Eighty Years Ago
January 20, 1938
• Reeve A.C. Hope and councillors Logan, Jackson, and Reid were elected by acclamation.
• The first of the annual stewardship meetings, in which citizens were apprised of the state of the municipality by their elected officials, was held at Municipal Hall.
Seventy Years Ago
January 22, 1948
• A mass meeting was called by municipal council and the Board of Trade to protest poor postal service in Langley.
• At a general meeting of the Langley Amateur Athletic Association, members turned down a request by their president to turn over the club’s assets to the Canadian Legion.
Sixty Years Ago
January 23, 1958
• Langley City contracted with an Abbotsford firm to drill a 12-inch water hole into city-owned property in Brookswood. The project was estimated to cost no more than $11,603.
• City council offered to exchange half of Athletic Park for 25 acres of Michaud property along the banks of the Nicomekl River, to pave the way for a shopping centre.
Fifty Years Ago
January 25, 1968
• Municipal works crews started paving the Butler Road (76th Avenue) bridge in to Trinity Junior College.
• Falling waters in the Nicomekl River revealed severe, but repairable, damage to the Gueho Road (203rd Street) bridge.
• The Old Yale Road bridge over the Nicomekl remained closed. A new span was to be erected. Flooding had raised the west end of the bridge eight inches (20 centimetres), and it didn’t drop back into place when the waters receded.
• Rainfall had broken three records: 4.75 inches (11.9 cm) of rain in 24 hours topped the old mark of 3.89 inches (9.7 cm), and 5.88 inches (14.7 cm) in 36 hours bettered and 6.41 inches (16 cm) in 48 hours beat the former record of 4.95 inches (12.4 cm) for both those periods.
Forty Years Ago
January 25, 1978
• Revision of the Township’s shop-closing bylaw allowed stores to remain open on statutory holidays. Council also scrapped the bylaw’s stipulation that stores close by noon on at least one day each week, and the sections regulating maximum hours for operation of stores and service stations.
• A committee of both Langleys was struck to put together a November referendum for an indoor swimming pool.
Thirty Years Ago
January 20, 1988
• A mistrial was declared in the first degree murder case of Nicholas William Micalko. As the mistrial was declared while the jury was out, crown counsel could not comment.
• A site was found for the new police building in Langley, but the location was kept under wraps until it could be revealed at both Langley council meetings.
Twenty Years Ago
January 23, 1998
• The province and the Township announced that a deal had been struck on the 200th Street freeway overpass, and details of a construction timeline were to be revealed in the spring.
• The Township council-dominating Langley leadership Team came under fire over its new policy, allow councillors to veto delegations wanting to be heard at council meetings. The delegates could be denied their hearing, and the decision to deny could be made without an opportunity for public scrutiny.
• Langley resident Egon Neilsen launched a recall campaign in an attempt to have Premier Glen Clark removed as MLA in the riding of Vancouver-Kingsway. A flurry of such recall campaigns launched across the province included one started by Walnut Grove resident Walter Bueckert against Fort Langley-Aldergrove MLA Rich Coleman.
• The Asian economic collapse hit Trinity Western University in the classroom. Enrolment in one English-as-a-second-language course dropped from 103 students to 70.