Elections Will Take Far Back Seat To USA Economic Meltdown - Depression Looming?

If you local Langley politicians and wannabe politicians were hoping for a bit of press attention, forget it. The US Government voted against the economic rescue plan just a few hours ago and the stock markets closed today and had the worst single day losses in history! Dow registered a loss today just over 777 -points! (The 777 numbers should really freak out the Asian markets and christian markets too given their symbolic bad luck numbers..lol) The TSX (torontro stock exchange) fell by a record 840.92 points and oil dropped to $95 US today! This is the news that will bury all attention about Municipal elections folks. Worse still the drop in the US caused an instant credit freeze which will cause at minimum any short term borrowing freeze that will cause missed payrolls, layoffs, defaults, bankruptcies and much worse. Folks, The Western economy is on the edge of a precipice so quite frankly the local elections will amount to a hill of beans. Old hat to us in Langley though since Township Council's Mayor Alberts' council slate has been also as bad with our tax monies on a much smaller scale obviously than Wall street and the US government. So get ready to hunker down folks. It's not going to be pretty....

Secret Poll Shows Kim Richter Would Beat Alberts for Mayor's Chair - LFP NEWS EXCLUSIVE!

(Note: Double mouse click right on Pictures (3 of them) to the left to expand and view graph pictures in large readable format.) A large brown paper envelope containing a thick booklet of poll results was anonymously delivered to Kim Richter's election camp. It contains extensive poll analysis about the upcoming Municipal election including who could win Mayor and Council seats as well as identifying key issues. All information about when the poll was taken or who commissioned it as well as which polling organization were blacked out. LFP has posted only three of the many poll questions and the corresponding results here which you can individually select and enlarge pictures for better viewing.

This Editor assumes that either someone is trying to be helpful or harmful by sending this to Richter's election camp. The question is helpful and/or harmful but to whom?

The poll documents leave a few questions open for discussion. Is it real and who sent it & more importantly why?
1) Are the poll results real or perhaps at least doctored? Well having read the whole booklet I must say it certainly looks and reads like a professional commissioned poll that I have seen in the past and the amount of detail and information within the booklet is quite astounding as well.

2) One wonders if perhaps Mayor Alberts' campaign would send it? This scenario seems highly doubtful though. One would assume that his camp would not want Richter to run at all for Mayor and limit the Mayor's race to Rick Green and Alberts only. The poll shows Alberts will easily beat Green.

3) There are rumours that a local BC Liberal group with obvious Township council connections has sent this to try to convince Richter to enter the Mayoralty race to open up another seat on council. They don't really care if Richter or Alberts wins as Mayor as long as one of them is eliminated to provide a glide path for another one of their candidates to get on council to join sitting BC Liberal candidates already there thus providing a farm team for future provincial elections. Not to mention that this strategy allows them to control all levels of politics in Langley. Yet another rumour has it that there is an unholy alliance tentatively forming between the local BC Liberal camp and the Mayor Alberts camp. Boy, this is a real trustworthy relationship isn't it? (Particularly if one camp or the other is leaking secret poll results to the competition!)

The big question is should Kim Richter run for Mayor or not? This Editor thinks she should!...

Langley Times Editor Finally Comes Clean - Mayor Alberts Had And Does Have A Slate! Alberts is clearly NOT an “Independent Candidate”

After at least 3 years (and more likely 6, if not 9 years) Langley Times Editor Frank Bucholtz finally admits that Langley Township Mayor Kurt Alberts ran a slate in the last two elections.

It’s about time.

Has journalistic objectivity finally won out over advertising dollars? Will a new political day now dawn over Langley? Or will the annual Township big dollar advertising budget still reign supreme?

Today, Bucholtz’s Langley Times editorial and his article say: "... Alberts endorsed a group of candidates in the 2002 and 2005 elections — most of whom were elected."

This admission is remarkable especially since Bucholtz virtually ignored the Alberts’ slate and its implications in the last two municipal elections (2002 and 2005) while allowing Alberts to conveniently hide behind a so-called ‘independent’ label. Bucholtz has continued to do so right up until today.

In a November 18, 2005 Langley Times article, Bucholtz wrote: “Kurt Alberts said after the [November 16, 2005 All Candidates] meeting that the list distributed...and published in an ad contains people he can work with cooperatively on council... ‘As an independent, my bias is naturally towards those candidates I see as free of pressure group influence or affiliations’”.

Really? (So how does Frank justify Township Council’s consistent 8-1 voting record over the past 3 years? Is this really truly “independent thinking free of influence and affiliations”?).

Bucholtz’s November 18, 2005 article also says that Alberts’ list was based on recommendations from a group of people throughout the Township. It references an “advisory panel of citizens” that helped come up with the list that Alberts published in an ad in the same issue of the paper. Interesting how this particular Alberts’ ad appeared under the same article that Bucholtz wrote on the day before the November 19th election. (See Langley Times, page 5 – November 18, 2005).

One member of Alberts’ so-called “advisory panel of citizens” admits in the same article that “he did not help select the list and should not have been included in the ad” (i.e. nobody asked him for permission or told him otherwise).

Isn’t it funny how this Langley Times 2005 “breaking news” story was never really followed up on?

Did Bucholtz and the Langley Times take the time to ask other members of Alberts’ so-called “advisory panel of citizens” if there was in fact a panel? How many meetings did they have? Were there any face-to-face meetings?

If you check back issues of the Langley Times, there is no more on this story after the November 18, 2005 issue. It just died. How’s that for investigative journalism?

So let’s fast-forward. It’s 2008. The current Mayor and his “I-don’t-really-have-a slate” slate has been busy spending money on polls. They’re endorsing replacement “non-slate” members for the next round. Money is apparently no object. Just like our tax dollars.

In today's same Langley Times editorial and article, Bucholtz quotes Mayoralty candidate Rick Green statements and says: "He [Green] is firmly independent”. Bucholtz writes that: “Green also made it clear that he is running by himself, and is not involved with formal or loose alliances with any other candidates".

So how on earth can the Langley Times Editor Frank Bucholtz ever reframe this reversal of his without questioning the integrity of Mayor Kurt Alberts and his silent slate? Curiously, integrity and leadership were centerpieces of Albert’s Election 2005 campaign ads (see actual above pictorial Alberts' ad). The other centerpiece theme in Alberts' 2005 election ads was ‘Solutions’. I guess this means lots of advertising for an Alberts’ slate (Keyword: Advertising).

In any event, Frank Bucholtz’s long overdue admission about an Alberts’ slate is welcome and needed in this community. It’s time for some fresh and truly independent faces on Council who don’t misrepresent themselves. That includes the Mayor....

Warawa: Another Conservative Candidate Foot in Mouth Faux Pas?

Without getting into too much detail, our local Langley Conservative MP Mark Warawa's son, Ryan Warawa, who's running in Vancouver East, also as a Conservative candidate, has been widely today reported in multiple web sites about his personal blog postings of past that has Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca Liberal MP Keith Martin now being quoted by CTV British Columbia, that he considers that; "..the words in the blog (Ryan Warawa's) posting as slanderous." Ryan is a former Young BC Liberal. He also previously failed to win the Conservative nomination for a potentially winnable seat in Burnaby. Ryan Warawa is also quoted on his blog to have said; “I in principle favour government legalizing prostitution — forcing the sex trade into brothels.” As well as; “I favour decriminalization of both marijuana and prostitution…”. Imagine, a Conservative candidate stumping for legal paid sex and pot. What is this world coming to? For more information search Google.

NEW! LFP's CPAC-NANOS Daily Updated National Election Poll

In the next few days this Editor will be posting in an LFP spreadsheet chart as below with daily election poll results from Nic Nanos. In the last national election, of all the polls, only the Nanos daily poll was amazingly dead on in predicting the actual final results. No one else came remotely close.Therefore I have created a spreadsheet & chart that will automatically update daily and will put it's link on our LFP sidebar. If you look at results above up to September 22 you will see the drop for the conservatives, slight upwards stabilization of the Liberals and a pretty good jump for the NDP while the Greens still irrelevantly languish below 10%. The side bar link also shows two more links about regional & leaders daily poll details summary and an archives commentary summary. To view all Nick Nanos sidebar links make sure you are on the LFP HOME page.

On another note this Editor today saw a 4' by 4' Liberal Jake Gray (Langley's where's Waldo?) sign and I was amazed to see that one could hardly read Jake and Gray was only about 1/6th across the sign. Liberal was even smaller. In other words just a big empty red sign! How sad....how stupid!...

Rick Green Vies For Langley Township Mayor With Kick-Off Rally

Photos courtesy of Bob Richter

116 people which also included Rick Green's family, friends, campaign team, reporters and probably spies attended his campaign kick-off rally at Murrayville Hall at 2 pm today. The LFP photographer only stayed about 20 minutes, but while there saw no other Langley politicians at all. Incumbent Mayor Kurt Alberts also was conveniently holding his rally/fundraiser at the same time however. To date only these two are confirmed Langley Township Mayoralty candidates. Councillor Kim Richter has still not officially announced her intentions insofar as also becoming the 3rd Mayoralty candidate except for saying that she will definitely be running to be a member of council. Deadline for officially filing for Mayor or councillor is October 10Th....

Does Kurt Alberts Private Business Receive Special Treatment at Taxpayers Expense? - Letter To The Editor by Wally Martin

I recently viewed a web site http://www.explorelangley.com/Experience/Heritage-and-Culture/Galleries where I noted that the art gallery 'Birthplace of BC' operated by Mayor Kurt Alberts and his wife received special prominence yet the web site states there are galleries galore in Langley.

The web site is operated by Tourism Langley Association which receives tax payer money from the Township of Langley.

Why does Kurt Alberts private business receive special treatment at taxpayers expense?

Why does the private society Tourism Langley Association receive taxpayer funding when it is not accountable to the taxpayer?

Did Alberts excuse himself when funding to the society was discussed?

Tourism Langley Association meets in secret, does not have audited finances or any kind of public records and yet still receives taxpayer money? Is there something wrong here?

Why does Kurt Alberts get FREE advertising for his private business?

Wally Martin
Langley BC...

Time To Storm The Bastille - Letter To The Editor by Shane Dyson

This fall might have seen some real improvements for people in Langley and the province in general. We might have finally seen a provincial senior's advocate, minimum wages raised to $10 an hour and more protection for farm workers.

Those were some of the issues New Democrats were going to push for in this fall session of the legislature set to open on Oct. 6.

But Liberal government house leader Mike de Jong said there's no need for the sitting because the B.C. Liberals have no legislation to pass. What incompetence!

Recently, three Langley farm workers were killed and another two were critically injured when they tried to save their coworkers. Obviously, there are serious agricultural safety issues to address. De Jong, however, said, Unlike Carole James and the NDP, we as a government don't think the government should be out passing laws for the sake of passing laws. What arrogance!

This session would also have seen the Liberals called to account for their part in forest land giveaways, the carbon tax and double-digit pay-raises for high-level bureaucrats. What cowards!
Shane Dyson
Aldergrove...

Batemans Get Moving BC - A Partisan Political Fake Facade? New bridges, roads needed, report says (The Vancouver Sun, 15 Sep 2008, Page A3)

Once again the questionable & secretive Get Moving BC, so-called grass roots organization of a secret and unnamed partisan group with it's front man Langley Township Councillor Jordan Bateman, has issued another partisan, controversial & questionable report. Bateman was and perhaps still is communications director for BC Liberal Minister Rich Coleman and is now Coleman's BC Liberal's riding association President in waiting. He has again issued a very questionable and partisan report on Vancouver bridge traffic. He is also widely rumoured to be looking towards replacing Rich Coleman as the Langley MLA. To get more detailed background on all this in previous LFP postings go to this link. The Vancouver province also reported today on Bateman's Get Moving BC to view at this link. LFP still wonders where Bateman's Get Moving BC funding comes from to do these so-called independent studies?

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New bridges, roads needed, report says
BY MARY FRANCES HILL VANCOUVER SUN
The Vancouver Sun
15 Sep 2008

More bridges and lanes are needed over the Fraser River to ease transportation problems, says a report by a group of six residents who live south of the Fraser. The group, called Get Moving B.C., has drawn criticism from environmental groups, which...read more...

Tech Tags: The Vancouver Sun newspaper British Columbia

Dead End Road “Spruce Up” - & MLA Rich Coleman’s Annual Party - Coincidence? Or Not?

Word on the street this past week has spread like wildfire about a suddenly very rush upgrade of a small rural dead end road (224th Street north of 64th Ave). The upgrade to the dead end 224th Street (which has only a small handful of acreages) is curious indeed in its sudden importance, priority and timing.

This small dead end road has been very substantially regraded and resurfaced. (See photos). Apparently, special equipment was even brought in from Victoria to complete the job. This small dead end road now looks pretty impressive compared to the many other dead end roads in the Township, all of which also have a handful of small acreages.

Coincidently, a property on this particular small dead end road will host a major event for local MLA Rich Coleman this coming weekend – an event that has been widely (but quietly) publicized via personal invitations. However not all members of the taxpaying public (who paid for the road upgrade) have received an invitation (personal or otherwise) to the event, nor have all members of the Council.

Coincidently, MLA Rich Coleman has recently endorsed sitting Mayor Kurt Alberts. Meanwhile, sitting Councillor Jordan Bateman is Vice-President of Rich Coleman’s riding association as well as being a former media consultant for the MLA.

Of course, it’s all a coincidence. But this coming Sunday (September 14, 2008), do drive by 224th St. north of 64th Avenue to see your tax dollars at work.

Councillor Kim Richter Calls for All Municipalities To Include Green Party Leader Elizabeth May in Election Debates

At Monday’s Special Council meeting yesterday, Councillor Kim Richter presented a motion asking Langley Township Council to lobby for a reversal of the decision to exclude The Green Party leader, Elizabeth May, from any national Election 2008 debate. Richter’s complete Notice of Motion to be debated at next Monday’s (September 15, 2008) Council meeting is printed further below.

So will Richter’s motion be seconded? Will it even be discussed? Or will it be “deep-sixed” by the Langley status quo Council which is arguably a poor (because they like to tax and spend) but consistent (because they like ‘Good Ole boy’s Clubs’) reflection of the national political party’s politics? Remember Richter is the only woman among the 9 council members as well.

This Editor bets that this motion is going nowhere. So who on Council will be man enough (or maybe brave or metro sexual enough) to second Richter’s motion? My bet is none! They don’t want strong, intelligent or independent women (or even thinkers) on council. They would like to get rid of the one that’s there now! Something like, PM Stephen Harper?

If it is seconded for discussion, who’s your bet for speaking against her motion. Or will it just be seconded and voted down 8-1 as usual? If even discussed I have my specific bet on the councillor who certainly will try to speak against her motion. Guess who?

Councilor Richter’s Notice of Motion to be debated (hopefully—LOL) next Monday September 15th

“Whereas the Consortium of Canadian Broadcasters decided on September 8, 2008 to exclude the leader of the Green Party from the national leaders debate for the 2008 federal election;

Whereas the leader of the Green Party is well aware of the numerous infrastructure issues faced by Canadian municipalities and regularly participates in conferences and meetings hosted by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM);

Whereas the leader of the Green Party is the only woman leader of a national party in Canada and is therefore a role model for young women and women in politics throughout this country;

Whereas there is a need to involve more young people in the democratic process and exclusion of the Green Party from the leaders’ debates could hinder this and further alienate young voters;

Whereas Canada is a democracy and as a democracy should ensure all viable political options are included in a fair and open debate;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Council of the Township of Langley write to the Consortium of Canadian Broadcasters requesting them to reconsider and reverse their decision to exclude the leader of the Green Party from the leader’s Election 2008 debate in the interests of democracy and fair play;

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Council of the Township of Langley write to the leaders of the other federal parties requesting them to lobby the Consortium of Canadian Broadcasters to reverse their decision about excluding the leader of the Green Party thereby showing good faith in all their claims to want to involve more women in politics;

FINALLY BE IT RESOLVED that a copy of this motion and a request to other municipalities to pass a similar resolution be sent from the Township of Langley to all member municipalities in the Federation of Canadian Municipalities.”

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