Dave Allison
Running for a seat on council in the City of Langley
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Retired, 62
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• Have you held office in past? If so, please specify: No
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Candidate provided bio: Dave Allison was born in Vancouver, June 18, 1956. Raised in the Lower Lonsdale area of North Vancouver. At age 17 endured a serious car accident, after a year in hospital and 24 months of convalescence.
Dave moved to Langley, married and has three children, Jackie, James and Chelsea.
Dave built a trucking company with 12 employees at one point. Due to medical complications from injuries from the accident, Dave retired early.
One constant in Dave’s life is boxing. It has been a big part of the Allison family with Dave’s father and son both boxing.
Dave took over the Langley Boxing Club from Denny Ross about 20 years ago. Dave is involved in training kids and most notable product is Champion Sarah Pucek. The Iconic Clash @the Cascades is organized by Dave and his son James.
Dave moved to Langley City from the Township in 2001.
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Phone: 604-534-7899
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• Who is your favourite superhero, and why? Popeye, because he is who he is and always eats his spinach and he is Popeye the sailor man.
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There are 16 candidates running for six councillor seats with the City of Langley. The following are questions asked of each candidate hopeful. They were directed to provide a minimum of a Yes, No, or Don’t Know answer, and given an option to expand on one answer in print (to a maximum of 100 words per question). They could expand on all questions online, if they wished to do so. The following are their replies.
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Questions and Answers:
1. What neighbourhood of Langley do you live in?
Answer: Douglas
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2. How many years have you lived in Langley?
Answer: Langley Township 26 years, Langley City 18 years
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3. How many Langley City council meetings have you attended in the past year?
Answer: Two
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4: Should the City be directly funding social housing to reduce homelessness?
Answer: Don’t know. The issue around our homeless population is complicated. If we simply house the homeless we open a door to an obligation that may get out of control. I believe we are in a coping mode with this issue and are not trying to solve the issue. I believe this is a very complicated issue that attracts a lot of simple opinions on how to solve the problem. I don’t have a simple solution however I do have the right questions and I am willing to work on the problem and make it my priority.
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5. Do you support elevated rail over light rapid transit from Surrey to Langley?
Answer: Don’t know. At this point I do not have enough info on either side of this issue.
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6. Should the City’s industrial area be phased out in favour of residential and commercial development?
Answer: No. I don’t believe it should be phased out in an arbitrary way by government. I do believe going forward it will take a natural course and this will result in the phasing out in an organic way.
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7. Would you vote to raise taxes to hire more police?
Answer: No. I don’t believe an overall increase in tax on residents and business will solve many issues, the issues around crime will unlikely be solved by a few more police officers.
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8. Do you agree with the growth estimates for Langley City in its new Nexus of Community strategic plan?
Answer: No. I don’t like the culture of the Nexus of Community plan. I believe this is a sales job for an agenda. The City of Langley is unique, and we can’t be working on the growth at all cost mode. We have 25,000 people in a very small area. We are bordered by two municipalities with a combined area 6 times the size of Vancouver and already have the same population. As they grow we grow. Growth if we are not careful will force amalgamation and I am against amalgamation.
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9. Should Langley have its own municipal police force, replacing the RCMP?
Answer: No.
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10. Should the City fund an arts centre?
Answer: Don’t know.
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11. Does Langley City need an indoor swimming pool?
Answer: Yes. I have answered yes however I don’t believe it is a need. I do think the community would benefit from such a facility.
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12. Should Langley City lobby for its own urgent care centre?
Answer: Yes.
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13. Do you think residential property taxes are too high?
Answer: Don’t know. I believe the City is well managed and do not believe we are over taxed. I do believe the culture in government in general is to look at more taxes and spending to solve problems. I resist this concept. More spending does not always solve problems.
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14. Should the City amalgamate with the Township?
Answer: No. Not at this time. It could be forced on us and I believe it will be forced on us if we do not make the right decisions going forward. Maintaining our town and standard of living is going to be difficult with growth. We have two choices. We can become a neighborhood or maintain the City on our terms. The latter will be a challenge.
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15. Should the municipality offer tax breaks, incentives, or rebates to companies looking to set up shop here?
Answer: No. I don’t believe in tax payers competing with each other. We simply don’t need to do this in our situation.
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16. Is Langley City being pushed to grow too fast?
Answer: Yes. This is why I don’t agree with the Nexus of Community concept. Langley must be finessed going forward. A one size fits all growth plan does not land well for the City of Langley. It assumes amalgamation and the result is we become a neighborhood in a bigger city. I do not buy in to the growth group think.
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17. Should Langley City take more direct action to combat the opioid crisis locally?
Answer: Yes. But only in conjunction with other levels of government.
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18. Should the City encourage the creation of more rental and low-income housing?
Answer: Don’t know. The challenge is to maintain what we have and as for as the future it needs to be judged per project. I like the City and I don’t believe in any drastic change to our demographics up or down.
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19. Should the City taxes be cut by cutting services?
Answer: No.
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20. Should there be a limit to the number of consecutive terms a member of council can serve?
Answer: Don’t know. I don’t like these kinds of arbitrary rules. They are simple-minded solutions to complicated problems.