December 12th, 2016 Council Meeting Notes: Moving forward with task groups, committees, and flags

Monday night was the last City of Langley council meeting of the year. Yesterday, I posted about the fire update we received.

One of the things that I hear from Langley City residents is that they want City Hall to continue to get things done that improve the quality of life for people who live, work, and visit our community. As part of moving forward with getting things done, we must evaluate how we do things to see if improvements can be made to help meet our goals.

The City of Langley historically had committees with broad mandates on what they could recommend council to act on. The City also had task groups with specific mandates. These task groups have been highly successful and have included the:

• Brydon Lagoon Task Group
• Homelessness Action Table
• Homelessness Integration Team
• Increase the Number of Rent Supplements in Langley Task Group
• Support Integrated Intervention Approaches in Housing and Health Task Group
• Develop a Sustainable Program to Deter Crime and Target “Crime” Hot Spots Task Group

Both task groups and committees are made up of volunteers from our community.

Parks, recreation, environment, public arts & culture, public safety, and homelessness matters are extremely important to the City. After careful consideration and evaluation, it was determined that task groups with specific mandates were the best way to get things done on these important matters. City council approved changes to our policies to move away from committees to task groups.

Because the “Develop a Sustainable Program to Deter Crime and Target ‘Crime’ Hot Spots Task Group” still has work to be done, the task group’s mandate was renewed. I’m looking forward to other task groups being created to provide specific recommendations to council moving forward.

Council members also sit on over 25 various committees in our communities such as the CPR Railway, Township and City Advisory Panel, Healthier Community Partnerships, and Langley Refugee and Immigrant Advisory Committee. Council approved the list of our appointments to these various committees.

Earlier this year, council asked City staff to update our flag policy to allow the rainbow flag to be flown for 7 days during the summer to show that we acknowledge and respect all people regardless of their colour, race, region, national or ethnic origin, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or mental or physical disability. City council approved an updated flag policy which now enables the rainbow flag to be flown for 7 days during the summer.

Tomorrow, I will post about the remaining items that were on Monday’s council agenda.