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City of Langford politics


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#1 Victoria Watcher

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Posted 21 January 2021 - 12:31 PM

Municipal watchdog files complaint against Langford, claiming lack of transparency

 

https://www.timescol...ency-1.24270911

 

 

A municipal watchdog group has filed a complaint with the Office of the B.C. Ombudsperson against Langford for declining to make councillors’ financial disclosure documents available online.

 

 

Municipal officials are required to disclose their assets, debts and sources of income to identify what areas of influence and possible financial benefit they might have by virtue of being in office.

 

 

 

 

LETTER: Developments consume Langford neighbourhoods

 

Langford's finally made the decision to make audio of regular council meeting available to the public. But not livestreaming. Budget restraints? I don't think so. There has been so much zoning and building done in this city, it stands to reason they have a huge budget, so why wait? Because they don't want us to know and see what is going on behind closed doors. They ignore everything the public puts forward at the meetings, anyway. The zoning and development get passed. Just give a listen.

 

https://www.bclocaln...neighbourhoods/

 

 

 

 

 

 

grumpy taxpayers:

 

 

Earlier this month, Mayor Stew Young agreed to share audio recordings of meetings and consider council live streaming in the next budget. Langford has refused though to publicly release the staff report on livestreaming or defend its decision to go in-camera to discuss the issue.

 

http://grumpytaxpaye...sure-documents/


Edited by Victoria Watcher, 21 January 2021 - 12:46 PM.


#2 Danma

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Posted 21 January 2021 - 02:11 PM

This has gotten a lot of attention in recent weeks, and for good reason. I've been pretty annoyed myself at the lack of transparency in the processes in Langford, and not exactly happy with some of the recent choices by council.

(The digital billboard and storage facility that went up just off the Millstream turnoff are just the worst, embarrassingly bad!)


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#3 Victoria Watcher

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Posted 21 January 2021 - 02:18 PM

“I’m sure that everything that we’re doing in Langford is above board. We’re a well-run municipality. We’ve got the lowest taxes, we create a lot of jobs, we create a lot of affordable housing,” he said. “I don’t want to actually spend a lot of time on this. We’ll just wait for the ombudsman.”

Young said he’s not opposed to posting the documents online, but the issue has never come to council’s attention in the nearly three decades he’s been mayor.



that’s a bit weak. but who knows what else he said but was not quoted.

#4 Rob Randall

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Posted 02 April 2021 - 09:24 PM

Roger Wade is a long-time Langford councillor, also known as the drip that verbally berated a teen umpire. His latest business move was using employee pension funds to prop up his faltering log transport company.

 

Mr. Wade was found to have knowingly participated in the breaches. The court found that he had signed the participation agreements, and therefore was fully aware of Log Transport’s obligations with respect to the Plan. He was also fully aware of the company’s business and financial operations.

As such, Mr. Wade was held personally liable for the unpaid contributions and interest, as well as the trustees’ legal costs.

 

 

https://www.morneaus...n-contributions



#5 Lorenzo

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Posted 03 April 2021 - 08:43 AM

Roger Wade is a long-time Langford councillor, also known as the drip that verbally berated a teen umpire. His latest business move was using employee pension funds to prop up his faltering log transport company.

 

 

https://www.morneaus...n-contributions

A Langford councilor has a log transporting company. And in what municipality are logs being hauled at an unprecedented rate? Asking for a friend. 


Edited by Lorenzo, 03 April 2021 - 01:57 PM.


#6 Mike K.

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Posted 03 April 2021 - 08:50 AM

Just past Shirley in the unincorporated areas of the CRD, but the harvests are quite small. Most trees harvested are headed for the pulp mill in Crofton to make paper and COVID-19 mask material, and others are headed to plants where they’re made into mass timber for the new generation of highrises in Victoria.

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#7 Victoria Watcher

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Posted 06 April 2021 - 07:07 AM

Langford is nearly 30 years old and has only had one mayor

Residents are now raising concerns about rapid development and the future of council

https://www.capitald...ung-development



#8 Mike K.

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Posted 06 April 2021 - 07:10 AM

Langford was founded in 1851. It didn't incorporate until 1992, but its history doesn't begin with incorporation.


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#9 On the Level

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Posted 06 April 2021 - 08:51 AM

Residents are now raising concerns about rapid development 

https://www.capitald...ung-development

 

 

The CRD Regional Growth Strategy has had just as much to do with Langford's growth as Stew Young.  


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#10 Mike K.

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Posted 06 April 2021 - 12:07 PM

I think it's clear that there is a political movement growing, and the hyper-focus on Langford's way of conducting business two years ahead of the next election appears to be part of something a little more intricate.


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#11 davidN

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Posted 06 April 2021 - 02:27 PM

And I think it is is clear that I would rather have Langfords Mayor and Council than Victorias Mayor and Council any day!


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#12 Sparky

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Posted 06 April 2021 - 02:54 PM

I think there was one year where the Mayor declared $8 in campaign expenses.

I might be wrong here but I think he responded to the question of what was the money spent on ... he said stamps.

#13 Sparky

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Posted 06 April 2021 - 02:59 PM

Here it is ... it was $6.04

https://www.timescol...pains-1.1830162

#14 On the Level

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Posted 06 April 2021 - 03:44 PM

I think it's clear that there is a political movement growing, and the hyper-focus on Langford's way of conducting business two years ahead of the next election appears to be part of something a little more intricate.

 

 

The panel takes on numerous topics in this long-form discussion, including the sketchy origins of Bear Mountain and its subsequent bankruptcy, the Danbrook One tower fiasco, the destruction of rare Garry Oak ecosystems in the area, the lack of urban planning, perceived conflicts of interest between industry and local politicians, and the secretive, closed-door nature of local governance. Stew Young has been mayor for nearly 30 years, ever since the town incorporated in the early 90s, and there has been little turnover on the city council over the years.

 

  • Jeremy Caradonna – Author of “One Level at a Time: Transitioning to Organic Vegetable Production”.  Professor in the Environmental Studies department at University of Victoria
  • Matt Dell - Master's of Political Science from the University of Victoria with a specialization in BC politics and small-scale agriculture.
  • Maleea Acker - lectures at the University of Victoria in Geography and Canadian Studies, where she is completing a PhD in Geopoetics.  
From the backgrounds of these 3, I think you know how this "podcast" is going to go.  "Term limits for councils", "Garry Oak ecosystem destroyers", "Langford without Stu", etc etc.  They are trying to bring granola to Lanford and are promoting a group that is forming to stop growth.

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#15 Nparker

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Posted 06 April 2021 - 03:59 PM

...Maleea Acker - lectures at the University of Victoria in Geography and Canadian Studies, where she is completing a PhD in Geopoetics

I am SO not woke. I had no idea what "geopoetics" was. Although I was unable to secure a solid dictionary definition, this bit of word salad was the most coherent result from my search:
 

Geopoetics is deeply critical of Western thinking and practice over the last 2500 years and its separation of human beings from the rest of the natural world, and proposes instead that the universe is a potentially integral whole, and that the various domains into which knowledge has been separated can be unified by a poetics which places the planet Earth at the centre of experience.

 

It looks for signs of those who have attempted to leave ‘the motorway of Western civilization’ in the past in order to find a new approach to thinking and living e.g. in the writings of intellectual nomads such as Friedrich Nietzsche, Arthur Rimbaud, Henry Thoreau and Patrick Geddes.

It seeks a new or renewed sense of world, a sense of space, light and energy which is experienced both intellectually, by developing our knowledge, and sensitively, using all our senses to become attuned to the world, and requires both serious study and a certain amount of de-conditioning of ourselves by working on the body-mind.
 

It also seeks to express that sensitive and intelligent contact with the world by means of a poetics i.e. a language drawn from a way of being which attempts to express reality in different ways e.g. oral expression, writing, visual arts, music, and in combinations of different art forms....

http://www.geopoetic...-is-geopoetics/

In other words, more UVic gobbledygook.



#16 On the Level

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Posted 06 April 2021 - 04:03 PM

I made it about half way through the podcast before shutting it off.  If they had someone on that held a different viewpoint then it might have been interesting, but it was more like a bunch of teenagers sitting around complaining.


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#17 LJ

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Posted 06 April 2021 - 07:40 PM

If it spawned from Capital Daily it's not worth my time reading/listening.


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#18 Mike K.

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Posted 06 April 2021 - 08:46 PM

You know, it’s funny, in that Langford has underdone nothing but change since the early 90s.
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#19 VIResident

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Posted 07 April 2021 - 02:48 AM

The CRD Regional Growth Strategy has had just as much to do with Langford's growth as Stew Young.  

 

Good catch OTL - the 'invisible' hand. 

Watch this, the very expensive (combo costs of the municipality and CRD), interconnected, rarely seen nor heard CRD - exactly how they like it.



#20 spanky123

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Posted 07 April 2021 - 05:25 AM

I think it's clear that there is a political movement growing, and the hyper-focus on Langford's way of conducting business two years ahead of the next election appears to be part of something a little more intricate.

 

The underemployed adjunct UVIC professors have had to move to Langford to find an affordable place to live. As a result, Langford will now have to adapt to their wishes.

 

Stu and pals shouldn't be too quick to brush them off however. The lack of transparency and reluctant to give others a voice will be used against them to suggest impropriety. 


Edited by spanky123, 07 April 2021 - 05:25 AM.


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