ago, a former co-worker of mine who lived in Vancouver and I were talking at our office (in Vancouver) she asked me where I lived at that time. I told her Langley and she immediately said that she'd just been out there that past weekend for one of her kid's swim meets and was totally blown away that we had something like the Walnut Grove Pool way out in there in the sticks. I just smiled.

More recently, Township council received a letter from Jake Tapp, a swimmer with the Canadian Olympic team who competed in the 2008 Beijing games. In the letter, Jake thanked the Township of Langley for building such a great pool in Walnut Grove where his childhood swim club, the Langley Olympians, trains. He directly attributes having access to such an amazing facility with being the reason he is one of the world's elite swimmers.

Ten years later, just as I can't imagine the 208th Street overpass not having been built, I can't imagine this pool not being in Walnut Grove. It was the right facility at the right time for Langley despite the protests and opposition at the time.

Langley Politics Dotcom is blogging until 6 a.m. Sunday to raise money for the United Way of the Lower Mainland. We are part of a massive 24-hour blogathon featuring bloggers from around the world. Click here to support us by making a pledge to the United Way.

Blogathon #19: Notable Moments in Langley Political History

In the last post, we read about William Willison Gibbs. In this post, I'll share a few more stories from "The Langley Story Illustrated, An Early History of The Municipality of Langley" as well as one story that is undoubtedly the most significant political event in modern Langley.

The first is an interesting story that is the direct reason that Gibbs became Warden of Langley in 1876.

By the end of 1875 the municipality was having difficulty getting new blood on council. Many of the original members had retired in frustration. It became so bad that the New Westminster Mainland Guardian wrote:

"LANGLEY. GONE WHERE THE WOODBINE TWINETH. The Langley Council, the first rural Municipality on the Mainland, and the one that has broken more of the commandments than any other, living or dead, has at last given up the ghost, and lapsed into the limbo of nothingness. After a painful and chequered career, embroiled in troubles from within and troubles from without, this notorious 'Cabinet of absurdities' has wrapped its fossil shell around it and laid down to pleasant dreams. Cause of death, failure to fill up vacancies caused by absence of members as required by the Act of Incorporation. Requiesat in pace."

And in a later paper:

"...in absence of a public cremator the bones of the defunct body will be decently interred by the rate-payers at an early date in the new cemetery."

It was little wonder that councillors got frustrated at meetings. On June 4, 1874, James Houston and Alexander Williams presented bills claiming for damages to their property as the result of road construction. The total claims had amounted to $250. The council, which included Houston, after due consideration, "resolved to consign the Bills to the waste paper basket." At the next meeting Houston tendered his resignation.

And if you thought that getting adequate funding for infrastructure was only a recent thing, you'd be wrong. Langley actually requested the province provide Langley the princely sum of $2,000 for expansion while at the same time collecting a road tax from residents. Then they hired the lowest bidder, William Henry Vanetta and his father-in-law Alexander Murchison, to do the job.

And complaining about taxes being too high is also not a new thing. In 1891 at a municipal council meeting, an argument started that ended in a lose-lose land deal.

At one of the council meetings in 1891 James Johnstone complained about his land taxes. He pointed out that he paid more taxes on 100 acres than Reeve Maxwell did on 300. This annoyed Maxwell and he rose and gave an explanation. He pointed out that Johnstone had 100 acres of the former Hudson's Bay Company farm--the most fertile and sought after soil in the Fraser Valley--while he had 300 acres of heavily timbered hilly terrain which was subject to flooding. Johnstone still was not satisfied claiming the Maxwell's farm had more value than his and yet he had heavier taxes. Maxwell's Irish dander flared and before he realized what he was saying he told Johnstone he could have his farm, even trade, if he did not like his taxes, or else he could shut up and go home. With that he threw an amount of cash on the council table and told Johnstone to match it. He did. Now if either man backed out the other picked up the two bundles of cash. Johnstone called Maxwell's bluff and said it was a deal. All this took place in less than five minutes, before either had a chance to discuss it with their wives. It was afterwards felt that both men came out losers. Johnstone, who never had any family, was saddled with 300 acres of uncleared land, while Maxwell, who eventually raised a family of ten, had only 100 acres. Maxwell had to purchase neighbouring farms in order to support his large family.

"Not a nickel for street lights for Langley Prairie"

Probably the most important event in modern Langley political history occurred in 1950 when one of the most famous phrases was spoken by Reeve George Brooks. That started the move to separate Langley City from Langley Township to create two different municipalities. Arguably, this may be the most significant moment in Langley history.

In the early 50s, Langley Prairie was growing by leaps and bounds and was generating (according to some) over 20 per cent of Langley's tax revenue. But the urban area was getting no services in return - no sewer, water or streetlights. When the chamber of commerce requested money for streetlights, Reeve Brooks responded by saying, "Not a nickel for street lights for Langley Prairie." Within a couple of years, the province passed Bill 72, the "Langley Incorporation Act," and Langley City was born following a referendum where 90% of voters approved the separation.

Langley Politics Dotcom is blogging until 6 a.m. Sunday to raise money for the United Way of the Lower Mainland. We are part of a massive 24-hour blogathon featuring bloggers from around the world. Click here to support us by making a pledge to the United Way.

Blogathon #17: A Langley Political Scoundrel

For the next two posts, I'll be looking at some of the earliest politics in Langley. Much of what I'll be writing about comes from "The Langley Story Illustrated, An Early History of The Municipality of Langley" by Donald E. Waite. It's a pretty interesting read. You can actually read it online here: www.fortlangley.ca/langley/langley.html

Much has been said over the years (and nowhere more often than on this blog by me and Jordan) that "politics in Langley is a bloodsport." I think John Campbell may have said that phrase most famously (and recently), but it probably wasn't the first time it was uttered in the years since Langley's settlement in the 1800s. If you thought the bloodsport was only a recent pheonomena, think again. According to Chapter 3 of the Langley Story, " Langley's politics seem to have run smoothly for the first three years of the Municipality's existence."

This is where we are introduced to arguably the most colourful and controversial character in Langley politics, a gentleman named William Willison Gibbs (left). Perhaps "gentleman" is too nice of a word. The man was completely corrupt and was later literally chased out of town.

As the result of all this frustration Mackie lost the Wardenship to William Willison Gibbs in the January, 1876, election. Gibbs was destined to become Langley's most colourful, and yet most corrupt pioneer. Neither Municipal nor Provincial Archives reveal where he came from or whom he married. His first public service had been school trustee. At the first municipal council meeting in 1873, he had been appointed to the dual role of Clerk to the Council and Municipal Treasurer. In June of that year he was granted a retail liquor license for the Fort Langley Hotel, located just to the west of the old fort. He had earlier gone into partnership with James Taylor. Their hotel faced difficulties in June, 1875, when council voted in favour of prohibition within the township. This did not stop Gibbs and as a result Mackie, who was justice of the Peace as well as Warden, convicted him of selling liquor.

The conviction for selling liquor prompted Gibbs to run for Warden. He won the election. Upon attaining the height of his ambition his vanity got the better of him. Dressed in a black suit and white shirt, and with a cane in hand, he paraded about the Steamer Landing at the fort. He was brought down to earth--in more ways than one--just as a steamer was landing one morning. A lithe young half-breed, whose sister he had insulted and terrified a few evenings earlier, approached the newly appointed Warden and punched him several times in the face. Upon regaining his feet Gibbs made a boastful remark so his antagonist gave him a second pounding. This time he stayed down for the count, much to the amusement and satisfaction of the electorate.

Now, that's a bloodsport. But it gets better. You want to talk about porkbarreling, Gibbs was the master. Imagine being able to grant yourself a liquor license today.

The popularity of Gibbs declined rapidly after his election win for the Wardenship. At one of the first meetings in which he officiated, he granted himself a liquor license despite opposition from his council. This caused him to lock horns with Councillor Maxwell. The Councillor directed some improper language at the Warden and Gibbs instructed Clerk George Towle to take the words down.

Maxwell also directed some improper language at a road builder at the same meeting, who was giving a cost estimate for a bridge across the Salmon River. Maxwell reckoned the estimate was much too high. "Why I could p-- halfway across that creek," remarked the Councillor.

"Councillor Maxwell, you're out of order" shouted Warden Gibbs as he pounded the gavel on the desk.

"I know I'm out of order," came back Maxwell's quick reply, "If I was in order I could p-- all the way across that creek."

Following these heated remarks Gibbs expelled Maxwell from the meeting. When Gibbs did this Councillors Mackie, Jolly, and McAdam walked out followed by Maxwell. Gibbs, smarting from having his meeting broken up had the four "severely charged with contravening a Municipal By-law in so far as they did unlawfully leave the council, and by words and deeds disturb the municipal lawful proceedings of the same." It was a chance for Gibbs to get back at Justice of the Peace Mackie. The charges split council right down center. Gibbs' supporters testified against the four accused. Upon hearing the evidence Justice of the Peace William M. Campbell of Sumas found them guilty and imposed $5 fines which were paid.

As the new warden Gibbs became so arrogant that even his hotel partner Taylor turned against him. Apparently Gibbs had found a Hudson's Bay Company pig on the steps leading into the hotel. He fetched a pitch fork and stuck it into the pig exclaiming, "I'm the boy to kill pigs."

Taylor saw this and told Henry Wark, who was in charge of the fort. Wark, Taylor, and William Emptage went out to the shed and examined the dying pig. Wark did not hesitate to charge Gibbs. The trial, known as the 'Langley Pig War' was held in New Westminster before Magistrate Henry V. Edmonds. Gibbs tried to convince the magistrate that the pig died of starvation. Edmonds did not accept his story.

Shortly after this incident members of council, headed by Maxwell, discovered that Gibbs had juggled the minutes of several of the municipal meetings. A group of men gathered around Gibbs' residence one evening demanding that the minute book for the municipality be produced for their inspection. Examination revealed that whole leaves had been cut out. The council ran Gibbs unceremoniously out of Langley.

In the next post, I'll cover a few more stories from the early days.

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Blogathon #16: The Bridge to Nowhere, the 208th Street Overpass

I'll be doing a series of five posts -- not all in a row -- on some of the relatively recent major infrastructure projects that I feel have been transformational in the politics of Langley. Actually, I should clarify that. The projects weren't just transformational for the political landscape, they changed this community and they took large amounts of political capital to get built.

The first project I'll look at was the 208th Street Overpass, linking Willoughby with Walnut Grove, that opened to the public in 1998. This project was a lightening rod right from the beginning. It was dubbed the "Bridge to Nowhere" and opponents claimed that it would never, ever be used. That, of course, has been proven completely false. I, for one, use it just about every day as I travel from my home in Walnut Grove to other parts of Langley. Arguably, this overpass has become the single most crucial infrastructure project that has ushered in the massive amounts of development and new residents in the past ten years.

Crossroads
In the late 90s, the Township of Langley was at a crossroads. The population was growing, but the Township could absorb many more people and the long term plans from called for Willoughby to be the next major development area. I can distinctly remember driving through Willoughby and seeing the dozens and dozens of "Keep Willoughby Rural" signs that were all over properties. Many area residents did not want change. Now, more than ten years later, we can see the beginning of the Township's vision being realized. But the development we've seen in the past few years -- including the new Langley Events Centre -- would never have happened without better transportation corridors.

The other major issue at the time was the 200th Street interchange (which I'll discuss in another post). For many, many years Langley had been crying for the province to step up and expand the overpass there. Here this community had a rapidly growing neighbourhood on the north side of Highway #1, but you could only access it by two routes. The first was via 200th Street and the other was via Glover Road, more than 20-odd blocks away.

Bridge to Nowhere
Langley Township Council decided to put an overpass right in the middle on 208th Street between the two older corridors. Now remember that the council of the day was the infamous LLT-dominated council. Mayor John Scholtens and the Langley Leadership Team (LLT) had by this time already made a number of controversial decisions and community opposition was beginning to mount. The LCC was gaining support after the 1996 election win by the LLT. Many senior Township staff members had either left or been let go (including future mayor, Kurt Alberts). Mark Baaken was as-yet unproven as the new Township Administrator (but has turned out to be one the Township's finest). The Walnut Grove Pool (also another project I'll discuss in a future post) was being built without funds from other levels of government.

LLT opponents were incensed. What the hell were mayor and council thinking? There was nothing up there except acreages and farms! No one would use it! This would be a Bridge to Nowhere!! And who the hell is going to pay for it? This was going to bleed off funds from the much more necessary 200th Street overpass!

The LLT's response was that there would soon be lots of houses on and around 208th Street, lots of people would use it, it would become a vital transportation corridor for Langley and that the Township of Langley would foot the entire bill themselves.

I think that the community was pretty split. Most residents were quick to see the potential benefits, but felt that the municipality shouldn't been paying for 100 per cent of the costs. And I have no doubt that if the Township had gotten any provincial funding, it would have delayed the 200th Street project even more than it was. In fact, the 208th Street project even sparked a Petition to recall Rich Coleman as MLA.

On January 20, 1998 the Chief Electoral Officer accepted an application for a Petition to recall Rich Coleman, MLA for Fort Langley-Aldergrove. The proponent’s opinion as to why the recall of the Member was warranted is as follows:

1. "He has misled his constituents about his close relationship with the Langley Leadership Team. This group has taken over the administration of the Town of Langley and is working with Mr. Coleman to advance the interests of a small number of developers, not the constituents of Langley.

2. The LLT has removed award-winning administrators from Langley Township and replaced them with political friends. The LLT has refused to listen to the large numbers of citizens concerned about unrestricted development in rural areas of Langley. Mr. Coleman is working on behalf of these special interests in Victoria.

3. Despite the stronger need for other municipal works such as an overpass at 200th Street, Coleman and the LLT are working to divert resources to an unnecessary overpass on 208th Street, which would benefit the developer friends of Coleman and the LLT.

4. Mr. Coleman has worked against the interests of his constituents who oppose the development of rural areas of Langley. I am without proper representation in the BC Legislature as long as Mr. Coleman is MLA.

Now that petition didn't go very far (Jordan says that as a reporter he used to call the petitioner, a stalwart NDPer, on every newspaper deadline and that in the end you could count the number of signatures on one hand), but you can see the animosity that opponents felt about the LLT and the way the community was changing.

The Bridge to Nowhere was built despite the opposition and in the Spring of 1998, it was opened to traffic on time and under budget. Funny enough, I just happened to be heading to Walnut Grove from Murrayville (where I lived at the time) that evening and suddenly remembered that the overpass had just opened. As I drove across, there was Mayor Scholtens and Councillor Dean Drysdale standing on the south end, waving to motorists.

Impact
Ten years on, I cannot imagine Langley without this overpass. It is an absolutely vital link for residents and has brought the entire community of Langley (Township and City) closer together. It spurred the development of Willoughby. It brought about the Willowbrook Connector that directs traffic onto 204th Street and into the City of Langley via the new 204th Overpass that crosses Langley Bypass and the divisive (in more ways than one) railway line. The Langley Events Centre would not have happened. The Golden Ears Bridge might not have made sense to Translink without the increase in population that now lives in Willoughby. The list goes on and on.

Ultimately, the political capital that was expended by the Langley Leadership Team to make the 208th Street overpass a reality, amongst their many other controversial decisions, was too great. In 1999, Scholtens lost the mayoralty and the LLT lost their majority on council. At the time, criticism of the overpass was enormous. But, hindsight says that the LLT was right and it was a necessary project.

Langley Politics Dotcom is blogging until 6 a.m. Sunday to raise money for the United Way of the Lower Mainland. We are part of a massive 24-hour blogathon featuring bloggers from around the world. Click here to support us by making a pledge to the United Way.

Blogathon #15: Kid City Pt. 2

My last post talked a bit about how kid-friendly Langley is. To follow-up, here are my girls' top 5 things to do in Langley:

1. Williams Park. We love this place, especially on a hot summer day. There's lots of shade, a good, big playground, plenty of trees and grass and rocks to climb, and a little creek to wade in. Add in some picnic tables and the Township's trail improvements, and it always amazes me that this park isn't jam packed.

2. Fort Langley. So much to do and see. My girls love to run around the heritage train station, look through the stuff at the Antique Mall, have a hot chocolate at Wendel's, wander through the outdoor garden centre at the hardware store. There is a great playground, waterfront access (at Brae Island), the historic Fort, the museum, and so much more. We visit Fort Langley a few times a month, especially during gelato season.

3. The Langley Events Centre. With a three-storey playground, this has become a fast favourite. Add in the spray park, community centre activities, mountain bike trails, sports fields, gymnastics centre, basketball gyms, and arena itself, and you have a brilliant centrepiece for our community.

4. The Great Escape. Tucked away on the Bypass, this is the perfect spot to wile away a rainy day. A massive indoor playground, lazer tag, foam ball area, video games, bowling, and more. Kids love it. So do dads.

5. Toy Traders. The best toy store anywhere. If you're a child of the 80s, you'll love their huge displays. And there's always something new for the kids to try out. Plus they take Canadian Tire money at par!

Honourable mentions (and feel free to add your own): Derby Reach, Campbell Valley Park, Walnut Grove Pool and spray park, Chapters, Chuck E. Cheese, Toys R Us, McLeod Athletic Park, Aldergrove Lake, Greater Vancouver Zoo... I'm sure I'm missing some obvious ones...


Langley Politics Dotcom is blogging until 6 a.m. Sunday to raise money for the United Way of the Lower Mainland. We are part of a massive 24-hour blogathon featuring bloggers from around the world. Click here to support us by making a pledge to the United Way.

Blogathon #14: Kid City Pt. 1

As most of you know, I have two little girls, aged 6 and 2. They keep us very busy with activities, school, and other fun stuff. One thing I really appreciate about Langley is how kid-friendly a community we are. For this post, and the next one, I thought I would take a break from my look at neighbourhoods and focus on kids stuff (which builds on Sam's three-parter on local demographics).

One of the great things the Township requires from developers is a child-friendly amenity. As Township planner Jason Chu puts it:

The Parks and Recreation Master Plan specifies requirements for neighbourhood tot lots and neighbourhood parks for single family developments. However, there was no specific open space requirement for multi-family and residential comprehensive developments. To increase the child friendliness of new multi-family developments, the Township amended the Zoning Bylaw in 2005 to require provision of a Child Amenity Area for multi-family developments where 4 or fewer units are created. (The requirement is not applicable to duplexes, triples and fourplexes.) A minimum of 8 sq. metres of Child Friendly Amenity Area per unit is required. The requirement was recommended based on a study which involved consultation with the Youth Advisory Committee (see below), younger school children (Grades 1, 4 and 7) and their parents as well as representatives of the development industry.

When Jenny and I first had Indie, we were living in Amberleigh, the townhouse complex just north of Costco (although Costco was just in the process of being built). Amberleigh had a small tot lot in the complex, with a little slide and ride-on things. Eventually, Springman Saturn kicked in a larger playground for the public greenway along 65th Ave. These are both well-used by neighbourhood kids, and came at no cost to the Township. And they're selling features for the developers and future owners.

In the early 1990s, then-Councillor John Scholtens championed another important kids initative--this one aimed at keeping children safe. Again, I'll allow Jason to explain:

In 1993, Township Council struck a Child Safety Task Force to explore actions to protect child from abuse and molestation. The recommendations of the Task Force included procedures such as screening of any person making an application for a licence to operate a business that was likely to attract children, and mandatory screening of staff and volunteers who are involved with children as part of their jobs. While these procedures are now standard in most municipal operations, we believe we were the first municipality in BC to institute them.

This was a big deal, and one that has been replicated everywhere. It has certainly provided a level of comfort to parents.

Our staff and Councils, both past and present, take the needs of kids very seriously. We see them as important parts of our community now, not just in the future "when they grow up." We see this evidenced in massive investments in parks and recreation services, coordination with the School District and public education programs like my personal favourite, Municipal Awareness Day.

Langley has come a long way in the past 30 years. As former Township staffer Bill Lindahl told author Warren Sommer for his Nothing Without Effort history book:

When we developed a park, we'd grade it, level it, seed it, and stick up a backstop. That was the standard. We fertilized once in the spring and once in the fall and that was it. As one councillor, a dairy farmer, put it, 'If I don't need fertilizer for my cows you don't need it for your parks!'

Today, Langley is envied by our neighbours for our fleet of parks, thanks to the work of past mayors and councils, staff, and user groups.


Langley Politics Dotcom is blogging until 6 a.m. Sunday to raise money for the United Way of the Lower Mainland. We are part of a massive 24-hour blogathon featuring bloggers from around the world. Click here to support us by making a pledge to the United Way.

Blogathon #13: Langley's Changing Demographics Pt. 3

During this years' provincial election, this website was available to all campaigns across the province: 2006 Census Provincial Electoral Districts (find scroll down list to find both Langley and Fort Langley-Aldergrove). I looked in detail at the info for Langley and it made for some really interesting reading. In looking at the Fort Langley-Aldergrove stats, I found that they were pretty similar to Langley's.

Now, when I offer an analysis on anything below, remember that I'm no stats or sociology expert so don't go quoting me in periodicals or anything!

Jobs
Top 3 industries: 1) Retail trade 2) Manufacturing 3) Construction
Top 3 occupations: 1) Clerical 2) Sales & service 3) Retail sales (Langley) & Management (Fort Langley-Aldergrove)
These numbers show me that the top occupation does not totally jive with the top industry -- that means more of our workers in the retail trade and manufacturing come from outside Langley, and Langley people who work in clerical and sales are going outside the town to work.

Education
Over 30% of residents only have a high school diploma. Over 20% have some college/non-university certificate or partial university. Only around 10% actually have a full bachelor's degree from a university. Those with graduate degrees are not even statistically relevant for us to see a number. What I think is a little alarming is that well over 15% have no degree or certificate at ANY level. Now, I should temper that by saying that some of the people counted in the survey aren't even at the age where most would graduate from high school, so that would skew the numbers.

Mobility-Migration
Langley is a town where people come to live and they stay. Almost 85% of residents have not moved in over one year. And between 55 and 60% of people have not moved in five years. But, as we saw in the previous post, more people are coming between now and 2036. Where are they coming from? Well over 20% are currently migrants and I wouldn't bet a whole lot of money against more people coming from other countries and settling in Langley.

Langley Politics Dotcom is blogging until 6 a.m. Sunday to raise money for the United Way of the Lower Mainland. We are part of a massive 24-hour blogathon featuring bloggers from around the world. Click here to support us by making a pledge to the United Way.

Blogathon #12: Langley's Changing Demographics Pt. 2

On page two of the presentation below in the previous post are the highlights of the report and it's worth digging into a bit more.

Population explosion: In the space of 40 years (1986-2036), the population of Langley (both City and Township) is expected to grow by 223%! Langley is projected to have the most growth over every other area in Metro Vancouver, beating Surrey and the Tri-Cities. For those residents who see themselves as NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) or are "Pull up the drawbridge, I'm here" types, more and more people are going to CHOOSE to live in Langley in the next 25 years and we all better get used to it. Those people have to go somewhere and it might as well be here. Otherwise, they'll go to a town that wants their families, their shopping and their tax revenue and its Langley's loss.

More seniors: In 2036, Langley will have a lower proportion of seniors than most other areas in Metro Vancouver, but we'll be triple the amount from 1986 (1 in 4 people will be over 60 years old). That means we're going to need more facilities to deal with living and healthcare for the aging. And we're going to need to start planning for them now.

Fewer kids: Actually, that's only in proportional terms. In 1986, 1 in 3 people were under the age of 20 years old. Forty years later, that will be 1 in 5. That's pretty consistent with everything we've been hearing from the Ministry of Education and various school districts that there are fewer kids overall each year. Today's adults are having fewer kids than the generation before them. What's interesting is that this study says that while the proportions will decrease, Langley will still have 25,000 more kids in 2036 than it does now. Those kids are going to need to be taught somewhere.

Langley Politics Dotcom is blogging until 6 a.m. Sunday to raise money for the United Way of the Lower Mainland. We are part of a massive 24-hour blogathon featuring bloggers from around the world. Click here to support us by making a pledge to the United Way.

Blogathon #11: Langley's Changing Demographics Pt. 1

Below is a slide presentation of a report that was recently given to Langley Township Council. The report deals with the population forecasts for the Township and it's pretty fascinating. Why? Population forecasts are what municipalities and school boards use to help determine what services and infrastructure will be required to keep pace with the changes in the communities they serve.

Population Forecast For Langley Lha Jul 2009

View more documents from jgabateman.

I'll break some of this info down in a couple of subsequent posts.

Langley Politics Dotcom is blogging until 6 a.m. Sunday to raise money for the United Way of the Lower Mainland. We are part of a massive 24-hour blogathon featuring bloggers from around the world. Click here to support us by making a pledge to the United Way.

Blogathon #10: Langley City Follow Up

Kristi Ferguson from FraserValleyPulse.com and I are at the Wired Monk on 88th Avenue in Walnut Grove from 10am until Noon. We're taking donations, talking to folks, drinking coffee... it's good times.



Apparently, the video has us reversed and and I like to say "That's right" a lot. That's right.

---

I just moved late last year from Langley City. I lived there for a little over a year in the new Live/Work building, The Muse. The Muse is the start of the future for the City and I, for one, am looking forward to seeing more developments like it after years of successive councils trying to find effective methods of downtown revitalization. It is a good example of a municipal government having the political will to steer away from "business as usual" and find unique solutions to unique problems.

Commercial developments can only go so far to contributing to the overall health of a community. Without local residents, commercial enterprises can only have so much success. By creating spaces for residents adjacent to or within an easy walk of businesses, community can be fostered. The local coffee shop that I went to had its regulars and we got to know each other. Restaurant owners began to recognize me and already knew which noodle dish I was going to order. I was much more likely to go across the street to pick up a package of paper for my printer than I was to drive 10 minutes to the office superstore, despite the price differences. I could walk to get my groceries. I loved it.

And you can see in the recent news reports, the City's community plan as well as new residential construction on Fraser Highway (and now soon on Douglas Crescent) shows how Langley City wants to continue the changes that have been started.

But there are some problems. To my mind, the most glaring is the Rainbow Mall. That place is an absolute dump and eyesore and is the thorn in Mayor Fassbender's side. How can the worst commercial building in the City be the first thing people see when they get off a bus at the bus loop? That is just not good for business and Langley City council knows it. I don't know what Fassbender has been able to find out from the current owner in the last few months regarding the mall's future. I suspect that he's getting the same runaround that he's had for the last couple of terms -- the owner is unavailable and the property manager doesn't have a clue.

In my opinion, I think the City has waited long enough and has presented more than adequate good faith to the current absentee owner. Expropriate the property and sell it at a profit to an owner that shares the City's vision and will commit to doing the right thing for business and the community.

Without a doubt there are other properties that need some major work, especially along Douglas Crescent. I think that new residential comlexes, like the one that will be built near Douglas Park, will spur action in the near future -- exactly as you've seen on Fraser Hwy once the The Muse was built. There are many older apartments around the City core that require updating, but that's a whole new can of worms as those all have current residents that benefit from rent prices that reflect the age of the buildings.

I think Langley City has been going down the right track in terms of revitalization. But, I do have to wonder about the future of having two Langleys.

Langley Politics Dotcom is blogging until 6 a.m. Sunday to raise money for the United Way of the Lower Mainland. We are part of a massive 24-hour blogathon featuring bloggers from around the world. Click here to support us by making a pledge to the United Way.

Blogathon #9: Walnut Grove Follow Up

I'm a relative newcomer to the Walnut Grove area having only moved there within the past year. I always swore to myself that I wouldn't live there because it just seemed too Nouveau Something that I just couldn't put my finger on. But then I got over it and moved there and now I quite like it.

It's well planned, well laid out; the things I need -- like grocery stores -- are all easily within walking distance or, at worst, just a short drive away. Fort Langley, which has become a favourite haunt of my mine this summer, is only a few minutes away. The freeway is almost outside my front door, shaving almost 20 minutes off my trips to and from Vancouver compared to when I lived in Murrayville or Langley City. And like I mentioned about Murrayville, after more than 20 years the neighbourhoods have that lived-in, mature feel to them.

The only thing I have an issue with Walnut Grove about (besides the original paint scheme of the Colossus theatre, which was supposed to be some sort of abstract take on rocket flames coming out from under the UFO that is on the top of the building) is the style of the houses that you predominately see there. Now, you run into this in every neighbourhood in every city or town all across North America no matter how old the house is, so it's not just a Walnut Grove thing. But, there really is something about the age of the average home in W.G. that was built 15-20 years ago that immediately pegs it as a house that was built 15-20 years ago. If I had unlimited money, I'd do a community wide face-lift of every house, roof and yard north of Highway #1. But, that's just me.

I was discussing Walnut Grove with a friend of mine and he commented on the "lack of community" that he experienced (he also lives in "The Grove"). He wasn't talking about the developments or the parks, because he thinks Walnut Grove is exceptionally planned. He was talking about people interacting with one another. He attributed it to many W.G. residents living here but working elsewhere. In response, I wondered if it was different when you had kids involved in schools, sports and other community activities. People I know who have young kids in soccer or baseball or swimming and perhaps are involved in the local elementary school PAC have expressed exactly the opposite feeling about community in Walnut Grove than that of my friend who is a single, childless adult. That's when my friend and I quickly realized that Walnut Grove was built almost entirely around the idea of families. The parks, the rec facilities, etc are all geared towards adults with kids. That's not a bad thing at all -- in fact, I think that means that Walnut Grove "works."

Seen from that perspective, my appreciation for "North Langley" has grown even more. I'm glad I live here right now.

Langley Politics Dotcom is blogging until 6 a.m. Sunday to raise money for the United Way of the Lower Mainland. We are part of a massive 24-hour blogathon featuring bloggers from around the world. Click here to support us by making a pledge to the United Way.

Blogathon #8: Murrayville Follow Up

In the spring of 1993, my family moved from Cloverdale to a brand new townhouse complex in Murrayville. My parents still live in that same townhouse and they have absolutely no intention of moving. They love it. In fact, I was rather loathe to leave the area several years ago because there really is something quite special about it.

As Jordan mentioned in his 7:30am post about the area, it has really been planned quite well. There is the mix of residential (of varying densities), commercial and institutional buildings. It's quite easy for one to live there and walk to any necessary amenity. Good restaurants, grocery shopping, a pub, healthcare providers, a library, a pool, schools and examples of Langley's heritage are all easily accessible from just about every residential street.

Fifteen years ago, it was a really "young" neighbourhood. Trees were short, lawns were newly rolled out, construction was everywhere. Many of the amenities I mentioned above were not yet there. But, the civic core was just being developed and the promise of what could be was quickly becoming evident.

I remember in the 1996 civic election, the big question was whether to put in the Cultural Centre on the land that was the old works yard (the land being remediated right now at 48th Ave and 221st St.). As a young man in the mid-90s with a vested interest in the arts (I was heavily into music and theatre at the time -- but not musical theatre, which I have a certain disdain for), the Cultural Centre seemed like a good idea. Imagine, Murrayville being a draw for art in the Fraser Valley! But, it became the central election issue and the Langley Leadership Team killed the project when they gained the majority on council.

Losing Township Hall from the Civic Core in 2005 was a real blow and I'm bittersweet on my feelings about that. From a purely practical standpoint, buying the current facility in Willoughby and moving there was absolutely the right thing to do for the Township. The price was right and making Township staff continue to work in an unsafe building longer than was necessary while waiting for construction of a new building was just not wise.

But the seat of the Township's civic government is absolutely missing in the "Civic Core," a name that, to me, isn't really a good name. Except for emergency services and the school board office, Murrayville just doesn't seem very "civic" anymore.

Fast forward to 2009 and you see that the trees that were saplings are now tall and mature, the neighbourhoods feel "lived in" and welcoming. The heritage areas are being well-preserved while still being dynamic parts of the community. Businesses are thriving. It's a good place to live and I miss it.

Langley Politics Dotcom is blogging until 6 a.m. Sunday to raise money for the United Way of the Lower Mainland. We are part of a massive 24-hour blogathon featuring bloggers from around the world. Click here to support us by making a pledge to the United Way.

Blogathon #7: Langley City--The Good, The Bad, & The Future

It's no secret that I think the idea of two Langley municipalities is a silly one. One Langley would give this region more clout in Ottawa and Victoria (I always found it ironic that Marlene Grinnell and others championed the idea of one federal riding for all of Langley, but never extended that idea of unified representation to the City and Township). It would give the City the resources and population base needed to address some of these difficult issues in their core. This entry isn't supposed to be a rant about reunification, but even the myth that the smaller City government is somehow more responsive to local needs has been shattered by the Bandshell/Spirit Square debate, holding budget meetings in Harrison Hot Springs, the siting of the homeless shelter and floodplain trails, and other moves.

Separation was born out of issues that are no longer there. The Township is now just as urban, and frankly offers more services, than the City. The City relies on Township customers for its businesses. We share a police force, and a parks booking system, and a regional town centre. We share a common name and history. The municipal border runs through the men's wear department of The Bay. It's almost laughable. Twenty years from now, I'm convinced Langley will be reunified.

Nonetheless, I want to look at the City through a community planning lens


Langley City: The Good

The City has done a lot of things well. They continue to aggressively work to fill their holes with high-density residential. That's a must for a community that is only three square miles. At some point in their recent history,Council relaized they were never going to fill those gaps with commercial, instead choosing to add residents to support the businesses already in place.

The Fraser Highway one-way, championed by Mayor Grinnell and Coun. Evan Williams in the 1990s, was an enormous risk which has paid off wonderfully. They have created a real niche area on that one-way, redefining their downtown core. I wish they had gone the extra step of undergrounding the hydro lines, but money was tight and they got good bang for their buck. The new City Hall and the redesign of the Langley Mall were two more good decisions on Grinnell's watch. The City loves to look pretty, as evidenced by their Communities in Bloom efforts.


Langley City: The Bad

Social issues aside, the siting of the casino and convention centre has hurt its interface with the downtown. In hindsight, it would have been better to bring the casino closer to Innes Corners, and orient it to the downtown one-way.

The Langley bus loop is an absolute disaster, and aggressive action is needed to return it to a place where people can feel safe waiting for a bus. That old Rainbow Mall is in complete disrepair, two-thirds empty, and crying out for renewal--and a residential component.

Development along the Langley Bypass has added a major strain to the transportation network. When that road was built, it was meant to be a highway bypassing commercial. It was never designed for the number of turns we see on it every day, as people try to access Chapters, Future Shop, and Well Seasoned. The road would have been built very differently if planners had known the future commercial needs, and that would have influenced the way those big box malls were built as well.


Langley City: The Future

More in-fill, more density, perhaps even some high-rises (Langley Mall? Casino?). I think you'll see a slight contraction of the downtown, with some of the buildings on the fringes (Douglas Crescent, the western portion of Fraser Highway, Logan Ave.) turning into residential over time.

And, of course, reunification with the Township of Langley.


Langley Politics Dotcom is blogging until 6 a.m. Sunday to raise money for the United Way of the Lower Mainland. We are part of a massive 24-hour blogathon featuring bloggers from around the world. Click here to support us by making a pledge to the United Way.

Blogathon #6: Walnut Grove--The Good, The Bad, & The Future

Walnut Grove, by pretty much any measure, is one of the most successful suburban communities in the Lower Mainland. It has become a vibrant, well-planned area, with many amenities, greenways, parks, a mix of housing types, and a solid sense of community. No plan is ever perfect, but this one has been held up as a model.


Walnut Grove: The Good

There were a lot of good decisions in Walnut Grove. By centralizing the community-level shopping at 212th and 88th and pairing it with residential development all around it, the community was able to develop in a fairly sustainable manner (considering it was the 1980s). Car rides were greatly reduced as Walnut Grove residents didn't have to zip all over the place to get milk. Now, with the community built out, it is big enough to support both the original shopping area and Thunderbird as well. For years, planners and council fought off big-box applications for Walnut Grove, choosing to concentrate them in Willowbrook instead; this has greatly lessened traffic in the area.

The schools and parks are all in the right places. Putting the Community Centre, Community Park, and Swimming Pool next door to the high school was also smart. There are a lot of synergies there. It also provides a focal point, near the commercial core, for the trails and greenway system.


Walnut Grove: The Bad

Colossus's exterior look was meant to be whimsical, but didn't really work. I suspect even Famous Players/Cineplex would like to have that one back.

The 200th Street interchange design has never been embraced by the community. No one seems to like it, and the single point interchange has not been repeated by the Ministry of Transportation to my knowledge. Add in the Golden Ears Bridge traffic, and the interchange is even more burdened. Originally, there was a plan to have a 202nd offramp going north, but that was nixed early on. The best hope for Walnut Grove residents now is probably a 216th Street interchange, which is included at the tail end of the Gateway Project. This has been in the plans for decades, and would give local Walnut Grove traffic better access to the freeway.

In the "could have been very, very bad" category, the Township's timing on the original Walnut Grove development plan could not have been much worse. They passed the plan and put in some expensive services just in time for the 1981 recession. As Warren Sommer quotes in his book Nothing Without Effort: A History of Langley:

The timing was awful... there were three or four streets that went in in 1979-80. Then they got nailed by the real estate collapse of 1981. Nothing further happened for many years after that. All the people that has speculated and bought up property... nearly all of them went broke.

But Walnut Grove obviously survived, and later flourished.


Walnut Grove: The Future

Walnut Grove is still home to the odd vacant lot and in-fill projects (most notably 204th and 96th at the moment) continue. The commercial is mainly in, with just a little bit left near the 200th Street interchange.

Over the next several years, I suspect we'll see a few subdivisions of some of the bigger lots, some traffic calming on the side streets, and perhaps some initiatives to improve cycle paths through some multi-modal street opportunities (bicycles weren't a consideration when Walnut Grove was planned). Residents have adamantly opposed high rises, so those buildings will be pushed south of the freeway, if they come at all. I suspect Thunderbird/Colossus, with its higher density, will continue as the transit hub, with hopefully a 200th streetcar line bringing Walnut Grove residents to all the regional shops and services in the Willowbrook Town Centre.


Langley Politics Dotcom is blogging until 6 a.m. Sunday to raise money for the United Way of the Lower Mainland. We are part of a massive 24-hour blogathon featuring bloggers from around the world. Click here to support us by making a pledge to the United Way.

Blogathon #5: Aldergrove--The Good, The Bad, & The Future

In a couple of hours, I'll be in the Aldergrove Festival Days parade (and Sam will be blogging). Aldergrove, "The Place Between", as they call it, is far removed from the services of the western urban corridor. Truthfully, if you were going to take a map of Langley Township, start from scratch, and design a Smart Growth community, swanky Vancouver urban planners would never draw an Aldergrove on that map. It's tough to service and it's far removed from the western corridor.

But Aldergrove is a wonderful place, full of families, community spirit, entrepreneurs, volunteers and can-do attitudes. The pieces are all there for it to be a very successful town.


Aldergrove: The Good

Aldergrove has a strongly-defined urban boundary, thanks to the Agricultural Land Reserve. Of course, for almost 40 years, the Township and the ALR have disagreed on where exactly that boundary should be, but it's there nonetheless, and it takes any opportunity for urban sprawl out of the equation.

The community is chock-full of parks. Wherever you live in Aldergrove, you are close to greenspace. When one considers that the neighbourhood is surrounded by the ALR, it would have been easy to rely on those farms for the provision of greenspace. But Aldergrove, through its service clubs, sports groups, and the Township, has aggressively built its fleet of parks.

The decision to put the Aldergrove Mall into downtown was a good one, but it hasn't been successful for many reasons. Planners have long encouraged the Mall owners to buy access to Fraser Highway near the Elk's Hall (there are a number of older buildings between the Mall and Fraser which are near the end of their useful lives), but that hasn't happened.


Aldergrove: The Bad

Aldergrove Mall's lack of traction in the community has been a major failure for the downtown. It now sits empty except for an Extra Foods.

Aldergrove also suffers from the "dumbbell" effect. At each end of town, there is a suburban mall with a large grocery store. This has taken customers out of the downtown. The political decision to build Save-On-Foods at 264/Fraser in the late 1990s was a disaster for the downtown (and also the catalyst for Councillor Bob Long to run for office in 1999). This was a strange decision; the same John Scholtens-led Council which poured money into downtown Aldergrove for revitalization hamstrung the downtown by approving the Save-On mall. Aldergrove probably has slightly too much commercial space for its population base, which usually evidences itself with quick turnover and empty storefronts in the downtown.


Aldergrove: The Future

I'm excited for the future of Aldergrove. A number of opportunities exist, not the least of which is the old Aldergrove Elementary site on Fraser Highway, which would be a perfect place for a Township recreation facility. Work on the Aldergrove sewer line is also well underway, which is a huge step forward in dealing with the servicing issues that have plagued Aldergrove.

The Aldergrove Official Community Plan is presently under review, with a Planning Committee involved. Just last Monday, that committee's minutes included 12 principles they want in the Aldergrove plan--and they are outstanding:

1. Reinforce downtown as the social, cultural and commercial heart of the community.

2. Increase housing choice and density in the downtown while ensuring a high degree of liveability.

3. Incorporate mixed-use developments in the downtown including housing located above commercial uses.

4. Focus (and potentially reduce) the extent of commercial uses to create a vibrant commercial core.

5. Consider re-orienting commercial development in a north/south alignment; don't continue linear development along the Fraser Hwy.

6. Incorporate built form, layout and open space design that support transit use
and cycling for everyday travel needs.

7. Prioritize pedestrian activity in the core area to create a truly walkable downtown.

8. Create options for vehicles and goods movement traveling through the downtown core to minimize vehicle impacts on the downtown area's traditional commercial high street along the Fraser Hwy.

9. Create an attractive and distinct public realm and interconnected open space network that emphasizes pedestrian comfort and safety and reinforces the small town/rural identity of the community.

10. Create a greener downtown that provides parks, street trees and protects and enhances Bertrand Creek as a focal point.

11. Incorporate built forms, open space treatments and innovative infrastructure that reduces overall environmental impacts.

12. Develop alternative concepts that establish a long term urban design vision for the downtown that is innovative, visionary and bold in achieving true community wide sustainability and liveability to 2041 and beyond.

This is brilliant stuff, right in line with the most modern and innovative community planning processes out there. I love the idea of Bertrand Creek being a focal point, not an eyesore. Imagine taking the Aldergrove Mall site, and putting rowhouses or brownstones along an enhanced Bertrand Creek trail network. It would change that are completely. Move a rebuilt, outdoor-oriented Mall closer to Fraser Highway, with those old buildings on the north side of Fraser either restored or removed. The possibilities are endless--and the work the Aldergrove Planning Committee is doing should give all of us a lot of hope and confidence.

Langley Politics Dotcom is blogging until 6 a.m. Sunday to raise money for the United Way of the Lower Mainland. We are part of a massive 24-hour blogathon featuring bloggers from around the world. Click here to support us by making a pledge to the United Way.

Blogathon #4: Murrayville--The Good, The Bad, & The Future

Council decisions matter. The antics and policies and personalities in Ottawa and Victoria get a lot more press, but local government is where the rubber really hits the road in terms of shaping communities. A poor Council decision can cause all kinds of unexpected side effects, and it can take years to make things right--if ever.

When I was a young journalism student at Langara College, Sun reporter Frances Bula (now with the Globe and Mail, and a blogger) came and spoke to our class about local government. She was passionate about it, and it shows in her stories. Frances knows that what happens at City Hall matters to local residents. Victoria and Ottawa affect us too, but that effect is watered down over a massive geographic area, which makes them seem detached from us. It's hard to figure out and to communicate exactly how a federal budget will really affect a family of four living in Murrayville. It's almost as tough to explain how a law passed in Victoria will change your every day life in Walnut Grove. But building a park, filling a pothole, tending to your sewer and water and garbage and recycling--this is the grassroots stuff. This hits you where you live.

So in the next ten posts or so, I'm going to look at various Langley communities and recap the good and the bad of how they were planned. The things that worked, and what didn't. And I'll look at the future, and where I think these communities may be headed.

I'm going to start with Murrayville because, well, I live there.


Murrayville: The Good

Murrayville is one of the oldest parts of Langley, with the town there predating even Langley Prairie (City). It was also one of the first areas to have a rudimentary zoning bylaw. While the whole municipality wasn't zoned until 1973, Murrayville and Fort Langley has had zoning since the 1940s.

Two brilliant policies really shaped Murrayville--the civic core and the Five Corners heritage area. No single Council can take credit for this, as each has built on the work of past councils.

Township Council and staff over the years worked very hard to centralize institutional services in Murrayville. We call it "Hospital Hill," but it's more than that: there is Langley Memorial Hospital, the Township's Fire Department headquarters, the RCMP building, the School Board Office, WC Blair Recreation Centre and, until 2005, Township Hall itself. We also have an operations centre there, the Langley Regional Airport, a library, and the compost demonstration garden. These core uses attracted some higher-density housing (condos and townhouses) and community-level commercial, like IGA, the Aldergrove Credit Union, and the Wired Monk. This has made for a very walkable, friendly community. Murrayville works, with a good mix of housing types (even some social housing that goes completely unnoticed by people).

The work to protect the historic area around Five Corners also deserves mentioning. The 99-year lease of the old Traveller's Hotel to Wally Martin was incredibly controversial in the late 1990s, but the Martins have fixed that building up beautifully. (Before Wally started his renovation, I toured the building. It was a wreck, but they brought it back to life.) Add some of the covenants and heritage revitalization agreements on the older houses around Five Corners to the old pumphouse, Porter's Store, and Murrayville Hall, and you have a very nice heritage area.


Murrayville: The Bad

Moving Township Hall out of the civic core has left a hole in Murrayville's heart. It was the right thing to do--the new building in Willowbrook was simply too good a deal to pass up, and the old building was so bad that they couldn't keep file cabinets in certain parts because they feared they would fall through the floor--but it still left a hole. It also spread out our civic facilities. Three and a half years later, we still get mail with the old Murrayville hall address on it.


Murrayville: The Future

Work is underway on the old Township Hall site. Crews are busy remediating it (in the old days, it housed a Township gas station and mechanics shop, so it needs to be cleaned). I see that space as a great place to add some more density to Murrayville--a mix of low-rise condos for seniors and young couples. In a perfect world, we would have a seniors centre on the ground floor of on e of the buildings, and perhaps space for a library/meeting rooms in another (the Township currently leases space in Murrayivlle for these uses). This project could generate enough revenue to help us renovate and expand WC Blair Recreation Centre, and better equip the Murrayville core park (which we should probably rename "Murrayville Dogwood Park" at some point, as, historically, I believe there was a Dogwood Park where RCMP Headquarters now sits).

On the heritage side, two issues must be addressed. We need to decide what we are going to do with Old Yale Road leading into Five Corners. It's believed to be the oldest paved road in the province and our Heritage Committee is convinced it has important value. At the same time, it's an active road, so we need to meet certain standards.

The second heritage issue is the old Murrayville Elementary School. The School Board closed it last year. There is both a heritage building and more modern school on the site. I'd like to see us hold on to the heritage portion somehow, perhaps using it as a community daycare or preschool. The rest of the site may end up with some more housing, but I'm not sure that much density would fit well into that area, and Denny Ross Park needs to be protected.

We moved to Murrayville in 2005, and we love it. It's a great place to raise kids, and a wonderful community to be a part of.

Langley Politics Dotcom is blogging until 6 a.m. Sunday to raise money for the United Way of the Lower Mainland. We are part of a massive 24-hour blogathon featuring bloggers from around the world. Click here to support us by making a pledge to the United Way.

Blogathon #3: The United Way of the Lower Mainland

It was an easy decision for Sam and I to select the United Way of the Lower Mainland as our Blogathon charity. The United Way has been the Township staff's charity of choice for several years, and we wanted to get behind their work to raise money for this great cause. With two little girls of my own, the United Way's commitment to programs for kids 0-6 hits especially close to my heart. Success By 6 is an especially important program, as every child deserves to get a good start in life.

In the past, Township staff has raised $25,000 to $35,000 during the annual United Way campaign. The 2009 campaign runs from Sept. 28 to Oct. 2, and the Township will have a barbecue, book sale, speakers, and a breakfast that week.

In 2008, the Township raised $26,500 for the United Way, $250 of which came through a popular promotion to have Township CAO Mark Bakken kiss a llama:

This year, volunteers came up with a new idea to get staff involved and inspire a little friendly competition: jars featuring photos of senior Township staff members were placed throughout the Civic Facility and Operations Centre, and employees were encouraged to put cash in the jar corresponding to their favourite boss. The "winner" got to kiss the llama, and at the end of the campaign - amidst rumours that he was seen adding money to his own jar in an attempt to win the favour of the lovely Lucy - Bakken was asked to pucker up.

"I thought they made a handsome couple," joked Engineer Colin Wright, who co-chaired the Township's United Way Committee with CUPE Local 403 President Paul Albrecht. "Mark was a great sport about it - and so was Lucy. And importantly, the Kiss-a-Llama event raised close to $250 for the United Way."

In total, Township staff raised more than $26,500 during the campaign, through payroll contributions, one-time gifts, and contributions at special events. One of the goals of the 2008 campaign was to increase participation, and to help spread enthusiasm, a number of new events were held, including a book sale and a swim. Traditional United Way events were also held, including the annual breakfast that is generously put on by the Murrayville Pub. Information about the effect that funding from the United Way can have on organizations within the community was presented by guest speakers Mary Reeves from the Boys and Girls Club of Langley and Betty Anne Batt of Langley Association for Community Living.

I'm not going to pretend with you folks: one of the reasons we chose the United Way as our Blogathon charity was so we could use this photo:



Mark and Lucy, moments before the big kiss. Lucy doesn't like the look in Mark's eye.

Langley Politics Dotcom is blogging until 6 a.m. Sunday to raise money for the United Way of the Lower Mainland. We are part of a massive 24-hour blogathon featuring bloggers from around the world. Click here to support us by making a pledge to the United Way.

Blogathon #2: The Humble Beginning Pt. 2

I'm the lucky one who got to wake up a half-hour later to do my first post. Age, apparently, does have its benefits.

Jordan has already done much of the introduction to the how and why of Langley Politics Dotcom's participation in Blogathon 2009. Again, bloggers from all over the Metro Vancouver area are participating and we are really happy to be taking part this year. I'm going to mention again that we're doing this to raise funds for the United Way. Please take a moment to pledge a donation.

To make a pledge, click here. The link takes you to the Blogathon site, where you can register and then make your pledge; after the Blogathon is over, you will receive an e-mail directing you to the United Way's web page, where you can make your donation directly to them.

If you do the math, you will see that I have 17 posts to do. You will note that this is far below my friend's quota of 32. That's because he's really fast at writing, has the memory of an elephant and is crazier than me.

After this post, I'll be returning at 9:30 while JB heads out to the Aldergrove Festival Days parade. I'll be starting off with some follow up posts regarding some of the Langley town centres that I've lived in. Throughout the rest of the day I'll talk about Langley's changing demographics, some of the earliest political moments in Langley history, significant infrastructure projects (some of them controversial) and a few other topics.

49 posts in 24 hours is a real challenge both from finding content that is compelling for readers as well as from a writer's standpoint. But, Jordan and I are up for the challenge. Happy reading, everyone!

Langley Politics Dotcom is blogging until 6 a.m. Sunday to raise money for the United Way of the Lower Mainland. We are part of a massive 24-hour blogathon featuring bloggers from around the world. Click here to support us by making a pledge to the United Way.

Blogathon #1: The Humble Beginning

Like a kitten who can barely open its eyes, I'm blinking in the early morning here in beautiful Murrayville, B.C., waiting for the coffee to finish brewing (should have set it for 5:45 a.m., not 6). It's going to be a scorcher of a day, and old Sam "Politics" Kirk and I will be blogging every half-hour until 6 a.m. tomorrow morning. That's 49 posts, for those of you keeping score at home.

Dozens of bloggers from around the world are participating in this Blogathon for a number of good causes. Langley Politics Dotcom is raising money for the United Way of the Lower Mainland (more on them at 7 a.m.!). To pledge a donation today, click here. The link takes you to the Blogathon site, where you can make your pledge; after we successfully complete the Blogathon, you will receive an e-mail directing you to the United Way's web page, where you can make your donation directly to them. Don't be shy--it's a great cause, and even $5 or $10 will help.

I'd also like to mention that another Langley blogger, Kristi Ferguson over at Fraser Valley Pulse, is blogging today for the Langley Animal Protection Society. So go check out her posts... and pledge her if you're an animal fan.

Sam and I have divvied up the posting today. I am riding in the Aldergrove Festival Days parade this morning at 10, so obviously I can't blog from there. Sam is also on for the early afternoon shift, and we are splitting late night duties.

All told, I have 32 posts to write today. After this introduction and a post on the United Way, I plan to do a ten-post series on the good, the bad, and the future of our neighbourhoods. This series will look at the planning, development, and recreation decisions that shaped various Langley communities, and where I see those places going in the future.

I have a two-parter planned on Kid City issues, looking at how the Township works to make Langley a great place to raise kids.

I'm going to look at the political careers of six mayors, the challenges they face, and how they shaped Langley.

I have three books I want to talk about, and I have a post coming on some of my favourite political blogs.

I will also examine the seven signs of a resilient city, and how Langley stacks up to that criteria.

Of course, all of this is subject to change--if I so desire.

So sit back, make a pledge, and enjoy the Blogathon. We're here until 6 a.m. Sunday morning.

Langley Politics Dotcom is blogging until 6 a.m. Sunday to raise money for the United Way of the Lower Mainland. We are part of a massive 24-hour blogathon featuring bloggers from around the world. Click here to support us by making a pledge to the United Way.