Tuesday - June 17, 2025 - An island campground gets shot down

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Good morning!

Yesterday, we published a big story on Langley Township’s (overly?) personal politics and there’s one little thing that deserves more explanation. As I noted that Coun. Barb Martens’ expulsion from Contract With Langley had not yet been reported, I wrote there was “little coverage of political dynamics” in the municipality. That’s true in a broad sense—the Township deserves more coverage than it gets. But I need to give credit to the Langley Advance Times’ Matthew Claxton, whose reporting on the Martini saga has been important and was hugely helpful to understand the actual issue at the core of the disagreement. Matthew has done much of the heavy-lifting when it comes to reporting on the Township; the problem with journalism is large cities like Langley frequently only have a single reporter to watch and report on multiple beats. For any great local reporter there are simply too many worthwhile stories to actually do.

Langley is incredibly lucky to have a reporter like Matthew, who has been able to keep citizens up to date on the most-important decisions in the Township. Without him, the community would be much worse off.

– Tyler

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Traffic & Weather

🌤 Local forecast: Langley | Chilliwack | Abbotsford | Hope 

🚘 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

Why governments have blocked a new island campground near Hope

Hope council has shot down a plan to create a large RV park and campground on an island along the Fraser River.

Croft Island is a small, onion-shaped island located immediately across from the Hope townsite.

The island’s owner, Kris Tasci, hopes to create 150 RV lots, along with 100 campsites, on the land. Over the last year, Tasci has begun marketing the lots, appearing at a local RV show and launching a website that described a “private oasis amidst wilderness bliss” and warned that lots were “selling fast.”

But in late May, Hope’s council rejected Tasci’s application to rezone the land and change the city’s Official Community Plan to allow for the creation of the RV park.

• Today, Tyler writes about big plans for a little island—and why the federal, provincial, and municipal governments have all objected to them.

Related

Need to Know

⏳ The construction of a new border crossing between Aldergrove and Lynden has been delayed by at least six months [Aldergrove Star]

⛪ The Chilliwack School District may purchase Christ Lutheran Church so it can expand a nearby school in the future [Chilliwack Progress]

🚑 A youth who jumped from the Mission Bridge last week survived with non-life-threatening injuries [Mission Record]

🚫 The lagoon at Harrison Lake has been closed to swimmers because of high e. coli levels [Agassiz-Harrison Observer]

🔫 Abbotsford police responded to three different calls involving imitation guns over the weekend [Fraser Valley Today]

🎉 Sts’ailes First Nation recently celebrated the opening of its new program for young children [First Nations Health Authority]

🏅 Chawathil councillor and local podcaster Aaron Pete was awarded the King Charles III Coronation Medal for his service to the community [Hope Standard] / The Current interviewed Pete about his podcast Bigger Than Me back in 2022 [FVC]

🏠 Study close to home. Discover KPU’s 140+ programs at campuses in Surrey, Cloverdale, Langley, and Richmond. Get a hands-on education in your community.*

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The Agenda

Chilliwack set to hike bus fares

BC Transit is planning to hike bus fares in Chilliwack—and seemingly eliminating discounts for seniors and students. Increases also seem likely for Abbotsford and Mission.

If Chilliwack council votes to confirm the hike at its meeting today, bus fares will rise by 25 cents in each of the next three years. The cost to ride the bus is currently $2 for adults and $1.75 for students and seniors. A city staff report suggests discounts for seniors and students will also be axed, meaning the cost for a single ride will increase to $2.75 for all riders by 2027/28. A daypass will allow riders to use the bus all day for twice the cost of a single fare.

Semester-long passes for students will also increase sharply, from $112 now to $155.

A report by Chilliwack city staff notes that the last fare hike in the city was in 2013, when adult fares rose from $1.50 to $2 and student and senior fares increased from $1.25 to $1.75. The $1.50 fare had been set in 2007.

The transit operator began a review of fares across the eastern Fraser Valley during the winter, with BC Transit telling Mission council it wanted to synchronize fares across the entire Fraser Valley.

That means that adult riders in Abbotsford and Mission may be spared a fare hike next year, but will have to pay more to ride the bus in the following two years if local politicians give their assent. Senior and student fares may also be abandoned. Currently, a single ride on an Abbotsford/Mission bus is $2.25 or $1.75 for teens and seniors.

Although the transit operator has blamed inflation for the increase, by 2027 they will have likely outpaced Canada’s consumer price index over the previous two decades. $1.50 in 2007 is equivalent to about $2.20 today. At 3% annual inflation, it will be equivalent to about $2.40 in 2027—making the cost of a bus ride about 30 cents, in today’s dollars, more expensive than in 2020.

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