The Langley Times Feb 7th edition writes about the Fort Langley BIA renewal of the BIA bylaw which was first established in 1997. The sad thing is that this Editor thinks that Fort Langley is losing the business survivability battle and indeed may lose the war after the Maple Ridge bridge is completed and the Maple Ridge/Ft. Langley ferry comes to a stop. It's just terrible how business after business constantly shuts it's doors in Fort Langley.
The revolving business door in Fort Langley is very sad. It seems that only restaurants can barely succeed there and probably only because essentially it's been simply the Walnut Grove resident's nearby cafeteria! With the advent of the many new name brand restaurants near colossus such as Mario's and the Old Spaghetti Factory and others this probably will affect the restaurant business in Ft, Langley as well. The only profitable business generating event in Fort Langley is the annual cranberry festival. Alas this one day revenue boon combined with the virtually completely dead tourism winters still makes business survivability there very tough.
Downtown main street Langley City on the other hand has done everything right. No longer a ghost town but indeed it seems to be vibrant and flourishing with a diverse business mix. You can hardly even find a parking spot any more downtown. And the City does not even have the quaintness and historic charm and museums that Fort Langley has to offer. They do seem to have many more annual events that are much better advertised and attended though than in Fort Langley. Clearly a success story for the City and an embarrassment for the Township council even after having spendt a lot on Ft. Langley's street scape improvement. This is not unusual as the Township also did street scape improvements in Aldergrove that essentially has not helped the downtown business core there either. In whole a tragic testament to this Council's attention to Fort Langley.
Langley City is finally trying to be pro-active regarding tagging and graffiti. Instead of just counting on their graffiti gestapo they are now soliciting graffiti to brighten up their garbage & recycle bins. Kudos. And instead of jailing and fining these kids perhaps they are now encouraging them to do focused public art pieces. Brilliant. Maybe Township & City should rotate councils to help Township taxpayers out!
Constant articles about the scarcity and very high cost of industrial land in Langley. Hey this Editor knows a great location for the Township to help out our taxpayers. Just to the south across the street from Langley Secondary School and that pink elephant grandstand there is a great big piece of land that contributes $0 to the Township coffers right now and even requires Township taxpayers to provide loans to keep up the $0 contributions!
Enough of the hippopotamus, Hazina articles please! Hazina gets more coverage than the historic Township Tax hikes, pink elephant grandstands and Township subsidized leases!
Another happy Township taxpaying taxpayer quoted in the Times letters, "people deserve reasonable value for their tax dollars......Township citizens are not council’s pet fire hydrant"
The Langley Advance Feb 6th edition wades in on the Langley airport 24 cent lease deal. Interestingly enough they show an accompanying picture of intensive contracting work to ready for the new aforementioned lease. Yet the Township insists they have not yet signed a contract. Curious. Is this realistic and good business sense to start work then? If no contract is in place is there a letter of understanding or a letter of intent in place instead? Also former Township council candidate Glen Tomblin is quoted in the Advance saying, "Maybe it's time to have a full-scale investigation ....why are we subsidizing private businesses?". Meanwhile Cllr. Richter's letter to the editor on the subject is buried in the far back two pages.
Finally community activist Cathleen Vecchiato, asks interesting questions about the new arena plan....
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