Neighbours in Support of Maureen Johnston
by Zoe Blunt
 After politely expressing her objections to the South Skirt Mountain Development Plan at the Public Meeting at Langford City Hall February 24, 2009, Maureen Johnston was publicly humiliated and subjected to verbal abuse from Mayor Stew Young.
Langford Lout Stew Young
She spoke to the Environment.
A retired educator, she had presented her well-documented comments in a very orderly and dignified fashion. Aside from bellowing at her, loudly and rudely, ordering her to “SIT DOWN”, Mayor Young launched into a tirade implying hypocrisy because she lives on Florence Lake – in a sensitive riparian zone.
He went on at great length, lecturing her, defending Langford’s excellent record on environmental protection, slamming the people who already live on Florence Lake because they live in the riparian zone and should never have been allowed to build there.
1) Maureen Johnston’s house is high on a natural rock bluff. She has gone to great lengths to protect the tall trees on her property, including Douglas Fir and Arbutus. She maintains the wild natural shoreline along her property and even protects small camas fields in the rock outcroppings above. This winter she officially reported, in great detail, the rare sighting of a green heron in that riparian zone on her property.
2) This winter the City of Langford cut back meters of riparian growth, along that same shoreline, “to enhance the view” in one place, and to build a wheelchair accessible wooden ramp in another, against the published objections of area residents, because ground level access to the shoreline already existed, requiring no removal of natural vegetation.
3) The new wheelchair accessible view ramp was built in one of the Langford City Parks Stew Young is so proud of. It was once an area with tall trees and extensive natural shoreline. A tiny cottage used to be there, long since removed. Langford clear cut and stripped the Park of natural vegetation and built some kind of sewer pumping station there. Whatever it is, it has failed numerous times with the overflow going directly into the lake. The wheelchair ramp is immediately adjacent to the sewer station—very scenic. The parking area is built up on huge cement blocks used in highway construction, paved over with asphalt.
4) Maureen Johnston went to great lengths to connect to the sewer, at considerable personal expense, acknowledging the environmental benefits of doing so. It was mandatory, but she agreed with it in principal and was one of the first to connect. She went to great lengths to find brilliant young local engineers and contractors who were able to make the connection, through solid bedrock, WITHOUT BLASTING, and with minimal disturbance to the natural landscape.
5) The last remaining stretch of natural shoreline on Florence Lake, between the end of Savory Road and the Hidden Valley Mobile Home Park is subdivided for the construction of houses, or is it condos now? These are Garry Oak meadows on natural rock bluffs, with dense natural vegetation on the narrow, almost vertical, shoreline below.
6) In the much-touted “green” Westhills development, the City of Langford has apparently insisted upon a PUB being built on the shores of Langford Lake, in the riparian zone. In one of the Westhills public information presentations this was explained as one of the City’s mandatory requirements for that development. Perhaps it is called an “amenity”. Langford Lake is already suffering from the loss of wetlands surrounding it.
Langford has much to learn about environmental protection. Publicly insulting a retired schoolteacher is not the way to begin. In fact, Langford could learn a great deal from this schoolteacher, if they were polite enough, or wise enough, to listen.
- Received from 'a neighbour'
ZoeBlunt@gmail.com
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