Thursday - Dec. 12, 2024 - Langley City citizens' assembly gets the go-ahead

🌧 High 5C

Good morning!

Yesterday, we shared our annual FVC book guide and Tyler gave his personal recommendations for some good reading. For today, I briefly considered sharing my anti-book guide (books I hated that you should give to your enemies), but those are few, and extremely subjective. I detested Rene Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy, but one of my university friends became a Descartes fan-boy because of it. And I still have a copy of it in my bookshelf, because you never know when a hated book will be useful. Cogito ergo sum ergo libros lego and all that. (I think therefore I am therefore I read books.)

– Grace

Traffic & Weather

🌤 Local forecast: Langley | Chilliwack | Abbotsford | Hope (We have had to temporarily change our forecast links to the Weather Network due to a technical error.)

🚘 Driving today? Check the current traffic situation via Google, and find DriveBC’s latest updates.

🛣 Click here for links to road cameras across the Fraser Valley, including those for the Coquihalla, Highway 7, Hope-Princeton, Fraser Canyon, and Highway 1 in Langley and Abbotsford.

NEWS

Doubling down on Hope

Hope isn’t Squamish.

But the small town in the Fraser Valley has many of the same natural assets that have helped its seaside cousin shift from a sawmill town into a new type of natural resource-based economy: a tourism hotspot full of beautiful forests and mountains, hiking and biking trails, and rock-climbing spots. And the founders of the Hope Mountain Centre say that those assets and the connections to nature they shape are a growing part of the community’s identity—even as the centre itself scales back.

Two decades ago, the Hope Mountain Centre was founded to provide outdoor education and recreation in and around Hope. But the group behind the centre had also hoped to change the way the town sees itself—from a former resource town to an outdoor playground (just like Squamish).

• Today, Grace writes about the Hope Mountain Centre, how it got started, and where it’s going.

Related

Need to Know

🐷 The BCSPCA is investigating allegations of animal cruelty at a pig processing plant in Chilliwack after an animal rights group released ‘whistleblower’ footage [Chilliwack Progress]

🎒 Abbotsford schools will be offering new courses in braille and athlete nutrition next year [Abbotsford News]

🗳 Here’s what Langley residents need to know about voting in the Cloverdale-Langley City by-election on Monday, Dec. 16 [Langley Advance Times]

🚗 A pickup truck was found submerged in the water at the Stave Lake boat launch last Friday; police say the truck had been recently stolen in Maple Ridge [Mission Record]

🖱 A Chilliwack company is using augmented reality to help Indigenous artists develop and share their art [BC Business]

🏫 A new Langley elementary school will be named after Indigenous elder and educator Josette Dandurand [Langley Advance Times]

🔎 Mission RCMP are looking for a 16-year-old girl who was last seen on Tuesday [Mission Record]

✈ Flair Airlines is adding more flights between Abbotsford and Alberta next year [Abbotsford News]

⚖ A man accused of carjacking a truck and crashing it in Langley has had his bail hearing delayed until January [Langley Advance Times]

💰 Silver Creek Elementary’s Winter Market raised $3,700 for the school’s PAC [Hope Standard]

🧓 BC is not meeting the needs of its seniors as the population grows, BC’s Seniors Advocate says [Times Colonist]

✨ The Geminid meteor shower will peak this Friday, but stargazers may have a hard time seeing it even with clear skies [CBC]

📸 CURRENT CAM: Congratulations to D’Arcy Soutar, who was the first person to identify this week’s Current Cam as the East Sector Lands near Harrison.

🎙 Get the perfect Christmas gift for the blues lover in your life with tickets to the Fort Langley Jazz Fest's 2025 Cool Blues Show! Early bird tickets now available!*

*Sponsored Listing

The Agenda

Langley City citizens’ assembly to get underway this January

Langley City’s first real citizens’ assembly will get underway in early 2025, council has decided.

The citizens’ assembly, which the Fraser Valley Current reported on last month, will see a group of residents come together to discuss ways to improve community safety and well-being in Langley City. The idea was brought forward in 2022 and trialed earlier this year.

Now, council has approved the launch of the official citizens’ assembly, which will likely get underway in January and February.

The assembly will include 29 people, four of whom will represent local First Nations, with another person specifically representing urban Indigenous people in Langley City. The rest of the assembly will be chosen to ensure Langley City’s residents are represented demographically and geographically.

The citizens’ assembly will be asked to suggest solutions to improve community safety, health, and well-being—particularly looking at forms of secure support, like affordable housing, health care, social services, and ways to create stronger families and communities. Once the assembly members develop a set of potential actions, their recommendations will be brought to a community forum for broader discussion.

The assembly will begin this winter, continue into the spring, and conclude when their recommendations are brought to council for approval. If the first assembly is successful, council could consider using it as a model for any future issues Langley City may have.

“We have a specific motion from council back in 2022 to look at community safety,” CAO Francis Cheung said. “We’ll see the outcome of this citizens’ assembly, and then review and analyze whether we are going to be moving forward and taking this approach for other things we were considering.”

People who are interested in potentially participating in the Citizens’ Assembly will be able to contact Dena Kae Beno, the city’s manager of strategic initiatives and social planning, via email for more information.

Share

You can share this newsletter by forwarding it or copy and pasting this link—https://fvcurrent.com/p/december-12-2024/—into a social media post.

🗓 Things to do this week/end

✍ Holiday trivia: The Abbotsford Downtown Business Association hosts a holiday trivia night tonight. Tickets to the event include a beverage, a door prize draw, and 15% off certain restaurants. Doors open at 6pm. Details and tickets online.

💡 Light parade: The Aldergrove Christmas Light Up Parade takes place on Saturday. Join the pre-parade gathering at the Aldergrove Plaza for food, hot drinks, and entertainment starting at 4pm. Details online.

🛶 Heritage portage: The Living Arts Society hosts a three-day portage from Surrey to Langley from Friday to Sunday to commemorate the passage of voyageurs into Stó:lō territory in 1824. Langley City's Portage Park features its celebration on Saturday with free activities and re-enactments. The voyageurs arrive in Fort Langley on Sunday and visitors have the opportunity to join the paddle if space is available. Details online.

Want even more? Insider members get a comprehensive events listing every Thursday, plus a weekly Saturday round-up edition with behind-the-scenes content. Becoming a member costs less than $2 a week and helps support the ongoing production of The Current’s newsletters and in-depth journalism. Become a member here.

Have an event to tell us about? Fill out this form to have it highlighted here.

Catch up

That’s it!

Thanks for reading Fraser Valley Current today ♥️ 

If you found something useful, consider forwarding this newsletter to another local.

Help share The Current

Wouldn’t the Fraser Valley be better if more people had access to local, quality news – and didn’t have to rely on social media? Share The Current with your friends and help us build better communities.