July 24, 2017 Council Meeting Notes: Expense policy changed, corporate fitness discount program launched, and new radio network for our first responders approved

Last night was the last Langley City council meeting before the August break. Council’s next public meeting will be on September 11, 2017. In previous years, this last meeting is usually jam-packed, but this was not the case last night. Even so, there were some important policies that were adopted at the meeting.

The first policy to be adopted was to change the Travel & Expense Policy for the City. This policy was updated to increase the allowable expenses that council members can incur on an annual basis without requiring the approval of the mayor. The mayor may now incur up to $7,000 per year in expense while other council members can now incur up to $5,000 per year in allowed expenses.

This change will allow council members to attend one or two conferences a year such as the Lower Mainland Local Government Association Conference, Union of BC Municipalities Conference, or Federation of Canadian Municipality Conference.

The second change was to increase the per diem amount by $5 to $75 for both council and City staff when travelling out of town. The per diem covers meals and other incidental costs. This change was made to reflect the increase in the cost of meals.

As always, any incurred expenses are publicly reported. You can review last year’s council remuneration and expenses on a previous blog post.

To help promote a happy, health community, and support active lifestyles, Langley City council adopted a new Corporate Fitness Membership Program. This program will grant a 25% discount for three, six, or one year admission packages to our community’s recreation facilities. A business or non-profit agency must have at least three employees who are willing to commit to an admission package to be eligible for the program. Those employees will then receive the discount.

As I noted a few weeks ago, Langley City Fire-Rescue Service in joining the E-Comm radio network. As the Langley RCMP and BC Ambulance Service use the same radio network, this will facilitate better inter-agency communication during emergency events. This radio network will also have better coverage than our current radio network. Council gave final reading to the bylaw to authorize our Fire-Rescue Service to join the radio network.

Tomorrow, I’ll be posting about community grants, and a rezoning plus development permit that was approved.