Eighty Years Ago
February 17, 1938
• Farmers would soon be forced to take a stand against rising land taxes, reeve (mayor) Alex Hope warned. His comments came after the Otter Farmers’ Institute [now Otter Co-op] asked council to withhold extraordinary school expenditures until taxpayers could be consulted.
• The cost of a fire siren for Langley Prairie more than doubled, from $30 to $63, prompting council to delay purchase of the equipment.
Seventy Years Ago
February 19, 1948
• Pacific Stage Lines planned to raise bus fares on several Lower Mainland routes, including a hike from $1 to $1.10 for return tickets between Langley and New Westminster, and from $1.45 to $1.65 return to Vancouver.
• The school board approved a $56,000 classroom construction program, including two rooms each in Aldergrove and Otter Elementaries and one at West Langley Elementary.
Sixty Years Ago
February 20, 1958
• Norman Severide succeeded Lloyd Steele as president of the Langley Board of Trade.
• A.E. Roberts was re-elected president of the Langley Garden Club.
• A court of revisions into 13 Langley City cases adjusted land assessments up a total of $640, while reducing improvement assessments by $2,450.
Fifty Years Ago
February 22, 1968
• Immigration authorities at Aldergrove fouled two attempts by American citizens to cross the border with small amounts of marijuana. The attempts involved seven people, six of whom were charged with possession of the drug. The seventh was deported.
• The Brar family won a $25,000 home at the Vancouver Home Show.
• A joint meeting of the three local Boards of Trade was held at City Hall under the chairmanship of Bob Duckworth. It was decided to hold such gatherings four times a year.
Forty Years Ago
February 22, 1978
• A ground-breaking ceremony marked the start of construction of a three-storey women’s residence at Trinity Western College.
• Dock construction to accommodate a new, larger ferry forced closure of the Albion-Fort Langley run from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. on weekdays for two weeks.
Thirty Years Ago
February 17, 1988
• Langley Memorial Hospital’s Cedar Hill Extended Care Unit was to undergo an $8-million expansion.
• A lone, armed gunman robbed a Super Save Gas store on Fraser Highway.
Twenty Years Ago
February 20, 1998
• The Langley Leadership Team-dominated school board put a call out to try and lease the vacant third floor of the district administrative building. That meant giving up an opportunity, secured by senior administrators during a trip to Victoria, to get $1 million in provincial funding to renovate the third floor, and leaving office staff spread through different buildings in the district. The decision included refusing to open up Milner Education Centre to a middle school for a Fundamental program, which would have been included in the ministry’s funding package.
• The school board voted unanimously to launch a Fundamental middle school program for Grades 7-9.
• The teenaged boy who had mowed down a crowd of young people in Stokes Pit in September, killing one and injuring another who died in hospital a few weeks later, was sentenced to three months “open custody” in a facility other than a jail, three years of probation, and a three-year driving ban.