Living in Langley should be cheaper.

Langley borrowed $600M. That money doesn't disappear — it shows up in your property tax bill, your utility fees, and the amenities that keep getting cancelled because we've run out of borrowing room.

The Township's own Official 5-Year Financial Plan shows a 23% property tax hike in 2027 and nearly 40% over the next five years. That is not a projection from critics — that is council's own document telling you where this is headed.

We are approaching our provincial borrowing limit faster than council has admitted. The Willoughby pool is gone. The performing arts centre will cost nearly double what the mayor is telling residents. And $177M in housing trust debt quietly appeared in this year's capital budget after we were told it wouldn't affect our credit limit.

The problem isn't just the debt we have. It's that we keep making it worse without a plan to recover.

I'll push for a long-term financial recovery plan built on realistic revenue projections, alternative funding sources like grants and partnerships, and selling surplus assets where it makes sense. New borrowing should be reserved for projects of exceptional community value — not upfront subsidies for developers, projects that look great at a ribbon cutting but don't deliver real community value per dollar spent.

Residents deserve to know exactly where we stand. That means plain-language quarterly reporting on debt, borrowing capacity, and what's actually at risk. Because you can't make informed decisions about who to vote for if council won't tell you the truth about the books.

Parks, libraries, community centres, a pool — these are the everyday amenities that make living in a community affordable and livable. You shouldn't have to drive 30 minutes and pay registration fees every time your kid wants to do something.

Willoughby has been growing for twenty years. We still don't have a pool. The community centre is cancelled. The library that was supposed to open didn't. The Fort Langley Outdoor Pool — a beloved community asset — was torn out and replaced with a splash pad, leaving Fort Langley with no outdoor pool at all. Meanwhile we spent $280M on two sports facilities that serve families a few hours a week when they have a scheduled activity.

Here's what I think is actually achievable: reopen to the public the Community Centre inside the LEC, open the Library that was cancelled in Willoughby Town Centre and is already budgeted for, recreate the Fort Langley Outdoor Pool, and build a standalone aquatics facility instead of the mega community centre that's now mathematically impossible. And invest in neighbourhood parks with real tree canopy — not just grass fields — so families have somewhere local, shaded, and free to actually spend time.

We also have to fix how we plan amenities. Right now council holds an open house, asks residents what they want, and hands the wish list to a design team that builds a budget around it. The result is massive, inflated projects we can't afford — and every dollar tied up in one over-scoped facility is a dollar that isn't building real space for Langley residents somewhere else. There is no infinite ATM of money to draw from.

Set the budget envelope first. Then decide what we can build inside it. A modest facility that actually opens is infinitely better than a perfect one that never gets built because the budget got away from us.

And focusing on small, incremental amenities does not mean slow. It means the opposite. It means we can deliver more meaningful projects, in more neighbourhoods, faster — instead of waiting a decade for one mega-project that may never break ground.

Trees aren't decorative. On a hot summer day they're the difference between a park your family uses and one they don't. They also keep cooling costs down for everyone nearby. Clearing them to build more car infrastructure and then wondering why nobody goes outside is exactly the kind of short-term thinking this platform is trying to fix.

These aren't grand promises. They're the basics a community of 130,000 people should already have — and not having them is costing families money every single week in registration fees, memberships, and drives to facilities that should be closer.

Langley has moved fast on housing approvals and that's not entirely wrong. But build quality has become a genuine problem. Buyers are finding deficiencies after closing and paying to fix them out of pocket. Mature trees are being cleared from neighbourhood after neighbourhood, leaving residents with hotter summers and higher energy bills.

And almost everything being built still assumes every household owns two cars. That assumption costs families $12,000 or more per year. That cost doesn't show up in the listing price but it shows up every single month — in car payments, insurance, fuel, and maintenance.

When we talk about housing affordability we need to talk about the total cost of living in that house, in that neighbourhood, in that community. Building more units matters. Building units that don't quietly cost you an extra $12,000 a year matters just as much.

Good housing policy means building more AND building better. Quality inspections, real tree retention, and design that doesn't force car dependency on every family that moves here.

Car dependency is a cost-of-living issue. When every errand, every school run, every trip to the park requires a vehicle, families pay for it — in fuel, in insurance, in the cost of owning a second car because there's simply no other option.

The basics aren't finished. Sidewalks end mid-block. Kids can't safely walk or bike to school. There are no safe corridors between neighbourhoods, parks, or schools for children who aren't being driven everywhere. And local streets are built for speed instead of community — kids should be able to play street hockey without parents worrying about traffic.

We also don't have a real plan for the future SkyTrain. We need to work with our partners at TransLink now to plan around fast connections, so that when it arrives, Langley families can actually use it instead of still being stuck in their cars.

This isn't about ideology. It's about whether a ten-year-old can ride their bike to the park or play street hockey on a summer evening without their parents worrying — and whether your family can get by with one car instead of two.

Finish the sidewalk network. Build safe walking and cycling routes to schools and parks. Partner with TransLink to plan fast connections to the future SkyTrain. Improve the road network by reducing demand — because the best way to ease congestion isn't more lanes, it's giving people real alternatives to driving. And ensure local streets are built for kids to play, not just cars to speed through. Every trip your kid can make on their own is one less trip you have to make in your car. That's time back and money back — and that's what living in Langley should feel like.