Mike Parker

Well, I think you said something very important in the original question. Which was the remaining debt capacity on the capital slide was between 130 to 160 million dollars. That was on the capital slide when it came through. But then in a CBC article three months later, the mayor is saying it's 350 million dollars. So what's the true number of our remaining debt capacity? Is politics getting in the way of accounting? But regardless, we have spent and borrowed far beyond what our tax base can accommodate. That's why when you look in the five-year financial plan it shows a 40% tax increase. What we desperately need to do is grow our tax base in a financially productive way. We need to grow our business tax base, make it easier for business industry to come here because a business doesn't need a pool, it doesn't need ice rinks, it doesn't need those expensive amenities. That way all this debt and spending that's taken place over the last four years doesn't end up in residents who can't afford what's happened over the last four years here.

Yeah, thank you so much for the question. So for people that don't know, I do rent industrial space, so I'm fully aware of how tight the market is. I want to touch on the Fraser Highway employment lands, though, because you're absolutely right. There's trade-offs that we have to make. And as Council, we have to decide who wins and loses when we make those trade-offs. The Environment, people that live in the neighborhood. So I really struggle with something like the Fraser Highway Employment Lands when someone sitting on Council has their name on a development application inside of the Fraser Highway Employment Lands. We need to be more clear with residents who are we making decisions for. Now next up is how do we attract development to the employment lands that we have? Right now we're the most expensive place east of Burnaby to develop new industry. We need to take a look at this. Are we suffocating our future tax base by chasing immediate revenue? We need to take a long-term approach on what is the long-term property tax we could be getting, but we're losing by chasing development revenue here today. Thank you.

I think … the really important question you put in there is maintaining. We have … borrowed and built so much, but take a look at the staff report from last year. They've said outright that we don't have enough money for maintenance. And this is going to be a long-term struggle. It's not just our parks, it's this very building we're in There's a staff report that said we don't have the money to repair the roof on here. We are so focused on building new we've completely forgot that we need to maintain our existing assets. Things are gonna fall apart five, ten, twenty years down the road because we've been chasing, chasing, chasing what's gonna win us election or what's gonna win us votes at the next election. The Township is gonna be here for years, hundreds of years to come. We need to focus on the maintenance of the long term of what we're going to do here. Thank you.

So my understanding is the project is currently waiting on impact assessment with the federal government. And dredging can only occur during narrow windows in the year. So it seems unlikely in the next 12 months, given the election and impact assessment, that this will be completed in the next 12 months. Now, what I would do with that 12 months is work with senior levels of government with the First Nations to get excess funding of something that's not typically something that's funded by local taxes here.

Mike Parker, I struggle a little bit with this question. I think it's inappropriate for council to dictate what needs to happen in parks. Really, the park creation process should be a bottom-up approach. We need to find out what Fort Langley residents truly need. What problems do you have? And work to find solutions and trade-offs to start addressing those problems. Philip Jackman Park and Aldergrove, that was created by community under the Kinsmen banner to address the needs of the community. And look at what that's created. A hundred years later, it's still a thriving park in Aldergrove.

Township culture comes from the tone set at the top. Langley needs a Mayor and Council that respects each other and the rules we operate under.

We need to survey and understand the various farm uses to create a model of water drawn from aquifers so we can create a long term plan.

Mike Parker, independent candidate. So I believe council's been working this term on adjusting the truck route to bypass Fort Langley already. So I'd continue this work. And once that's established, use our new commercial bylaw vehicle enforcement to make sure that trucks aren't using Glover Road to get around, as well as using enforcement in Glen Valley to make sure that trucks aren't using it for truck parking illegally.

We keep hearing growth pays for growth. But what does that mean? Developers come and they pay developer payments. So We borrow today against those developer payments tomorrow. But here's the thing. Those future developments need infrastructure too. So We borrowed a data to get paid back tomorrow, to be handed a new infrastructure bill, we need to borrow more for, to expand further the next day, going faster and faster, continually, perpetually growing, accelerating our growth. When I studied finance, we learned about a financial model that requires non-stop accelerating growth. We called it a Ponzi scheme. And when I look at what's happening and with growth here in the Township of Langley, it starts to look a lot like that. You know, a Ponzi scheme, much like a municipality, can't keep growing forever. My name is Mike Parker, I'm an accountant, and I'm running because I want to ask the question: who pays for growth?

The wheels have fallen off the fiscal bus here in Langley. I'm financially literate, I understand how money works, I understand how debt works, and I understand how we can make things look affordable but create a problem 10, 20, 30 years down the road. I'm asking for your vote because I have a framework of how to fix this that's not just borrow, borrow, borrow.

I'm Mike Parker. I'm running for council because I think we should start asking different questions about how we grow Langley. For too long the question's been what do we build next? What I think we should be asking is how do we grow livable community that we can actually afford to maintain? I have a degree in accounting and finance and with that a very simple lens on governance. What are we getting? What does it cost us? What does it cost us for the next 30 years? I believe in growth. I believe in infrastructure. But I believe that we need to do incremental investment inside our existing communities to make them stronger. Building isn't the same as problem solving. We need to understand what we're costing residents.

We shouldn't measure success by how many things can we announce and build. We should measure it by whether the community we're building is stronger, more affordable, and more resilient than the one we inherited. This means taking care of things that we already have, incremental investment in our existing neighborhoods, and being honest about the long-term cost of our decision-making. I'm Mike Parker. I'm independent. I'm financially literate. And I'm asking for your vote. I'm asking your vote because I think Langley deserves a council that's looking beyond the next election.