Tax, Tax, and More Tax - Vecchiato's Voice

Tax, Tax, and More Tax
by Cathleen Chance Vecchiato
Feeling that newly assigned tax stress, the type that brings bruxism to your anxious dreams? Rest assured. You are not alone. The following was forwarded to me by another Township resident who, like others, sees our tax increases as a loonie grab. If you can make the time, join the Property Tax Protest, Wednesday, July 2nd, 1:00 pm to 4:00 pm, Langley Township Hall, 20338 65 Avenue. In fact, save yourself the postage and submit your property tax form.

Property owners in Langley Township have been hit this year with the second highest tax increase in the Lower Mainland.

For the last several years, our mayor and council members have increased spending at three times the rate of inflation, even taking into account the population growth. This has created an unfair burden on homeowners in the Township, who have seen no corresponding increase in services.

Many Township residents have no access to municipal water, sewer, garbage pickup or public transit yet they are being taxed as if they lived in West Vancouver. We are concerned that our municipal government is on a spending spree, buying golf courses and restaurants at our expense.

This friendly demonstration is being held to remind our elected officials that their job is to manage our hard-earned money wisely and responsibly. You're invited to join us on the picket line, to stop by to sign a petition or to just show up to lend your support.

* * *

So where are the increases going, and what amenities or quality of life issues are we receiving? I’d like to do a random comparison, so chose 2000 for the fiscal property tax year. In 2000, a ¼-acre lot in Brookswood (land only) was assessed at $142,000. For 2008, the same was assessed for $350,000. What is relevant, however, is the increases in “services” for individuals applying for the basic home owner grant.

I calculated that my monthly payments show an increase of 13%, which will finance the following projects above and beyond what we already pay for:
·--- $40,400,000 for storm water, water and sewer projects
·--- $19,300,000 for Engineering road works
·--- $8,100,000 for Recreation, Culture, and Parks
·--- $34,500,000 for Langley Events Centre

Having worked in industries aligned with civic structure, I am well aware of Engineering’s clout and the common practice of padding one’s budget, then having to use it all, lest you receive less the following year. From my understanding, our elected officials have no say over staff issues. Muriel Arnason told me before her death that all personnel issues go through Township Hall Administrator. I can see the “Help Wanted” ad right now:
Want benefits? Do you follow directions? Are you a team player but understand all teams have a leader? Apply at the Township of Langley. You’ll be glad you did! ...

Congratulations ! Whoever You Are - Township Tax Protesters - Wednesday July 2nd - 1 to 4 PM at Township Hall !

What To Do This Weekend ! LOL

It's just glorious to see that despite the recent flurry of outrageous, incestuous, despicable and very questionable and suspect endorsements from all the political self serving cabal elite in Langley for the incumbent "Good Ole boy's Club" that at least there are some obviously ordinary people, taxpayers, that clearly are not happy with the status quo of the present Spend, Borrow and TAX increase Good Ole boy's on Mayor Alberts Langley Township Council slate
Today I was both pleasantly surprised and very heartened to find the above flyer on my car's windshield at a local mall (double-click here to see the whole flyer in large detail to print it & distribute it to?). Whoever you are congratulations for finally seeing the light. Who are you though? Our volunteer photographer, Bob, will be there on July 2nd to get pictures and story details of your protest. Good luck and we at LFP hope you have a great turnout and this Editor certainly hopes that you notified all the media about this as nothing to date other than this flyer has caught my attention about your protest.

Susan Semonick On Schools - Trustees Board of Education Meeting Report of June 17, 2008

Another school board meeting under my belt. If you go to the school district web site and look at the strategic plan, the achievement plan and the district review report, you will have most of the info presented. If it’s not posted request it to be.

District Achievement Contract
One thing that struck me was the fact that it was stated that up to 200-grade eight students fail in numeracy each year because of the transition from elementary to high school. They are hoping that the middle school will reduce that number. Individual secondary school failure rates were not given.

Strategic Plan
Comments were made by one trustee about how well the district is doing and how all the documents are aligning to better improve student achievement. Interesting that unlike the District Achievement Plan which seems to be improving, the Strategic Plan document is going the other way. Why is the strategic plan a one-year plan? It used to be a document with a five-year scope – long term planning. Even the new District Achievement Plan is written to cover three years.

Why is the “development of a comprehensive plan of policy review administered by the Board” a ‘next step’ for 2008-2009 when it is already included in policy as one of the Secretary-Treasurer’s annual tasks? In fact, if I remember correctly, it was Trustee Hogeterp who was supposed to review policies during her past stint as trustee. Yes, it should have been done and still needs to be done - but isn’t it a given?

District Review Report
Dr. Keven Elder, superintendent of the Saanich School District presented his report.
http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/review/035-2008.pdf Again, a lot of back patting on the part of trustees.


Recommendations from the North Langley Consultations
There were boundary changes for West Langley and James Kennedy effective September 2009. What was stated was that it will only affect about 83 students so it is supposedly not a big deal. In my humble opinion any time anything affects students it should be considered a thing of importance. One trustee stated that she had not heard from anyone about this. There might be very good reason - they may have not known it was going to happen. Although, I do know that the PACs of the affected schools were given information beforehand that these recommendations would be going before the Board. Looking at what was done, I believe only the 40 or less now in the James Kennedy French Immersion courses will be unhappy if their child is not able to continue there. Since it is a district program, there is little chance of that though. West Langley is down in enrollment so this change may help or may not considering that the students that wish to go to WLE from this area already are.

Other Observations
There was a bit of barb throwing between Bech and Burton but other than that it was very uneventful.

Trustee Hogeterp is in full election mode, saying the same things numerous times. Considering the again jam-packed agenda with all the presentations slated, you would have thought that this trustee would have made her statements only once to allow an unhurried question period. When you become so repetitive people stop listening anyway.

Trustee McVeigh seems to be getting into election mode also with putting forward two motions dealing with energy management.

We heard from Trustee Ross more than usual also, to our disdain. He does get an ‘A’ for effort but an ‘I’ for content.

I am still working on the Indemnity review so it may be ready for September.

Hope the coming year proves to be a benefit for the children.

Respectfully Submitted
Susan Semonick...

Who’s The Real Mayor Of Langley Township?

MLA & Minister Coleman Endorses Township Mayor Alberts at Election kick-off and Fundraiser!

The Langley Times reports, “Rich Coleman, the most powerful politician in Langley by virtue of his provincial cabinet post, introduced him and gave him a ringing endorsement.”

Township tax increases of “ 26 per cent over six years — triple the rate of inflation.” And current Mayor Alberts and his entire male township slate of merry tax & spend cabal back “continued tax increases of at least five per cent annually over the next five years.” Essentially paraphrases mayoralty candidate Rick Green. He continues on to say “This year, the Township has the second-highest tax increase in the region, at 5.95 per cent.”

Green also said the Township has been engaged in “very questionable land deals.”

Nothing new here to this Editor or our on-going LFP contributors like Councillor Kim Richter who have been writing about this tax – spend & borrow council for years. But it certainly is heartening to see that even a relatively unknown outsider who also hopes to challenge the incumbent Township Mayor Alberts sees the same bold faced financial fiascoes in the halls of the Township hierarchy!

But surprisingly the real powerhouse and questionable shocker who now openly backs Mayor Alberts at his recent weekend fundraising campaign kick-off is none other than Langley's MLA Rich Coleman, a prominent cabinet minister, and of most interesting note our provincial housing minister.

So one has to wonder, who is the really running Langley Township? And what is really going on here?

As Mr. Green says, why in heaven’s name would a sitting MLA and especially a most senior & political savvy seasoned provincial minister ever publicly go out on a limb and endorse Mayor Kurt Alberts and essentially his slate and by default his platforms? Even in the good ole days of the LLT in power at Township hall, Minister Coleman never came out and publicly endorsed the LLT to this dramatic degree. In fact it was indeed suggested that he had been very closely aligned with the LLT key members at that time. I always respected him for this arm's length approach.. No more though! So why indeed come out so publicly in favour for Mayor Alberts now and essentially his silent slate too? To do so is more of a liability than an asset under any circumstance by anyone in a higher political office. By endorsing Mayor Albert’s, he has gone out on a limb and is essentially endorsing the policies and actions past, present and future of this Mayor and his ruling silent slate.

In my opinion, this clearly and strongly suggests that MLA Minister Coleman has for all intents and purposes (by endorsing the current Mayor) endorsed the historically highest tax increases in the Township that have been put in place by this sitting Mayor’s silent slate. Should we extrapolate then that Minister Coleman has also then endorsed the out of control spending and rampantly over budget capital projects cost overruns as well? Then of course there are the “questionable” and lengthy list of land deals that have plagued this ruling Mayor and his slate! Why would an astute and most senior politician like Minister Coleman ever undertake a risk to so strongly and publicly interfere (yes interfere) and endorse this current Mayor and for all intents and purposes his platforms past, present and future?

Why indeed?

Our current Prime Minister Harper has been criticized extensively about his lack of demonstrated good judgment in his allowing and indeed supporting the choice of Minister Bernier and of supporting his Ministers litany of fiascoes. How is this any less a sign of poor, weak or at minimum questionable judgment by Langley's MLA Minister Coleman in deciding to endorse a spend & tax Mayor especially with the long list of outrageous tax, spend & borrowing burdens & issues that this Mayor has laid upon our taxpayers?

In fact this Mayor and his silent slate has even looked financially ridiculous on our municipal airport lease rates which were roundly criticized by even airport appraisal experts who said that the rate the Township sold land leases out were ridiculously far too low and indeed essentially a very questionable subsidy. These landlords who got generation long leases at pennies on the dollar are now advertising rates for sub leases that are in line with and competitive with industrial lease rates in non airport areas like Gloucester yet this Mayor and his tax, spend & borrow tax cabal defended these bargain basement public leases and still pathetically do.

Again so why is MLA and senior Minister Rich Coleman endorsing this Mayor and essentially his vision past, present and future that have seen historically high tax increase in the Township of Langley? Why would Rich Coleman take this political risk to endorse this Mayor? Has Gordon Campbell endorsed a mayor candidate for Vancouver? Is this the "new" Liberal way?

Even more questionable is why would his boss, Premier Campbell, allow such a questionable endorsement of a governing municipal Mayor and by default his silent slate when indeed this is the top minister in charge housing in the province which puts this minister right in the spotlight with highest level property deals and development deals at the highest provincial level? One would think that especially with his responsibilities as the provincial housing minister that the Premier would encourage his senior housing minister to keep his nose out of municipal politics especially in his very own riding.

The risks and questions that could surround the housing minister’s endorsement of any group in any municipality could also affect the the Liberal party itself and of the Premier. Especially, so close to the next provincial election.

So at minimum this Editor thinks that the lack of at minimum good judgement by Housing Minister, Rich Coleman, if not more issues again begs the single question.

Why in heavens name would MLA and senior housing Minister Rich Coleman ever entertain to decide to endorse his own riding’s controversial Mayor especially after the regional press published article after article abut questionable Township land deals?

We can’t answer this question right now and can only speculate but we certainly hope others will look in depth into this whole issue.

Is this another example of poor or questionable judgement just like when Minister Coleman assisted his own Township Councillor Bateman, who by the way is Coleman’s riding VP and former communications consultant, despite the press ragging on about Bateman’s illegal advertisement of a raffle to fund raise for his political re-election?

We emphasize that all of these comments herein is not to suggest for a single moment that "one should simply follow the money"!

Langley Times Editor says Mayor “Alberts has often outperformed..” Another Blatant Endorsement?

Once again in the view of this Editor, I am not surprised to see the municipal race now include all levels of the local Langley establishment including the fifth estate who all rush to blindly support the incumbent Mayor Alberts and his silent slate. Despite the abysmal tax, spend & borrow track record of the incumbent ruling slate on Township council. Some would suggest that the hundreds of thousands of dollars that are spent on advertising by Langley Township and indeed the additional advertisements of our local MLAs and MP (they by the way all showed up to support Mayor Alberts this past weekend ) are very significant dollars that may influence the media’s support. Maybe, maybe not. But this Editor is constantly astounded at the local media’s ongoing support and unwavering blind allegiance to the ruling establishment in the Langleys. Again who is the real ruling establishment is the real question? Does Bucky really want a Liberal ruling elite in Langley?

It's amazing that the Langley Times essentially now also pats Councillor Jordan Bateman on the back for losing his previous contempt of the ruling Mayor Alberts policies on his blog. Now he's on the Mayor's bandwagon. How politically expedient! Then The Times criticizes Councillor Richter for essentially being the only hold-out remaining on Township council that questions any of the financial policies of the Mayor Alberts council. The audacity!

Only in Langley you say! Time for a clean sweep. Enough of the incencestuousness...