Editor,
Each of the candidates for mayor is motivated by providing what they believe will be the best leadership for the next four years for the City of Langley.
As we follow their involvement in community activities and their positions on city issues, they both have a passion for Langley and its people. One appears to be a candidate focused on preserving the past. There is much worthy of preserving here in terms of past history, community relationships and values. When your focus is on the past, new opportunities can look like threats to the lifestyle you value. Your concern can be with resisting change and looking for comfort in maintaining a picture of the past.
The other candidate seems to be focused on the future. This candidate’s vision includes listening to input and continuous improvement of skills, systems, and services.
The future challenges facing the city are many and include identifying funding sources for road repairs, water lines replacement, additional sewer lines and hook ups, storm water improvements without much help coming from state or federal government. Other needs on the horizon are economic development, tourism, maintenance and upgrading of facilities and transportation, community policing, improving central records and filing systems, fine tuning a lean focused organization, unraveling multi-dimensional legal issues, wildlife management and providing the highest quality of service at the most reasonable cost.
I tend to be futures-oriented while valuing history, and so my approach aligns more with one candidate than the other. I encourage citizens to talk to and listen carefully to each candidate over the next few days and weeks and ask yourself which person is the very best choice for leading the city at this time. The candidate with the skills, experience, maturity, attitude, intelligence, kindness, compassion and enthusiasm to lead the City of Langley at this time into an exciting and prosperous vision of the future is, in my opinion, Tim Callison.
Respectfully,
FRED MCCARTHY
Langley
Editor’s note: McCarthy is mayor of Langley. He is not running for re-election.
