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Two Big ThumBs up! Leyo Voneuw could barely contain his excitement on Tuesday morning as he toured the Langley City Fire Hall. The Grade 4 Uplands Elementary student was the lucky winner of the City of Langley’s firefighter for a day contest, held as part of fire prevention week. Leyo received a personal ride to and from school in Engine 1, accompanied fire crews in the truck on real code calls, had specialty training from staff and ate lunch with the firefighters and City Mayor Peter Fassbender. Miranda GATHERCOLE/ Langley Times
Township mayor and council endorse formula for pay hike Calculation is based on average of judge, MLA and principal salaries Dan Ferguson Staff Reporter
Langley Township council has approved a new formula that will calculate pay raises based on the salaries of senior police, provincial judges, federal and provincial politicians and Langley school principals, an approach that would raise
their pay 3.3 per cent and pay them a travel allowance for the first time. However, it has yet to decide when the new system will take effect. Council voted to implement the revised formula during the Monday afternoon meeting. It is based on a report by a five-member council remuneration task force set up to conduct an independent review, in the wake of the controversy over the last pay hike in December. That increase, which took place when the new council took office, boosted Mayor Jack Froese’s annual salary by 12.6 per cent and councillor pay rates by 19
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percent. Froese called on council to adopt the recommendations from task force members Deanna Horn, Darcy Rezac, Barbara Sharp, Andrea Soberg and Bob Wilson. “This is not an easy task,” Froese said. “Nobody likes to vote on their own pay increase.” The new formula was adopted over the objection of Councillor Kim Richter, who called the suggested increase “outrageous” at a time when most taxpayers aren’t getting pay raises. “This just adds insult to their injury,” Richter said. “(A council hike of) 3.3 per cent on top
of a 19 per cent increase is just not going to be palatable to taxpayers,” Richter said. Richter said if the new $850 a month travel allowance for the mayor and the new $340 a month travel allowance for councillors is included in the calculations, the compensation increase is considerably bigger than 3.3 per cent. She said it works out to a 14.4 per cent pay hike for the mayor, while councillors get a 12.4 per cent boost. Councillors Charlie Fox and Bob Long joined Richter in voting against the proposal. continued, PAGE 4
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