Highlights of Monday Meetings of Township of Langley Council

TOL Council Special Meeting - January 19, 2009

Welcome to the new Langley Record quote format with regards to Township special and regular council meetings. We will not ignore commentary, however we will provide overwhelmingly more direct quotes on what was said and allow readers of the Langley Record to draw their own conclusions. Over time, perhaps we will provide introductions to sections and post audio files on the topics. As we have hours of audio files, we will post over the next week select discussions that council had and that we consider to be important to the community. Let us know what you think about the new format and please provide your input on what council discussed.

Council Discussion on Committees and Commissions

Coun. Kositsky pointed out that current council Standing Committees have been suspended since the new mayor took office and proposed a set of new Mayor’s Standing Committees and Taskforces that may duplicate the committees that are established by Bylaw and Coun. Kositsky questioned under what authority the Standing Committees were suspended, given that they are established by Bylaw.

Coun. Richter: “I had a question with regards to the selection process. Now you’ve indicated that you will be advertising and people can apply, but who makes the decision as to who is appointed?"

Mayor Green: “Are we talking about the Standing Committees?

Coun. Richter: “No, the mayor’s committees.”

Mayor Green: “Yeah, the mayor’s Standing Committees. I think that should be a discussion of council. I’m certainly prepared to have that discussion then. It’s really because of the Taskforce format in particular that I sort of want to keep that open. So we are not talking about a standing committee format in that case. In the area of protective services I think it really get’s down to basically just the quality of individuals that apply, their bio and their resume and I think council should be a part of that process.”

Coun. Richter: “OK, but I was going to suggest that if it’s a mayor’s committee, the mayor gets to make the choice."

Mayor Green: “Well I think technically I can pull that string if I have to, and I certainly want to show the discourse that I think is necessary to move this along. I’ll certainly make my feelings known. I feel comfortable going through that process”

Coun. Ferguson: “I guess the difference in a select committee and a standing committee… on a select committee you have a number of folks sitting around the table from the public, using Langley residents. [Example of Agricultural Committee given and other discussion]. Now the select committee you would have less people working maybe on specific things and it would come back to council, but you would have less members of the public involved. And I guess that would be the difference in philosophy. Would it be an issue of duplication or just less input from the public?”

“When would we be looking at some of these other mayor’s standing committees? And just looking at your list you have here and I know you’ve only talked about a couple. Horses, transportation, community, culture, and other things and I’m just wondering when they would come into place?”

Mayor Green: “I can’t answer that question.”

Coun. Ferguson: “You got kind of a guestimate or something?”

Mayor Green: “Um, no I don’t. Not at this moment.”

Coun. Ferguson: “OK, when would we be reviewing it again to look at it? A month from now? Two months from now? Six months from now?”

Mayor Green: “I…Councillor Ferguson I really can’t….we have an awful lot of work to do and to get through and budgeting and everything else in terms of priorities. I really can’t give you any indication at this point.”

Coun. Richter: “I had a question. Why do we need an Economic Development Taskforce? What’s the intent of this taskforce? What’s its mandate going to be? And similarly, why do we need a Protective Services Taskforce? What would it’s mandate be? And where I’m going with these questions is wouldn’t it be easier that instead of having these four committees, wouldn’t it be easier just to change the work plan for the select committees? So whatever task is being set before the Economic Development Taskforce…that we give that task to the select committee, and similarly with the Protective Services. But I’ve really like to know what the” [discussion ended abruptly by speaker as mayor injects his thoughts].

Mayor Green: “Well I think the…If I may. First of all let’s deal with the first one. The Standing Committee on Protective Services. In my view it deals probably in a higher overview of the issues surrounding policing and protective issues in our community. It involves…it might involve… yes it will involve fewer because you have to have 50% of that to be from members of council. But it will have a few key members of the community that can involve the community in the process. Involving the community in helping the police department and the fire department in terms of gathering assets, gathering donated assets and other things that may be supplied to the police department to allow them to do a better job, that may not be able to be provided through the regular budget process.”

“Secondly, the issue of the taskforce. I could I guess change the mandate of the Economic Development Committee. Other than to say a taskforce deals with a more focused view of in this particular case, economic development. What I would like them to look at is what I would call a 30,000 foot view of the Township of Langley. Where do we stand today in terms of our industrial and commercial land with a 100,000 population? Where are we going to stand in 13-15 or 20 years from now with a population of 168,000 to 200,000 population. How much acreage do we have available to us in industrial and commercial space? How unbalanced will our taxation be between residential and commercial and/industrial?”

“I think we all know that residential taxation…residential development doesn’t pay for itself. A lot of it is in the industrial/commercial tax area. I’d like to see them in a higher end and I think we have a number of people that are on the Economic Development Committee that could morph into this. But essentially develop a tax model for the municipality going forward, and what that might look like recognizing their interest and involvement in economic development and business. And they will bring a private view, a private enterprise view if you will, of where our challenges are going to be. Where our challenges are going to be in transportation, location, and what does that look like?...

Coun. Richter: “Well I guess where I’m coming from is that usually with a taskforce they have a specific mandate or end point and what you just said is basically you want a tax model for the municipality with regards to industrial, commercial, and residential. That’s the end point. That’s what you want them to come up with. Now looking at our existing Economic Development Commission, I don’t understand why they couldn’t do that job. I think they would be quite capable of doing that job, and it might be very meaningful work for them to be doing."

"Secondly with regards to Protective Services, again, what is the end point? Is the end point for them to come up with a recommendation that there be a police commission, or an assessment of whether there should be a police commission. If that’s the end point then it should be specified. And that may be something that the Community Safety group could do."

"It seems to me that one of the criticisms that was levied against our committee structure prior to the review was that there are good and well-meaning and capable individuals in the community, that are spinning their wheels at these meetings and not achieving allot. I would not want to see us create a parallel or duplicate structure that’s going to result in the same thing. I think if we can meld the two together, we kill two birds with one stone. We give meaningful work to the committees that already exist and we get the end points that we want to have achieved."

"So my recommendation is that instead of having separate committees or suspending committees, I’d just change the work plan for the Select Committees to focus them in on the next year on those specific end points.”

[Mayor’s discussion of Community Charter not allowing a Police Board and his views of a taskforce and what that looks like (project focused).]

Coun. Richter: “I see duplication. If we are going to have 8 different taskforces of the mayor, all with 3 members of council, council is not going to have any time to do anything else other than to go to these committee meetings. And I am concerned about that.”

Mayor Green: “I would suggest that won’t be the case.”

Coun. Richter: “And not just council, but staff members as well. I mean it takes an incredible amount of staff resources to run these committees.”

[Editor’s note of Councillor Bateman’s nodding of head in agreement to Councillor Richter’s statements. How much does all this staff time cost as Coun. Richter pointed out?]

[Coun. Kositsky comments about all of the volunteers that have applied for committees and are awaiting word on their applications since December. He also pointed out the Bylaw for the various committees and doesn’t understand how the mayor can suspend committees now in violation of the Bylaw.]

Coun. Kositsky: “These are council advisory committees and the mayor can form any committees he wants, but for the sake of the volunteers we need some direction Your Worship”

[Mayor directs discussion to Mark Bakken, TOL Administrator for comment. Mayor promises Terms of Reference for next council meeting.]

[Bob Long moves to move forward with Youth Commission and Parks. Administrator suggests discussion in Special Closed session during dinner break. Mayor suggests all committee appointments happen at the same time.]

End of public discussion on this topic.

Councillor Kositsky wrote a Letter to the Editor in the Langley Times.