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Langley Then and Now: 1940 school board meeting goes to 2 a.m.

Local history through news stories and old photos
20179806_web1_200207-LAT-ThenAndNowVanettaHouse_2
This was once the site of a home built by Willian Vanetta and lived in for many years by his son in the 3200 block of 264th Street. (Google Maps)

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This week in Langley history:

Eighty Years Ago

February 8, 1940

  • The school board met until 2 a.m., and then adjourned without yet having completed its business. Delegations had crowded the hall, demanding extension of the school bus service, an addition to an overcrowded school, more pay for teachers, and a hold on school tax increases.

Seventy Years Ago

February 9, 1950

  • Load and speed restrictions went into place as warmer temperatures started to thaw several inches of frost that had accumulated in roads over the frigid weather of previous weeks.
  • The reeve was unable to hammer his desk to restore order – an unknown thief had made off with his gavel.

Sixty Years Ago

February 4, 1960

  • A committee chaired by Bill Lumsden presented a water supply feasibility study to the Langley Board of Trade, calculating that it would cost $140,000 to $150,000 to supply 265 connections.

Fifty Years Ago

February 5, 1970

  • Nearly a half-million dollars worth of building was started in Langley during the first month of the year. Most of the construction projects were for new homes.

Forty Years Ago

February 6, 1980

  • Langley School Board expected its 1980 operations to cost $30,340,673, up a bit more than $4 million from 1979. An $8 million tax increase was being considered.
  • Developers of Gloucester Properties Ltd. said it would sue the provincial government over plans to re-freeze 626 acres north of Aldergrove, after an earlier provincial decision freed the property from the Agricultural Land Reserve.

Thirty Years Ago

February 7, 1990

  • Langley Advance publisher Jim Schatz suffered a stroke and died at Lngley Memorial Hospital. He had been with the Advance for nearly 44 years, having started as a reporter in 1947 and becoming the paper’s full owner in 1972.
  • A proposal to build a Fort Langley bypass, connecting 88th Avenue to River Road, was turned down by Township council.

Twenty Years Ago

February 8, 2000

  • A parent who claimed his son had been the target of racist harassment during a school trip said that he himself was harassed when he tried to bring it to the school board’s attention. After requesting to speak to the board, he received a call from an assistant superintendent who told him not to “go public” with details of the incident.
  • Langley MLAs Rich Coleman and Lynn Stephens threw millennium party for local residents who, having been born before 1900, had “lived in three centuries.” Thus honoured were Jamesina Jollife, Margaret Logan, Latizzia Muniz, Aurelia O’Dell, Sarah Josephine O’Neil, Harry Routhier, Frederick Rube, Elizabeth, Rubena Rutherford, and Laura Maude Thomas. There was one more centenarian on the honoured guest list, but Ella Jackson passed away the night before the party.

February 11, 2000

  • Township council voted 5-2 in favour of covering former councillor Heather McMullan’s costs in a libel suit stemming from allegations she made during her mayoralty campaign, about a supporter of one of her opponents.
  • Langley Township agreed to help Langley City stage the B.C. Games for the Disabled slated for July.
  • Langley City considered a bylaw allowing rental properties to be searched for marijuana-growing activity.
20179806_web1_200207-LAT-ThenAndNowVanettaHouse_3
The home of William Henry Vannetta was built in 1907 or 1909 (there’s some confusion about the exact date) and is believed to have been torn down in the mid-late 1980s. The address was 3236 264th St. It has also been referred to as the Alexander Moses Vanetta Residence. Alex was William Henry Vanetta’s son; and although it appears that William built it; his son spent longer living there; hence the name of the house.