Thursday, May 12, 2022

May 9 Council Notes: Budget, Property Tax, and Upcoming Local Government Election

Langley City Council addressed several housekeeping matters at its Monday meeting.

Council gave final reading to amend the 2022 budget as the City has received additional grant money for projects and some other projects’ scopes have changed. You can read more about these grants and changes in a previous post.

Council also gave final reading to update the 2022 tax rate bylaw. You can read more about this in a previous post.

With the upcoming election this fall, Council gave first, second, and third reading to a bylaw which will improve voting options. Anyone will now be able to vote during advanced voting at the Langley Senior Resources Society. The proposed bylaw will also provide authority for voter registration by mail and voting by mail.

The proposed bylaw will also increase the number of nominees someone needs to run for Mayor or Council from two to ten. This change will help to ensure that there is meaningful support from qualified electors for candidates running.

Currently, candidates can put election signs on private property and at two public property locations (the Gateway of Hope and BC Hydro Right-of-Way on 200th Street.)

While discussing a minor change to the sign bylaw for election signs, Council suggested that we shouldn’t allow election signs on any public property, including these two locations. The rationale is that signs on public property are always subject to extreme vandalism, with vandalized sign parts getting into our ecosystem. Sign clutter at these two locations also means that they don’t effectively promote candidates.

Council did not move forward with the minor change to the sign bylaw, asking staff to look at updating the sign bylaw to continue allowing private property owners to place election signs on their property while restricting election signs on all public property.

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