December 12th, 2016 Council Meeting Notes: awards and keeping taxis safe

Today will be my last post about Monday night’s City of Langley council meeting. On Tuesday, I posted about the Paddington Station apartment fire. Yesterday, I posted about some of the new polices that council adopted.

Council heard a presentation from Andria McAulay and Rod Wainwright who are members of the Rotary Club. They talked about the SASSY Awards which is sponsored by the four Rotary Clubs of Langley. SASSY stands for Service Above Self Student Youth. The awards recognize youth aged 15 to 21 who live or study in our community in the following categories: Community Service, Youth Leadership, Sports Leadership, Overcoming Adversity, International Service, Environmental Leadership, and Arts & Culture Leadership. You can find out more about these awards on the SASSY website.

Councillor Albrecht and Councillor van den Broek presented awards to the top entrants in the Magic of Christmas Parade as follows:

Presentation of the Magic of Christmas Parade Awards. Select image to enlarge.

Corporate Award: Lisa Dew – Lisa’s School of Dance
Private Award: Theresa Rider – Snow Queen
Community Award: Marcel Horn – Langley United Soccer Association

Later during the meeting, council gave first, second, and third reading to bylaw 3002 and bylaw 3010 regarding chauffeur permits.

In the City of Langley if you chauffeur people professionally (ie: a taxi driver), you need a permit. This permit is issued once people who have applied have been vetted by the RCMP. The current bylaw was created before I was born, and was due for an update.

The new bylaws will enable the RCMP to establish guidelines and policies to evaluate whether applicants are fit and proper persons to act as chauffeurs. If a person doesn’t meet the guidelines or policies, they can be denied a permit.

If a person is found to be operating as a professional chauffeur in the City without a permit, the updated bylaws would see an escalating fine starting at $500 for the first offense, increasing to $2,000 for the third offense.

These bylaws ensure that our community remains safe.

Council also gave final reading to bylaws which I previously posted about including the hotel tax, and new water and sewer rates for 2017.