The following is an opinion piece on recent news about vandalism in our community by an Inside Langford reader.

Vandalism is one symptom of people feeling powerless and not valued. I think Langford has at least two types of vandalism – targeted attacks against a message, like the vandalism at the Loghouse Pub, and general disrespect of people (they are not always just youth) defacing property. People who are disrespectful and commit violent acts often do so because they feel they have no other options to express their fears and anger, their justifiable (in their minds anyway) rage has no legitimate outlet. If there is a sense of belonging – a sense of community, then there is sense of ownership that leads to stewardship not destructive behaviour, and empowerment that leads to involvement not random acts of protest.

I believe Langford has created, with its rapid growth strategy, many areas in Langford that have no sense of community, or areas that have lost the sense of community they once had. I see anger and sadness often expressed by citizens at Langford council and committee meetings where they see the changes being wrought on their neighbourhoods as their complaints are barely addressed. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve received several new pieces of information about last Friday’s blast near Savory Road, a story that keeps developing. The new information was about whether the blasting was within the advertised time frame and whether blasting mats were being used on the site (with pictures that appear to demonstrate that there weren’t).

In an earlier post I had linked to City Hall’s blasting schedule, which I had remembered indicating that blasting had to end at noon on Friday’s, over five hours earlier than when the blast was triggered. The document appears to have been removed from Langford’s website, but Read the rest of this entry »

There’s an “in-camera” meeting scheduled for Monday at 5PM, but it’s not a Langford Council meeting. Curiously, it’s a Parks and Rec meeting. The agenda (at least, the portion of it we’re permitted to see) is light with only two items: receiving a report, then receiving a piece of correspondence. From there it’ll go “in-camera” where the public is not invited. In all my time observing as an audience member in Council Chambers, this is the first time I’ve heard of a committee going in-camera, so while it’s likely not the first time it’a happened it is likely a rare occurrence. As is customary with this kind of thing, no details are provided of what’s to be discussed other than the subject matter is “property acquisition.”

The report is on Read the rest of this entry »

Reports from the area around Florence Lake continue to pour in about yesterday’s huge blast in the Florence Lake area, and below is another eye-witness account. This one is interesting because it goes into not only yesterday’s incident, but it also delves into some of the social and financial effects of the blasting in the area on local residents.

– Steven Hurdle -

I happened to be looking EXACTLY at the savory hill from across the lake at my house on the East shore of Florence Lake.

And there was a crack and then a second later a MASSIVE KA-BOOOOOOM!!!! A huge cloud shot up into the sky from the mountain and lingered, and even from my distant position all the way across the lake, I saw dozens (hundreds?) of huge HUGE rock shards, clearly visible to the naked eye, fly hundreds of feet up into the air and scatter down like rain all over the surrounding mountain. Read the rest of this entry »

**Significant new developments in this story are available at this link.**

I received concerned phone calls and emails tonight from Florence Lake residents about a huge blast at the construction site for the Spencer Road Interchange just after 5PM tonight. This blast was reportedly of a scale far beyond anything we had experienced at the site up until now. At least three residents near the blast site are reporting debris falling into their yards. One Florence Lake resident, who had lived in Europe in World War II, reports having had what amounts to a flashback of bombing during the war and was so shaken and upset he had difficulty speaking (he had not had this reaction to all the other explosions that had happened with the extensive blasting in the area recently). Residents on the far side of the lake reported the blast having such force that it almost knocked them off their feet.

Florence Lake resident Maureen Johnson sent Inside Langford the following eye-witness report.

Read the rest of this entry »

Several awards have crossed the news desk recently. Chief among them was Langford and Colwood jointly receiving an award for their joint-OCP process. While the two OCPs did not end up looking identical, it was still an interesting and precedent-setting process. The award appears to be for the setup for the process, not for the final product and not the implementation (which caused concern for many in the community).

Other recent awards include Read the rest of this entry »

It was recently announced that the health clinic at Belmont Senior Secondary was going to last another year. Up until now it had been funded by the Vancouver Island Health Authority (VIHA), but with that funding coming to an end the clinic was slated to close. A grant from the United Way, and the efforts of people from the James Bay Community Project, together will keep it open another year.

I think it`s a great thing that these organisations have stepped up to the plate to keep this going. The student population at Belmont is one of the largest on southern Vancouver Island, and there was no sign that local or provincial government was going to keep it going. It got me to thinking, why is it that a pair of charities (both of them based outside the Western Communities no less) are having to step up to the plate to offer this kind of service?

Read the rest of this entry »

The Loghouse Pub, near the Phelps area in North Langford, had it’s sign vandalised on November 19th. The story was confirmed by Ron Cheeke, the owner of the establishment, in a post on the news section of Save Suze the Tiger, a website he is backing regarding a controversial exotic animal imported into The Highlands. The owner of the pub thinks the vandalism might have been related to Read the rest of this entry »

Unless you’re reading this in your email, you’ve probably noticed that Inside Langford is sporting a new look. It’s also acting a little differently in a few ways, has a few new features, a new (and shorter) URL, and the new design allows more of the options to be up near the top of the page where they’re easier to find and access without scrolling.

Our old URL, http://insidelangford.wordpress.com, was always a little wordier than we preferred. If you had looked closely at the address bar at the top of the window you may have noticed that we have been transitioning to a new shorter URL in recent days, and those changes are now complete. From now on Inside Langford can be accessed at http://insidelangford.ca/ Read the rest of this entry »

The new Four-Points Sheraton hotel, nestled in behind Costco on McCallum Road, is apparently proving hard for people unfamiliar with the area to find. Since people unfamiliar with the area are the bulk of the people searching for it, this issue is an important one for owner Moe Sihota.

The Sheraton is requesting permission for a sign near the McCallum Rd. A&W Restaurant that’s larger than the current sign bylaw currently allows, and a directional sign (presumably further up the road towards the hotel) that would also be larger than allowed.

Langford Council endorsed the recommendation of the Planning and Zoning Committee that the issue be “referred to mayor and administrator to decide best siting.”

While these signs are not congruent with the current bylaw, they Read the rest of this entry »