A job posting has been posted for a “Marketing Coordinator for the City of Langford. The posting does not suggest what the position may pay, but it does indicate that all “applications will be accepted, in confidence.” This follows another recent marketing decision by Langford Council, to authorise the spending of $12,453 to purchase an advertisement (designed to look like an article) for Westshore Magazine. Here is the full text of the job posting:

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New solar-powered trash compactors have been installed along Goldstream Ave. They are being installed in sets of two, with one to collects cans and another to compact trash into a smaller format so that they don’t need to be picked up as often, which theoretically reduces emissions due to fewer trucks running around collecting garbage. I have noted two installations of these so far, a set of near the Goudy library and a set near City Hall.

I had the interesting experince of Read the rest of this entry »

Since Langford’s current affordable housing programme began in 2003, thirty-five 3-bedroom single family dwellings have been built. Local developer Les Bjola in a 2008 radio CFAX interview indicated that in the future single family dwellings would make up less and less of new developments, and I explored this to its inevitable conclusion in a post that looked at the future of the affordable housing programme.

The future is now, as we have the first Read the rest of this entry »

Langford Council’s past Monday night meeting was all about a variety of developments on Walfred Road. If you blinked, you could have missed Langford Council quietly adopting Bylaw 1209, a highly controversial bylaw that allows for a comprehensive development on South Skirt Mt. The item was moved to the first order of business for Council, prior to Public Participation. However, if the intent was to deal with the previously contentious bylaw early in the meeting, that effort was foiled as there were two Public Hearings on two different developments on Walfred Road that garnered many a speaker, who raised numerous concerns about the specific developments as well as a litany of concerns about development on Walfred Road in the South Langford area.

Look for Inside Langford to post a summary of the Walfred public hearings in the near future.

The second Saturday of every month is a recycling depot at Belmont Senior Secondary that takes soft and hard plastics, electronics, styrofoam, and several other things not otherwise recycable. It is on again tomorrow from 10 am to 1 pm, and more specific details on it can be found in this article.

Langford’s Agricultural Advisory Committee (AAC) is meeting again to reconsider two properties. Both had previously been looked at and the AAC had failed to come to agreement on whether there was a benefit to agriculture in removing them from the Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR). For the properties to be reconsidered, presumably a new argument will be presented on how removing them will create a net benefit to agriculture.

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The City of Langford has just been announced as a winner of one of the 2009 Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) awards. The award Langford has won is for “Affordable Housing, Parks and Amenities Contribution Policy”.

From the FCM’s press release:

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Notes have been posted at intermittent intervals along the E&N Rail line that they have begun conducting their annual herbicide spraying. It is scheduled to continue until the end of June, and people are advised to take this into consideration, particularly if walking children or animals along the train tracks.

An omnibus public hearing was held Monday night for the proposed development on 894 Walfred Road. The proposed development has been controversial with neighbours at past public meetings.

The first resident to speak was Read the rest of this entry »

After the exchange on whether a cliff is a park, school trustee Wendy Hobbes stepped up to the podium to discuss her role in helping co-ordinate Langford Summer Festival events.

Wendy recommended that Council strike a standing committee, and that they put a City Hall staff member on it. “I thought it would be good to bring it up tonight, and I guess plead with you,” she added lightheartedly.

Stew Young, chairing the meeting, suggested that her request “go to the festival committee.” He was surprised to learn that Langford no longer has a festival committee. After a few chuckles, it was decided that the next-closest committee was Read the rest of this entry »