I had the pleasure of attending a few great Celebrations last weekend, in the Park in Langdon a Group opened a time capsule that was put there 33 years ago. It was particularly interesting since many of the people that put it there still live in Langdon. Even more interesting, Langdon has grown so much and so fast that many of the people that were there in 1983 have had Streets named after them since they are the Langdon Pioneers. I wonder how many Communities still have the Families the Streets were named after still in the picture?
The Community Garden had it’s official Opening as well, a hearty congratulations to them. I know it was a very challenging project to get off the ground, what a thrill to see it finally coming to fruition. If you haven’t been there yet it is just East of the North ball diamond in the park. They did a great job of putting it together, I wish them the best of luck in their future crops.
There was also a First Annual Volunteer of the Year Award presented to two outstanding Citizens, Chrissy Craig and Cat Golden were honoured with the Award. A Community thrives on it’s volunteers and there were many people nominated who should be very proud for their contributions. If you see Tara Nichols, Corrie Carrobourg, Colette Curkan, Chris Biollo, Brendan Connolly, Linda Gail Brown, Alex Galvan, Paige Skrypnek, Shaun Fisk, Tyson Ditner, Cat Golden or Chrissy Craig around Town, thank them for their kind efforts in making Langdon what it is.
The Saturday Morning event was also a bit unique, I had the pleasure of joining the Elected Officials from the other two levels of Government in the celebrations. Martin Shields, our Member of Parliament (MP) got back from Ottawa the night before and was able to attend as well as Leela Aheer, our Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) was able to attend. It is rare to get the Municipal, Provincial and Federal Elected Officials all at the same time, I think the last time all three were in the same room was at one of my Town Hall Meetings when Myself, Kevin Sorenson (MP) and Ted Morton (MLA) were together.
At the County it is as busy as always, the latest thing going on is the resident consultation in Langdon on the possibility of a program for the Green Bins. With a population of over 5,000 of course there is the challenge of dealing with Garbage. The hard part is where to take everything and how to balance the costs. Our garbage goes to the City of Calgary landfills, they also have a challenge of dealing with garbage on quite a different level, over 1.2 million people. Rocky View County does not have a landfill so it always is at the mercy of wherever garbage can be disposed of, the sad truth is that if nothing is done the costs would go through the roof. The recent changes to the way we deal with it helped a lot, the bin program has worked well. The Blue bins take a lot of pressure off since there is no fee for receiving recyclable material, the Black bins without Recycling material have reduced the amount of waste that the City charges the County for in landfill fees. Waste Management is charged on a recovery basis and as such, anything people can do to reduce that pressure helps keep the monthly charges down. The next challenge is organic material, the City has informed the County that loads of Garbage will be surcharged or refused if there is too much organic material in the load. The only way to alleviate another large increase is to further separate material from the garbage. The Green bin program is exactly that and the County is now seeking your opinion on how you see that rolling out. Recently there was a survey done and they are now compiling the results, I will let you know once they have done their analysis. Have a great Summer!
