Belly Flop - ALC Meeting

Last night the Agricultural Land Commission (ALC) held a public meeting at the Langley Events Centre (LEC) to hear from residents on the proposed 64th & Mufford overpass. Several of our Board members attended and had varying degrees of reaction.

There was much rallying, emails, threats, and the promotion of this input session by the Farmland Defence League, the Fraser Valley Conservation Coalition, the NDP, Gateway 40 Citizens Network (which purports to represents more than 50 organizations, including labour, environmental, faith, academic and community organizations across the Lower Mainland). Despite all that, roughly 300 people attended this meeting, many of whom do not live in Langley. But they say this is a regional issue. Is this turnout significant? We don't believe so.

According to 2007 figures, some 2,524,113 people call the Lower Mainland home and is supposed to be the geographic area that all these groups claim to represent. Approximately 104,000 live in the Township of Langley and about 25,000 call the City of Langley their home. Additionally, many people attending last night's session were from even outside the Lower Mainland such as Vancouver Island.

The event was complete with the presence of that elected official from the Fraser Valley that purports to represent farmers and agricultural land singlehandedly. Township Council candidate Sonya Paterson was riding the wave, passing out cards with the names of those Township Councillors that voted in favour of the overpass.

One person close to this blog considered the meeting to be mostly respectful and commented that he/she was happy to see farmers from old farm families there. Another respected community leader attended and called the meeting the "Save Our Farmland Disney Episode". He/she said it was "totally negative" and commented that "with not one person with a viable option".

So, here are a couple of perspectives on the meeting. Our Board members point out that there wasn't much respect as some members of the public singled out 3 members of council for special whipping and that was not very respectful whatsoever.

We also hear that during the discussion someone was promoting a certain "corruption" blog that has been dormant for a very long time. It was run by a person in the community with an extensive and very violent criminal past. Interesting that that was being promoted and perhaps some people take that seriously?

Our overall evaluation of the meeting that it was a complete belly flop and Mayor Rick Green and council candidate Sonya Paterson had better count these numbers and pay attention. The backlash from the silent majority that support the overpass could be severe come the next election. Remember who was passing out those cards! Remember that ALR defender that has voted for more non-farm ALR exclusion applications than any other Township politician. 129,000 people live in Langley City and Langley Township. A total of about 300 people attended this meeting. 40 people spoke against the proposal. No point for those supporting the overpass to show up, as they weren't respected in the past. You do the math.