The Langley Record Continues

Some haters over at the unnamed slanted blog continue to speak about us, even though they promised not to do so because we were deemed irrelevant. People just can't stop talking about something that bothers the hell out of them, and so we let them rant on.

Although the slanted blog "editor" has remained completely anonymous for the couple of years they have been around, they have this itch that needs to be scratched by trying to guess who we are. Like we said before, if they come out with their blog slate and stop hiding behind the BS "editor" screen, then we will be happy to do the same. By remaining anonymous, they just seek to protect and cushion their site owner, Councillor Kim Richter, from the outrageous comments and border-line slanderous statements that they constantly post. At the same time they have the gall to accuse us of all that! We are not protecting any candidates or providing them with a level of deniability as they do. 

We gather if our comments were directed negatively towards a certain young councillor or other members of the previous council that Richter cannot get along at all with, then that would make our posts OK. Yet another double standard, but not surprising for Councillor Richter. Has that blog ever posted ANYTHING at all positive about Councillor Bateman or the others they dislike? No. That is because their blog is totally unbalanced and crosses the hate line frequently. But they fail to realize that only their fan club can overlook the hate. Intelligent people see right through it all and understand how this same behaviour carries over to interactions with our Township Council meetings and shamefully decisions that impact on our residents. At least Councillor Bateman has the integrity and guts to report the facts on council and often in a non-partisan way. This is another sign that Councillor Richter's inaugurial statements about working together was very disengenuous to say the least. The Langley Record will post the positive and the negative for sure. 

We didn't want to speak about it, but we want to make a few things very clear

1. We have no plans to fold this blog and start another. We post when we have things to post and we don't post to hear ourselves talk like other sometimes do.
2. They can call it a "major lie", but we did clearify our post on snow removal. The fact is that in the January 12th council meeting Councillor Richter was very negative in her comments related to snow removal. Regardless of how you slice it and dice it, you cannot divorce staff from the job and road conditions regardless of how much you talk about policy. Let's see what Councillor Richter does in the budget hearings to pay for this very expensive service, shall we? 
3. Our council correspondent does us a favour by providing us with an audio file of the various meetings. The Editorial Board then reviews the audio comments and create a blog posts.  We know exactly what was said, and in time perhaps we will post the audio files for you to hear it for yourself. This is how we plan to destroy their accusations each and every time.

We did not create this blog to attacked Mayor Green, Councillor Richter or anyone else. But we will post our observations that we are entitled to and as these people are public officials, we have a freedom of the press to print our observations as long as we don't personally attack them with accusations that are false. We will also hold them accountable and this is the real crux of their disagreement with us. As far as nick names and such, the other blog has put labels on various politicians, and certainly singles out one in particular all the time. The tables have turned and they are now very upset and accusatory. Again, we want to make it clear that we are not intimidated and are here to stay. 

Councillor Richter gave a long disertation during the inaugurial meeting about council working together. If she meant that and did not simply grandstand to the large audience, then she should practice this in her council interactions and blog posts. There is a saying...if you want to have friends then you have to show yourself friendly. Many times in life you earn respect by first showing respect to others without expecting anything in return. We would welcome Councillor Richter moving in a direction of cooperation and respect with her fellow councillors. 

We would also like to say that while the snow removal plan did leave many residents snowbound because of where they live, the managers of that program presented the snow removal plan to council during the last meeting in December 2008. We can report that there were NO objections to the plan as presented, not even from Councillor Kim Richter. This same plan was then advertised several times on the Township newspaper page and posted to the TOL website. No public comments were posted in the local papers after the plan was posted. These storms were the worst in 50 years and they are not something we can expect every year. While it would be nice to plow every street, it is an unrealistic expectation for almost 1,000 KM of TOL roadways. It seems better to us to have plows available for the clearing of emergency vehicle runs, with a call centre to sort out resident requests for plowing to facilitate their work attendance or medical challenges. TOL staff is expected to report back on the possibilities and then we can look at the costs for the various options. We don't see anything unreasonable about a sober look at things. As this storm did not result in Mayor Green declaring an official State of Emergency, discussions regarding relief after 72 hours is irrelevant.

Finally, Mayor Green acted much more professionally in the last council meeting, and we commended him for containing his viable anger with regards to Councillor Kositsky's questions and comments directed at the new finance committee and the hiring of a consultant. We will continue to report the good and the bad. Again, we hope this move by the mayor will be a permanent one, bringing mayor and council to a new level of working cooperation.

The good and the bad. Read it here and we will continue to exist. Don't listen to haters!

January 12, 2009 Council Meeting and Beyond

Mayor's Report

We are pleased to report that the Mayor's Report was tame last evening and this was refreshing news. We trust that future reports will highlight the various activities happening in our community and which are attended by mayor and council backups.

Hiring Committees and a Consultant

Councillor Mel Kositsky did take Mayor Green to task regarding the launch of the new Finance Committee and said basically without advertising and process, this was a slap in the face to volunteers in our community. Kositsky also repeated his questions related to the hiring of real estate consultant Bruce Maitland (and Green campaign confidant) . Although Councillor Kositsky asked many times for the price tag for this consultancy, we only know that the initial consultation will be 20-40 hours and therefore does not need council approval. But HOW MUCH??

Council spent a good amount of time in the special meeting discussing snow removal and storm policy. In the end they refered the issue to staff to research options and costs. In the evening session Councillor Kim Richter put forth a motion that would require the Township to clear all roads within 72 hours, among other provisions. This without any indication from staff of the costs. She was the only council member who's comments were overwhelmingly negative and with little thanks to public works staff for sacrifices over the holidays. Councillor Richter made a reference to having money for an events centre and therefore having enough for snow removal. A basic business lesson was given to Councillor Richter by fellow councillors who pointed out that the events centre was capital costs and snow removal is operational costs. The motion was defeated while a report from staff on snow removal options is pending.

Although visibly upset at times during the discussions related to committees and such, our council reporter says that Mayor Green did a fairly good job of containing anger and seemed to treat the councillors with a higher degree of respect. This is all good and we applaud the mayor for moving in this new direction.

Charlie Fox On The Mend

One final item of note from last evening. Council moved to grant Councillor Charlie Fox an indefinate leave of absence with pay, so that he can recover from his recent kidney transplant and focus on healing along with his family.  Councillor Richter tried to offer an amendment to the motion to limit Charlie's leave of absence to 6 months only. We will resist the urge to comment further on this one. 

Snow Removal

One of our loyal reads sent us this possible cost-effective snow removal solution for Councillor Richter to consider. With all of her..."interesting" motions this one may win her heart over. We know an unemployed guy who kicks around the TOL who may want to apply for this and do something constructive for once. That is unless our mayor has a few more friends who might be interested in the job. 

Blogger In The Fog

We hear that another blog writer is ranting and raving again over our anonymity. This is really hilareous given the fact that no individual on that blog takes credit or responsibility for their posts, and everyone is in denial as to who the real "editor" is (as if none of us already know!) He's got a bee in his bonnet now and intends to take everyone to task. He's also planning on logging the entire internet on the advice of some underemployed apparent legal student/intern that can't find a real legal job. Canada is a free country and enjoys freedom of the press. Of course this person and the elected official that owns the site is restrictive as to who gets the freedom and liberty. All we can say is log on buddy. Log on. We aren't scared of you and we  don't come anywhere close to feeling intimidated. Log on.

Thoughts For Tonight's Township Council Meeting

One of our Editorial Board member's offered these thoughts/questions for tonight's council meeting:

What will Raging Bull rage against in his mayor's report tonight?

• Will it be another undisguised political attack on his council?
  
• Will he rage against staff and council for snow removal that he applauded at the last council meeting after hearing the full snow plan from staff?
  
• Will he rage against council and staff for the Mufford overpass, which his political buddies, the Muffords and VALTAC, don't want?
• The Langley Times article on the Events Centre?
  
• Will he rage against his only friend, Kim Richter, for her broadcast emails slagging the Township's snow removal?

The mayor had some harsh words for e-mails being sent regarding fire fighters and sport. But now it appears that Councillor Kim Richter carried out her own e-mail campaign regarding snow removal. If the mayor is going to rage against others, perhaps he will now have to put Richter in her place for her latest e-mail campaign? Stay tuned tonight and we will post the Mayor's Report as soon as it becomes available.

Some of our Editorial Board members were in Langley City last night for coffee and some other politically-savvy city residents we know were talking about Mayor Green's letter regarding the LEC. These city residents feel that Township politics has become very negative since Green took over.

They viewed the mayor's letter as a direct and inappropriate assault on Councillor Jordan Bateman (whom most know only socially) and said that Bateman's response letter was viewed as very civil and non-confrontational. They commented that he did not take unfair snipes at the mayor, even though his letter was very much a snipe.

Now before we get 10 angry messages from Horny Toad let me point out that these later comments were not made by our Editorial Board and came from Langley City residents with no allegiances to Green nor Bateman.