Kudos To Langley Advance's Editor On LEC's P3 Financial Fiasco Champion, Cllr. Bateman & Lots Of Wacky Politics

Langley Advance's Editor, Bob Groeneveld, often writes witty and sardonic (scornful, mocking; disdainfully humorous) editorials. Last Tuesday's (jan 13) was especially sardonic. In the same paper he wrote two interesting editorials "Cost Unsharing" and "Whacky Politicians Fun Game". Groeneveld editorials are traditionally humorous and often require a good understanding of our local issues and politicians to get the full gist of his as I call it, sardonic editorials.

The Whacky editorial is vintage Bob that this LFP Editor just loves it's unique wit and word crafting. He describes his version of "whacky politician" and goes on to set the rules for the game he coined with descriptors like; "But you've also got to be careful: no points are scored if it turns out you've "whacked" a politician who wasn't really the whacky one. Sometimes it's the whacker who's the whackiest." Then he brings it full circle to make his local political targeted specific point about;

"And then, a surprise pop-up by Councillor Jordan Bateman... MP Mark Warawa... Mayor Rick Green's letter earns a legitimate whack... Bateman Oooh! This is fun!"

He makes his point beautifully in his sardonic style as usual.

His second editorial, while not in his sardonic style is very surprising insofar as it is the first time that this LFP Editor has seen the Langley Advance actually question any of Councillor Jordan Bateman's words and actions, ever! In his editorial he points to questionable Township financial issues for the first time this Editor can remember as well and says; "food for thought for Township taxpayers, whose share in the LEC costs have already risen from $15 million to significantly more than $22 million."
Much more surprising though is the first ever expressed questions about his former colleague and protege, Cllr. Jordan Bateman (a previous Advance reporter)! His final question asks if one should question if Cllr. Bateman's "vociferous defense" of everything LEC of late could be merely a smokescreen for partisan Provincial Liberal purposes? WOW!!!! Specifically Groeneveld says;

"But why is the province not expected to pull its share of the feds' missing $5 million? If MLA Rich Coleman's $15-million share wasn't a real partnership investment, didn't local taxpayers have a right to know that from the get-go? Or was the government "grant" not an "investment" in real financial terms? And is the vociferous defense - and associated finger-pointing - by Councillor Jordan Bateman, who has close political ties to Coleman, aimed at deflecting questions about the province's responsibilities?"
In any event this in this LFP Editor's opinion is a milestone and kudos to the Langley Advance for finally asking tough questions even when it is as close to home as his former alumni reporter. This is the professional journalism job that all three local newspaper's should be doing. It should have been done on the $3-4-5-6 million Grandstand boondoggle too and never was. Not even to this day! One has to wonder what took so long though. In any event it is welcome. Late, but very welcome.

What perplexes me in addition has been the well known recently developed mutual admiration society club between The Langley times newspaper and Cllr. Bateman as well with Bateman's public excuse of blaming a recent so called "misinterpretation" on the Advance reporter Matthew Claxton. These certainly would have gotten my goat by now in any event too! Finally, and the most interesting is that both of the partisan pro Cllr. Bateman blog sites have totally ignored these two Bob Groeneveld editorials!...