CONTACT INFO FOR MAYOR AND COUNCIL

Mayor Jack Froese 604-533-6000   jfroese@tol.ca

Councillors:
Kim Richter -- 604-340-9517  krichter@tol.ca
David Davis -- 604-888-1402 ddavis@tol.ca
Michelle Sparrow -- 604-340-5087 msparrow@tol.ca
Bev Dornan --  604-340-1554 bdornan@tol.ca
Bob Long -- 604-671-8948 blong@tol.ca
Charlie Fox -- 604-532-3587 cfox@tol.ca
Grant Ward -- 604-532-3584 gward@tol.ca
Steve Ferguson --  604-532-3585 sferguson@tol.ca

SIERRA CLUB HIKING TRIP

The Sierra Club Lower Mainland and WOLF have organized an field trip to the Mclellan Park forests for Saturday September 29. Here is the invitation.
  

Please join Sierra Lower Mainland for a guided hike through a rare forested area in Langley Township.

Where:    Please meet at 257a Street along the roadside

When:     Saturday, September 29th from 3pm – 5 or 6pm
To Bring: Good hiking boots, moderate exercise tolerance

We will be hiking through two separate and distinct areas of forested land. They are presently owned by the

municipality, with one parcel currently for sale. They are just blocks away from each other.

 The parcel that is for sale is a mixed conifer/deciduous forest with different types of habitat. There is extensive vegetation on the forest floor, various tree types and over 100 species of birds and animals that have been observed by naturalists. Some of the trees may be as old as 240 years. The deciduous part of the forest contains a giant hollow cottonwood that we will be visiting. It is in an area that may have been marsh/bog in the nineteenth century and potentially has never been logged. Another area of this lot contains some stumps with evidence of pioneer logging. The thick vegetation makes this forest appear larger than its 25 acres.

Not so with the other parcel of land. This is a 25 acre open floor forest of mostly conifer trees.This means that you can almost look from one edge of the forest to the other. This parcel is reminiscent of the once dominant ecology of the Fraser Valley before European arrival and extensive logging by pioneers. Until July 9, 2012 most of it was also for sale by the municipality; the sale was reversed due to public pressure.

Watchers of Langley Forests is a group of Langley residents who came together in support of conserving both parcels. A member of the group will be guiding us through the forest.

Please respond to theresamartin14@gmail.com if you are interested in joining us on this hike. A car pool can be arranged if there is interest.

LINKS

Here are some links.
Last week WOLF sent a package to the Township.Most of the non-confidential materials have already been  posted. Here is the executive summary.
Here is a link to an article on the Global website about the Council meeting on Monday September 10.
And here is the link to an article on the Langley Times website.
Still looking for a video of the story on Global News.

GLEN VALLEY FOREST ECOLOGY

Now would be as good a time as any to remind people what we are fighting for. So go read this short summary of the environmental issues and check out this picture album.

Tomorrow  will see more materials posted.

PETRINA ARNASON STATEMENT SEPTEMBER 10

You can read it here

HILARY RUFFINI STATEMENT

Here is the link.

TRAIL NETWORK VISION

As mentioned below Stuart Bucholtz outlined for the Township Council a vision of how both the Mclellan Park West and Mclellan Park East forests might become part of the TransCanada Trail. He was doing this on behalf of Leon Lebrun and Larri Woodrow of TrailsBC. TrailsBC is the representative of the TransCanada Trail in the province.Leon Lebrun was in attendance and was prepared to answer  any questions that Mayor and Councillors might have had.Here is a link to a letter that Leon Lebrun sent to Council last week.

Stuart's remarks were based on discussions he has had with both Mr. Lebrun and Mr. Woodrow. On two separate  occasions(once with Leon and once with Larri) they explored the forest and the neighbourhood and considered possible trails through private lands that would run the  TransCanada from 88th to the two forested parcels and from there to the Nathan Creek dike. I want to emphasize that these proposals are only preliminary and would require negotiations with private landowners. Nevertheless we believe it likely that local landowners would welcome the TransCanada Trail.The tourism potential for such businesses as Barkley Brook and the Fort Wine Co. should be obvious.

RED LINES INDICATE THE FOREST LOTS CURRENTLY OR PREVIOUSLY FOR SALE

RED LINES INDICATE EXISTING OR ENVISIONED TRAILS BY TOWNSHIP

The current proposal for the TransCanada Trail is along 88th. This route is a busy road and has few if any natural features. This alternate route would be highly scenic and have many natural features.It is wild. Ultimately the trail network could be connected to the Glen Valley Escarpment and to various regional parks in the area.

The most important thing to remember though is that if any or all of the lots currently for sale were sold that would destroy  the rationale for taking a route through the forests. The ecosytem would be so damaged that the Wild factor(and Wow factor) would be destroyed.

COUNCIL MEETING LAST NIGHT

 Thank you to everyone who made it out last night for the Council meeting. It was a long night for everyone. So many people wanted to speak to the separate issue of propane cannons that we made our delegations just before the end of the meeting. That was around ten o'clock.

At the Council meeting WOLF  made four presentations regarding the forest and  our fight to save it.Different speakers took on different aspects.


Solon Bucholtz made some brief remarks and then turned over the time remaining to Brandon Gabriel.We would like to thank the Mayor and Council for allowing this. Brandon spoke of the historical and cultural significance of the forested parcels and surrounding areas for the Kwantlen people.The area was called Samaquaa by the Kwantlen and was used as a hunting area. He asked Council to defer the sale of the Mclellan Park East forest until the Chief and Council could weigh in on the issue.

Stuart Bucholtz spoke on behalf of Leon LeBrun and Larri Woodrow of Trails BC and outlined a vision of how the forested parcels might be incorporated into the TransCanada Trail.

Hilary Ruffini spoke about the ecosystem and the consequence for it if the forest was sold.Hilary is knowledgeable about this issue and speaks with passion and energy. She renewed her challenge to  Council to address the environmental issues.

Petrina Arnason spoke about WOLF's activities over the the summer. She referred to our petition drive, our guided tours, and our activities on this blog,facebook and twitter .She thanked all our volunteers for their work this summer.

Petrina went on to speak  about our intention to find third party partners to help with the purchase of McLellan Park East site. Last week we delivered a letter of intent to Council regarding that. We believe that such an approach would meet the two objectives of raising the funds to pay for the site of a future Aldergrove recreation centre  as well as conserving the forest for future generations. We believe this meets the challenge that the Mayor issued to us on July 9 to raise funds.

Global News had a brief report on the late night news. A link will be available as soon as it can be found.

Coming soon our copies of some of the remarks that were made last night as well as some non-confidential documents from a package that was delivered to Mayor and Council last week.

DAVID JORDAN LETTER

On August 24 David Jordan,Assistant Professor of Geography and Environmental Studies at Trinity Western University, spend about three hours inspecting the McLellan Park East lots. Professor Jordan's specialty is dendrochronology or tree ring science. On August 30 he wrote  a letter to Mayor and Council.Here is a link.

BRANDON GABRIEL LETTER

Brandon Gabriel a well known artist and member of the Kwantlen First Nation,has sent a letter tonight , by way of email,  to Langley Township Mayor and Council.In it he asks Township Council to defer a decision regarding the sale of the McLellan Park East forested lands until Chief and Council have an opportunity to weigh in on the issue. This is due to the heritage value that the forest has for Kwantlen First Nation. Here is the link
UPDATE Brandon Gabriel has also applied to speak as a delegate at the next evening meeting of Council Monday September 10.

PRESS RELEASE

Watchers of Langley Forests sent out a press release to all major media outlets in the Township and the Lower Mainland on Wednesday September 5. As a courtesy it was also sent to the Mayor and Councillors and to the Township Administrator. Here is the link

COUNCIL MEETING -MARK YOUR CALENDARS

This coming Monday evening September 10 Township Council will be meeting. As this press release mentions a number of individuals will be speaking at the evening meeting in regard to the conservation of the Mclellan Park East forest behind Gray Pit. It is important that people get out and show Council that they support the conservation of this forested parcel still for sale. The silent support of people sitting in the meeting room(especially if everybody is wearing green) could have a powerful effect. Please let others know about this.

The Council meets at 7 pm Monday September 10 at the Township Building 20338 65th Avenue. We hope to see you there.

UPDATE An  earlier version  of this  post referred to a blog post that had not yet been published. That blog post (entitled PRESS RELEASE) has now been published.The text of this post has been changed to reflect reality. I apologize for any confusion that may have occurred.