EIGHTY YEARS AGO

January 26, 1933

. Two new standing committees - a board of works and a relief committee (to deal with social welfare issues and relief payments) - were formed by Langley council.

. A Socialist Party of Canada meeting was called to choose a candidate to represent the Delta Riding (which at that time included the Fraser Valley as far east as Langley) in the upcoming provincial election.

SEVENTY YEARS AGO

January 28, 1943

. A record-breaking cold spell forced several businesses to close for the duration. Temperatures dropped to -8ºF (-22.2ºC).

. The district's wartime fuel administrator, Mr. Devine, indicated that there was a crisis situation: sawdust was available, but there was very little coal and only a limited supply of dry wood.

. Forty cows died instantly in a freak accident. A high tension line between Langley Prairie and Milner fell onto a local line, sending 34,000 volts of electricity through the Berry Farm barn. Harry, Tom, and Gordon Berry were working in the barn at the time, but all escaped injury.

SIXTY YEARS AGO

January 29, 1953

. School board and teachers agreed on a contract, without arbitration. Salary increases specified in the agreement were expected to cost the school district an extra $28,600 annually.

. The Langley Board of Trade and the PTA pressured council to install a sidewalk between the new Langley High School and Langley Prairie (now Langley City), along Roberts Road (56th Ave.).

FIFTY YEARS AGO

January 31, 1963

. The provisional schools budget for the coming year included $341,500 for teachers' salaries, $10,500 for clerical salaries, $20,000 for teaching supplies, $22,300 for janitors' and engineers' salaries, $7,700 for administration salaries, and $8,250 for other administrative expenses.

FORTY YEARS AGO

January 25, 1973

. A train was derailed in a crash with a gravel truck at the Langley-Surrey border. Eighteen cars of the CNR's Super Continental passenger train left the track. Despite extensive damage to both the truck and the train, there were no serious injuries.

THIRTY YEARS AGO

January 26, 1983

. Langley school trustees decided against responding to provincial budget cuts by tendering a deficit budget. Such a move, board chairman Donna Rantamaa said, would only have given the Minister of Education an excuse to disband the local board and appoint a public trustee, and that would mean there would be less local control over which cuts would be made in education services to students - and the budget cuts would still take place anyway.

TWENTY YEARS AGO

January 27, 1993

. A fatal accident at 232nd St. and Highway One focused attention on safety at the freeway interchange. Township council asked for an inquiry by the Ministry of Transportation, although Councillor John Campbell felt that speed and drivers were more serious factors than roadway engineering in the interchange's high accident rate.

. Ground was broken for a new $260,000 cooperage (barrel-making shop) at Fort Langley National Historic Site - the first major construction at the site in 35 years.

. Deteriorating groundwater quality in the Fraser Valley was alleged by Environment Canada - but the federal ministry said it could not complete a study of the problem because there was not enough information.

. Doggie doo was banned from the streets of Langley City, as City council enacted a pooper scooper bylaw similar to one enacted in the Township a year earlier.

. Armed robbers and residents of the home they broke into were all arrested, when police discovered that the house contained a marijuana grow operation.

TEN YEARS AGO

January 28, 2003

. An attack from a Norwalk-style virus had Langley Memrial Hospital on alert - the facilities were being scrubbed from top to bottom, after 15 cases were discovered in the hospital's psychiatric and surgical wards.

January 31, 2003

. Helijet moved its Langley-Victoria passenger service out of Langley Airport and into Abbotsford.

. Consideration of closing some of Langley's small schools was based on the premise that it would make it easier to convince Ministry of Education officials of the need to expand schools in Langley's growing neighbourhoods.