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.