Below are some of the things I intend to work towards as a member of Langford Council. They are broken down into three sub-categories. I will add more content as the campaign goes on. If you have any questions, please email me at steven.hurdle@gmail.com.

Opening the Doors to City Hall:

I believe that more citizens would get involved in their local government if they knew enough about the issues facing their community, and to that end I would advocate for a collection of reforms, including:

- increasing the accessibility of content on Langford’s website, as the search function at present is not adequate

- making all of Langford’s bylaws available on the website, not just some of them

- retaining agendas on the website (at the present time, agendas are removed when a meeting occurs and some of the attached documents are never made available on the website again)

- introducing rules governing how community input is recorded in the minutes of public meetings, to end the perception in the public that sometimes one side is favoured over another in the minutes of Council and committee meetings

- working towards ensuring all documents generated by City Hall staff are included in meeting agendas and minutes in their original form, not “scanned in” rendering them unsearchable

- making already publically available financial records available on Langford’s website, in a dated and easily searchable format (currently, many of these are only available in paper form during office hours at City Hall)

Inviting People In:

At present, members of the community speaking before Langford Council and Langford’s committees are required to give their full name and address before being allowed to speak. This practice is being seen as increasingly unacceptable as this is intimidating for many members of the public, especially when speaking to contentious issues. It’s also worth noting that, in an age of identity theft, people understandably don’t want their full name and address appearing in meeting minutes on Langford’s website, and law enforcement agencies now recommend people give out personal information as infrequently as possible, especially in public and on the internet. I would advocate for ending this increasingly controversial practice by recomending people only give their name and their neighbourhood of residence for non-contentious discussions. Where verification of Langford residency is required, speakers before Langford Council could in addition be asked to submit their name and address for verification on a piece of paper, with that information being retained by City Hall but the address not appearing in the minutes. I believe this would go a long way to creating a more welcoming environment for the public in interacting with their local government.

Ensuring Consistent Quality in Environmental Assessments:

There have been questions within the community as to whether environmental assessments have been appropriately done in the past. We’ve also seen new guidelines brought in with the new Official Community Plan that in some situations allow landowners proposing developments or rezonings to choose their own biologists, potentially opening up the system to further variations from one development to the next as to the quality of their environmental assessments. I would work towards harmonising these by proposing that an independent and credible third party select one or more respected environmental research firms, and work towards all environmental assessments (publically and privately paid for) be performed by one of the firms on the resultant list. This would establish a consistent level of quality in environmental assessments, thus restoring public confidence in those assessments. This would reduce the likelihood of developers, or other businesses, having the public question their environmental assessments and, in so doing, may reduce public opposition to their proposals.