October 19 Council Meeting: Remembrance Day online ceremony, winter recreation, things to do in Langley City, and reducing waste at future events.

Langley City council received an update from Kim Hilton who is the Director of Recreation, Culture and Community Services yesterday afternoon. The City has been providing recreation opportunities, following WorkSafe BC COVID-19 protocols, since the summer. With winter fast approaching, some gymnasium programs have now started at Timms Community Centre such as pickleball, badminton, volleyball, and table tennis.

The City is once again offering 10 and 20 visit “punch” passes as well as unlimited monthly passes for recreation programs.

Remembrance Day will not be held in person this year in Langley City. Instead, a locally produced ceremony will be put online for people to view on Remembrance Day. For more information, please visit Langley City’s Remembrance Day page.

Discovery Langley City, our tourism marketing organization, has continued to promote our community throughout the pandemic. They recently launched a new video.

Discovery Langley City is continuing to work with Destination BC on COVID-19 recovery planning for 2021~22 and beyond.

On the topic of tourism, large outdoor events have been an important part of our community. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, these events are paused. These large events unfortunately also generate a large amount of waste which ends up in landfill or incinerated. With events paused, council passed the following recommendation from our Environmental Task Group:

THAT Council direct staff to complete a report covering waste management for events within City of Langley including the following:

1. How event waste management is currently addressed
2. Summarize the typical events held within the City of Langley
3. How waste at events can be reduced
4. What waste reduction education resources should be provided at events
5. Should the City implement a requirement that event organizers must submit a waste management plan prior to event approval
6. Identify the components of a suggested waste management plan
7. Identify implications to event organizers
8. Estimate the cost and resource implications for City organized events

I look forward to seeing the staff report on how we can improve our waste management practices, and implementing those recommendations before large events start up again in the future.

Council also gave third and final reading to discharge a land use contract for 20093 44 Avenue, and gave final reading to the 2021 permissive property tax exemption bylaw.