LangleyAdvance Your community newspaper since 1931
Thursday, December 6, 2012
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Traffic safety
Please be careful, kids ask drivers Students teamed with RCMP to remind drivers to slow down near schools. by Matthew Claxton
mclaxton@langleyadvance.com
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Drivers don’t expect to get a traffic ticket from someone far too young to get behind the wheel of a car. But on Tuesday, students at three Langley elementary schools gave out hand-written warning tickets to drivers, urging them to be careful in school zones. The “Think Of Me” campaign, created by Langley RCMP’s community officers along with ICBC, saw uniformed Mounties pulling over drivers who were going too fast, using cellphones, or not wearing seatbelts near James Kennedy, Willoughby, and Belmont Elementary schools. Const. Wally Lee, a community liaison officer, was doing much of the traffic stopping. After nine years with the RCMP’s traffic services, he has an eye for when people are exceeding the 30 km school zone speed. At James Kennedy, Lee or another officer would wave over a car, and speak briefly to the driver. If they were in a fairly cooperative mood, the officers would then call over a student to give the driver one of their tickets. The tickets are warnings only, but their hand-written messages
remind drivers to be extra careful in school zones. Emma Rolfson, a Grade 5 student at James Kennedy, said she was having fun after handing over a ticket to one driver. “And they said thank you,” Rolfson said. Isabelle Sehdev, also in Grade 5, said it was a fun thing to do. “Because people shouldn’t really speed, because people could get hurt,” Sehdev said. Lee said it’s good to remind drivers that students could come out of a school at any time, particularly during the hours of school zone speeds, but not just at the start and end of classes. Students head out for lunch and recess, they go out for field trips, or for gym class, yet Lee said in his experience drivers speed up a bit if they don’t see any students outside. This is the first time that Langley RCMP have officially done a “Think Of Me” campaign, although it may have happened unofficially in the past once, and it has been tried in other Lower Mainland communities, said Const. Craig van Herk. Langley MLA and transportation minister Mary Polak stopped to check out the initiative Tuesday afternoon at James Kennedy. “What more powerful way to get out the message,” Polak said. The key thing for adults to remember is that children don’t make the same decisions as adults, and drivers have to make more time to react, she said.
Matthew Claxton/Langley Advance
Grade 5 student Isabelle Sehdev handed out a “Think Of Me” ticket with RCMP Const. Wally Lee at James Kennedy Elementary on Tuesday.
Langley Township
Gadfly banned from talking to council The Athenry Gate project in Willoughby has led to bans against talking to the Township’s mayor and council. by Matthew Claxton
mclaxton@langleyadvance.com
A Langley City man has been partially banned from attending Township council meetings, speaking to staff, or talking to the mayor and councillors. Jacob de Raadt is a familiar face to anyone who has attended a Township council meeting over the past few years. An engineer, he frequently comments on a
Pro Lacrosse returns to the LEC
wide variety of issues in virtually every neighbourhood in Langley. It was his correspondence about the Athenry Development in Willoughby that resulted in a legal opinion and council vote. De Raadt is now banned from setting foot in the Township Civic Facility on 65th Avenue, unless he receives written permission from the mayor and council, and he is banned from contacting the council or staff, except through the Township’s law firm, Bull Housser. When contacted by the Langley Advance, de Raadt had no comment. Bull Housser has been instructed to send de Raadt a letter telling him to “cease publishing or delivering any defamatory or racist com-
munications in respect of the Township, current or past staff or elected officials.” Samples of his communications in the lawyers’ report include accusing civic staff of misleading council, corruption, and references to Nazi Germany. The Township will also send a letter of complaint to the Association of Professional Engineers about de Raadt’s conduct. De Raadt frequently mentions his engineering background in his presentations to the council. His rapid-fire speeches and Power Point presentations typically cover issues such as parking, traffic, density, and community planning.
The National Lacrosse League will be back at the LEC this Saturday, Dec. 8, as Colorado takes on Calgary. Tickets at Ticketmaster.ca
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