With Langley City Council meetings wrapped up for the year and Christmas just around the corner, I will be taking a break from blogging. I’ll be back blogging on January 5th.
I hope you are able to spend some time with the people who are important in your life this holiday season.
Do you love Langley City and are looking for a way to help contribute to making our community the place to be? Do you have a passion for improving our environment and parks, enhancing community safety, making our community more accessible, ensuring buildings have great design that fits the context of our city, growing economic opportunities, providing more opportunities for the arts and artists, or helping people discover our history?
If you answered yes, volunteering on a Langley City Council committee may be a good fit for you. You can have a direct say in influencing the direction of your community and get to meet other like-minded folks.
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| Environmental Sustainability Committee members at Community Day operating the waste sorting station. |
I was involved in various versions of Langley City’s Environmental Sustainability Committee, and it helped influence my decision to eventually run for City Council.
If you’d like to learn more about how to volunteer for a Langley City Committee, please visit Langley City’s website. You must apply by January 9, 2026.
Yesterday evening, Langley City Council gave final reading to our 2026-2030 Financial Plan Bylaw, adopting the budget for next year. I’ve posted about the cost drivers for maintaining current service levels, one-time capital projects for 2026, and enhancements to municipal services for Langley City.
This is the last budget for this term of Council. The next budget will occur after the 2026 municipal elections. We do a lot of talking as politicians about what we think is important; a budget is what really separates “just talk” from action. With these two things in mind, I wanted to share where we’ve invested over the last four budget cycles.
In total, the budget has grown by about $13 million or 38.5% over the last four years. $6.6 million, or about half of that, is to maintain current service levels. Of the $6.6 million, about half was to maintain current policing levels.
Langley City Council has invested significantly in public safety, including getting more “boots on the ground” to meet the needs of our growing community.
We have funded 9 new suppression firefighters and one new fire prevention officer. This has enabled us to go from operating one 24/7 firefighting crew to two 24/7 firefighting crews.
We have funded 5 new police officers with a focus on the arrival of SkyTrain and one new bylaw officer position.
We’ve also stood up our own Emergency Program, with people ready to respond when disaster strikes.
This is an additional $2.8 million in public safety investments.
One of the basic responsibilities of a municipality is investing in infrastructure such as roads, paths, parks, water, and sewers. Langley City Council has increased our transfer to reserve accounts to pay for these projects from $1 million to $2.4 million annually over this term, an increase of $1.4 million to help slowly bring down our infrastructure debt.
We’ve also invested $1.2 million to support purchasing land to help prepare for the arrival of SkyTrain. We invested $410,000 to expand our recreation and cultural offerings, including extending Al Anderson Pool operations from 4 months to 6 months.
Council has also invested $197,000 in back-office support, such as IT and HR. To address some of the long-term social challenges in our community, including homelessness, we’ve set up a new department for $180,000. We’ve also hired additional people to help maintain our urban forest for $140,000.
There are some smaller items we’ve invested in as well, such as funding the annual McBurney Plaza aerial display and enhanced Christmas lights in our Downtown for $35,000, which bring a little joy to people's lives, and I wanted to call those out.
The following interactive chart shows the breakdown of investments over this term.
When you look back on this term, our budget shows Council’s commitment to public safety, investing in the basics, and preparing for the future while maintaining the current services that people need. These investments will also ensure that the City is in a healthy financial position for the next Council.
In the same meeting, Council also adopted an updated fees and charges bylaw, solid waste fees, and an updated Intermunicipal Business License bylaw.
The Metro Vancouver Regional District is responsible for air quality in our region. As part of this responsibility, the Regional District monitors air quality and issues alerts and warnings when conditions are compromised.
The summer is typically when we have air quality warnings, either due to wildfire smoke or local air pollution. This summer, the Regional District issued seven warnings, including one on August 24th due to local pollution and wildfire smoke, and on August 26th due to local pollution. Between September 3rd and 7th, the Regional District issued warnings due to wildfire smoke.
The following chart shows trends in air emissions warnings over the last two decades.
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| Number of air quality warning days in the Lower Fraser Valley airshed. Select the chart to enlarge. |
Of note, this year saw the second-highest forested area burned on record in Canada due to wildfires, with 8.9 million hectares burned as of the end of September. The Regional District's goal is to issue zero local emissions warnings, though there hasn’t been a year without one since 2019. Ground-level ozone is harmful to human health and is what triggers these local emissions warnings. Ground-level ozone is created when emissions, primarily from internal combustion vehicles (marine and ground), interact with sunlight.
