Next Few Council Meetings Virtual Due to Council Chamber Renewal

For many, including Langley City Council, this week is the unofficial beginning of the fall season, with many things restarting, such as school. Local government councils and boards generally have a meeting break in August, but as of this week, we are back in full swing.

You may notice that Langley City Council will meet virtually for the next two to four meetings.

We are meeting virtually because the Langley City Council Chamber is getting a long overdue upgrade. Langley City Council meetings are streamed online and recorded. The recording technology in the Council Chamber is almost two decades old. You can tell when watching the grainy and hard-to-hear meetings online. In the Council chamber itself, it is also challenging to hear Council both as a member of the public and a member of the Council; this can be exacerbated if you have hearing loss. The room's layout, including the desk, makes it challenging to have "roll up your sleeves" meetings, which is why Council holds many of its meetings in the CKF Boardroom across the hall.

Over the next month or so, the Council Chamber is getting a technology refresh to improve audio and video quality for people watching meetings online and those attending in person. The echoey laminate flooring will be replaced with standard office carpet. The current "Judge Judy" layout will be changed to a standard, simple boardroom layout. This upgrade will improve accessibility for members of Council and the general public. It will also result in much-needed additional meeting space at City Hall as the Council Chamber will now be available for other Council committee and staff meetings.

During the upgrade, you can live stream Council meetings on YouTube or request a link to a Zoom meeting to observe directly. For those without access to the Internet, the City will also be setting up a viewing room in the CKF Boardroom at City Hall. For more information, please visit Langley City's website.

I look forward to the updated Council Chamber and getting back to meeting in person as soon as possible.

Clean and Safe Public Washrooms in Parks and Transit Stations are Possible

In August, I travelled to the South Island of Aotearoa New Zealand and Sydney, Australia. One of the things that stood out to me during this trip was the number of well-maintained public washrooms, whether in transit stations, parks, or just on the side of the road.

A public washroom in a Sydney Metro station. Select the image to enlarge.

Access to well-maintained washrooms is essential. I know that access to washrooms is even more critical for folks with children or elders. I've certainly had many times when I've needed to go into a shopping centre or buy a coffee to access a washroom.

The main public transit exchange in Downtown Christchurch, New Zealand which has public washrooms. Select the image to enlarge.

On the long weekend, I travelled to the Puget Sound region to check out the new Link light rail extension, which connects the City of Lynwood, Mountlake Terrace, and Shoreline to Seattle and points south. I noticed that the Lynwood City Center station had public washrooms.

Some might think that there is something different about Metro Vancouver that makes it difficult to have public washrooms, especially at transit stations. There isn't, from what I can tell. Some people in all the places I travelled to use washrooms beyond their intended purpose, but the maintenance frequency is higher.

For a local example, the washrooms at Willowbrook Shopping Mall are maintained more frequently than the washrooms at Linwood Park in Langley City. Traditionally, we haven't placed a high value on public washrooms, though this is something that I've been advocating changing, whether at TransLink stations or here in Langley City.

I'm proud that we are building a new public washroom in Douglas Park, but I also acknowledge that we need to increase the frequency of washroom service.

We can have nice things, including clean and safe public washrooms. As a community and a region, we must prioritize it.

Watch the 2024 State of Langley City Address with Q&As

I delivered the 2024 State of the City address at a Greater Langley Chamber of Commerce dinner at the end of June. I posted a quick write-up of the presentation portion of the address, which you can read in a previous post. At a high level, the presentation titled “Our City, Our Future” focused on how we are partnering to deliver new and maintain existing affordable housing, what we are doing to build a safer community, including the work we’ve done in the last year in preparation for the Citizens’ Assembly on Community Safety, what SkyTrain means for Langley City, redevelopment, and our new performance evaluation and accountability dashboard.

The full video of the address is now online, including the presentation and the fireside chat with Greater Langley Chamber of Commerce CEO Cory Redekop.

During the fireside chat, we discussed how the BC Assessment Authority’s property valuation makes for inconsistent commercial property tax rates in the City. We also touch on the importance of investing in infrastructure such as roads, water pipes, sewer lines, and parks to support the business community and how these investments get customers to shops and attract workers to the community. We talked about the work Langley City is doing around increasing community safety, including looking into ways to implement upstream solutions. We also chatted about regional service integration, what SkyTrain means for our Downtown, the Fraser Highway One-Way Renewal Project, and the Township’s proposed de-integration of our shared Langley RCMP detachment.

Below is the video of the 2024 State of the City address.