Recently I put together a list of the notable posts from January. Here, for the convenience of those new to the site, are some of the more noteworthy posts over the first portion of February of this year.

On February 11th the last of the the radio interviews I did in January went up on the site in streaming form.
More From the Media Files

The results of the petition results were announced…
Langford Petition Group Collects Landmark Number of Signatures

…then a few days later City Hall moved ahead without any dialogue.
Petition Organisers Question Langford Moving Ahead With Project Despite Concerns of Thousands of Langford Residents About Political Process

Finally, on Feb. 21 we had an interesting situation where the same letter to the editor appeared in somewhat different forms in two newspapers a few days apart, offering an interesting insight into the newspaper editing process.
Interchange breaks ground without bylaws

- Steven Hurdle -

The recent Globe and Mail article on Bear Mountain had a lot of really interesting quotes in it. Here’s another one: Read the rest of this entry »

    A thought on Ingmar Lee, a protester of the interchange project, purchasing the mineral rights to Bear Mountain.  In various reports to the media, including the one copied below, City Hall and Bear Mountain representatives have referred to this action as, vexatious, a nuisance, and a “tactic of annoyance”, but it seems to me that they can’t blame Lee for being as creative as they are.  In fact, I’d argue one begets the other.  City Hall, in conjunction with those same developers, has used creative methods to get around having to consult the public on whether to borrow money for the interchange, for example. However one feels about Lee’s actions, how can anyone blame him from learning from City Hall’s example? Read the rest of this entry »

   The inability of Langford’s bylaw enforcement to resolve a dispute over a drywall business operating in a residential area continues to play out.  It’s now, likely very accurately, being touted as something with BC-wide, perhaps Canada-wide, precedence. And heck, there’s nothing like the following quote to get people’s attention: “Langford residents are all going to be paying a little more in property taxes because of the city’s failure to enforce zoning rules in one neighbourhood.”  I continue to be surprised at how unprepared our civic government was for the decision by the Assessment Review Panel, even to the point of our elected officials and staff expressing little foreknowledge that a decision from the Assessment Review panel on the issue was pending (a fact that surprises me given this has been an issue of contention for four years).

- Steven Hurdle -

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Can cost us all

Times Colonist
Published: Saturday, March 29, 2008

It used to be that battles over zoning violations mattered mostly to the handful of people directly affected. Typically, one homeowner would be accused of Read the rest of this entry »

   The recent Globe and Mail article on Bear Mountain was a lot to go through, so I’ve broken my comments on it into chunks.  This quote caught my eye: 

“Because Barrie’s lot is sandwiched between Langford and Highlands, he needed zoning and building permits from both districts. Langford was no problem–the place is a property developer’s heaven, with councillors who seemingly don’t know how to say no. Bjola, a development consultant, came on board to draft a proposal for a housing development and golf course. By the spring of 2002, Langford had granted Barrie all the permits he needed.”

   It’s interesting to me because the assertion that Langford is a “property developer’s heaven” is something that most Langford residents agree with, both Council’s opponents (who think it’s a bad thing) and Council proponents (who see this in a more positive light) will generally agree Read the rest of this entry »

The InsideLangford website began as the web presence for the petition against the City of Langford borrowing up to $25 million without public approval. At that time, it was the only online repository for information about the proposed borrowing, even the City of Langford’s site had no information. With the successful completion of the petition, it’s grown into a hub for news and conversation about public accountability in our community. Here are some of the noteworthy news posts from January 2008 for those that are newer to the site and may not have the time or inclination to read back through the more than 100 posts on the site.

Monday Magazine had an absolutely unmissable news story on January 11th entitled “$25 Million for who?”. The best part was at the end, where none of the three Langford councillors contacted by Monday magazine could actually recall the bylaws passing third reading on the December 27th, 2007 council meeting. If you’ve never read this, I strongly recommend it, both because it’s informational and it’s amusing.
$25 Million for who?

The First InsideLangford editorial was Read the rest of this entry »

    This is a fascinating insight into Len Barrie, the lead man behind Bear Mountain.  I think the defining moment of the article was this part early on:

Since 2002, when Barrie started knocking down trees in the hills northwest of Victoria, he has enraged environmentalists, town councillors, local residents and aboriginal groups–and done it with a certain amount of glee. “What you see is what you get,” says Barrie. “I call a spade a spade, and if you don’t like it, who cares? I have lots of friends.”

   I’m not a big fan of someone showing casual disinterest to those that have concerns about their actions, especially when those actions affect the whole community, and saying that it doesn’t matter because they have lots of friends.  I’m not a big fan of “might means right”, personally.  I think the best development occurs when developers co-operate with local government, and when local government listens to the concerns of the community in shaping their approvals, or lack thereof, of development proposals. Rightly or wrongly, a lot of people in Langford don’t feel they really have a say, and in this article Len Barrie sounds like someone who doesn’t feel the concerns of the community should matter to him or, more shockingly, that the concerns of the community are an impediment to his plans. That says a lot about the political climate he’s operating within, in my opinion.

- Steven Hurdle -

A second editorial on this news story appears here.

A third article on this news story is available here.

A fourth note on this news story is posted here.

The fifthe comment on this news story appears here.

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THE BULL AND THE BEAR

In his quest to build the massive Bear Mountain resort–the largest planned development in Vancouver Island history–former NHLer Len Barrie has Read the rest of this entry »

The new Focus Magazine is on the news stands, and it has a number of articles and letters of interest to Langford. The letter reprinted below is from Colleen Milne, who has had terse words for people in Langford before in other letters to the editor.

It’s hard to be absolutely certain what she’s addressing, as she doesn’t reference what “article” she’s responding to and there have been a few on Langford in Focus magazine recently. An educated guess is that she’s referring to Sam Williams’ article entitled “Storm Clouds Over Langford” which addressed a broad range of issues of concern to many residents of our community.

I think the most striking thing for me is that so many comments from Langford Council and its supporters begin with a phrase like Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve had many requests for two types of updates:

 - infrequent (approx. once a week) to highlight just the most significant news, and

- more frequent (3-4 times a week, or whenever anything particularly noteworthy happens).

    To address these requests, I’ve created two InsideLangford mailing lists.  The process is not yet automated, so for the meantime just send an email to steven.hurdle@gmail.com and tell me in the message body whether you want “frequent” or “infrequent” updates.  You’ll receive a short email Read the rest of this entry »

   These letters to the editor, oddly both from Saanich residents, are interesting because in a certain sense they’re both correct.  It can be argued that both supporters and opponents of Langford Council are both right, but they’re looking at opposite sides of the same coin.  Efficient governments are generally only efficient in the ways the government in question cares about, and if your priorities as a citizen happen to be different than City Hall’s (as residents near the business mentioned in the second letter found out), your issues may not be resolved speedily, or at all.  The first letter celebrates how quickly Langford can get things done when City Council and city staff put their minds to it, and the second letter shows that this courtesy does not extend to everyone or every issue, as local residents maintain they have been voicing concerns about the drywall business for four years with no resolution.

   On the issue of efficiency, government at all levels has a hard time being both efficient and just. And most of us, push come to shove, will take “just” over “efficient” if we can’t have both.

- Steven Hurdle -

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Good Langford

letter to the Times Colonist Read the rest of this entry »