UPDATE: Our long nightmare is over - the verdict is in, and the court gave us its blessing. Hooray, let's get back to work destroying forests and heritage sites for cheap little condos! If these eco-people will let us. Hm, how likely is that?Everyone knows Langford has an infinite amount of undeveloped forest land. INFINITE. We will never run out! Forests exist to be used and exploited. So don't just sit there, go cut down some trees! It will be good for the economy.
Furthermore, we're assured by South Skirt Mountain spokeslizard Ron Coutre that this "Village" will be super-extra-double-plus-green-and-sustainable, designed as a public service to transform a barren mountainside – home to a ridiculous number of wildflowers, native trees, animal species, seasonal creeks and indigenous cultural sites -- into an eco-paradise of pavement, condo towers, shops, and industrial parks. This will be accomplished in an environmentally-sensitive way, by blasting the hills to smithereens and filling the valleys and wetlands with tons of rubble, and then paving over most of it.
The South Skirt Mountain developers have given their solemn word that they will destroy only 60 percent* of the rare ecosystems and indigenous sites between the abandoned interchange and the insolvent Bear Mountain Resort. So what's the freaking problem, already?
Clearly this mega-sprawl plan is FULL OF AWESOME. And yet, it's not enough to satisfy mouthy tree-hugging doomers. Well, they can suck an egg. We spit on people who think they can hold Langford Council to account for its "unique" brand of decision-making. People who are negative are killing Langford's economy, and democracy! Clearly, anyone who stands up at a public hearing and disagrees with the Mayor should be flogged and ridden out of town on a rail.
GO STEW!!!
*Or more. Whatever.
Hey, so -- everything's just fine up at Bear Mountain Resort. Yes, we know they had to close the real estate sales office in Langford. But it's OK! Len's cutting costs -- by reducing sales and advertising and customers and staff and revenue. Lean and mean, that's the new Bear Mountain machine!
you mess with the bull you get the horn.UPDATE 1 from secret agent Knotalone, who is also disguised as a mild-mannered CBC.ca commenter:
i hope theses gentlemen get to go back to their families and resume their lives.
let me know where to send my twenty bucks in support of the brotherstons
To bad the guy died. It appears he may have tried to intimidate the wrong person.DEAR SECRET AGENTS TOTALLYCANADIAN and KNOTALONE: Thank you for solving this murder! We will all rest easy knowing that if some oversized "pioneer" got offended and decided to bash our brains out in front of our friends, it would be TOTALLY RIGHTEOUS. Because that's what justice looks like, here on the West Shore.
We all know what would have happened had Ken Brotherston gone to the police and complained about the threat.
I would bet that he went over there to give Taylor a beating that he would not soon forget and would think of before he threatened someone's family again.
A lot of people would do the same.
You can threaten most men and even get into an altercation with them with no serious repercussions.
Threaten there family though and there protective instincts kick in.
Brotherston doesn't sound like the type of person who has spent his life beating on people, he must have thought the threat was serious.
gulfislands wrote:Via Craigslist:
Posted 2009/11/17 at 11:57 PM ET
Justice has been done. More people should look after things themselves, as the courts will not look after them
Lock up the women and children -- looks like the good old boys on the Wild West Shore are getting ready to start a rampage! Let's call it the Street Justice Honour Killings League of Gentlemen rampage. It will be good and righteous and everyone can join in and be a hero.rave murders (westshore)
Date: 2009-11-17, 4:37PM PST
Thank god they did us another favour, one less drug dealing scum that litters our streets thinking they are a street punk/thug, guess he finaly met his match. f*** off you little puke. You wreaked havoc on the kids and druggies in town wich leads to the breakins beatings muggings and drug trade.
Good for the brotherstones for settling it once and for all wich the courts dont have the balls to do. Now hopefully the courts are as screwed up with the brotherstones as they are with all the other drug scum and they basicaly walk away, did they take a life, maybe, but none worth much and was more destructive to society than any minute benifit they gave. Good riddence i say, let others like the brotherstones clean up victoria and the westshore
Anonymous said...Ahem! Us internet "reporters" have politely and officially asked NOT to be killed (see above) during the Street Justice Honour Killings League of Gentlemen rampage. The deal is velvet handcuffs, not baseball bats, OK? Please, get with the program.
WTF?WTF; A RIGHTEOUS MURDER?? That would only be one if it involved several internet "reporters".
Happy new year! 2009 sucked like a wind tunnel, and 2010 will probably suck like a black hole ripping open the fabric of the space-time continuum. Welcome to the future -- misery, confusion, and public policy scandal, with running commentary from the wise-asses here at WTF Langford? (Our motto: "Sorry we're so darn right all the time.") Enjoy our eight worst predictions, and don't say we didn't warn you.
Langford has committed something like a million dollars for a traffic roundabout in the middle of Goldstream Avenue in front of Western Foods. No one knows why, since the roundabout will be a huge pain in the ass. Worse, the traffic island is supposed to include a bizarre assortment of faux-Western kitsch -- a fake train, a fake watertower, and a fake steam clock. Yes, really! We predict the funding for this vanity project will dry up before it's finished. If not, at least folks will be laughing too hard to make snarky comments.
3) Bear Mountain's new owners
The Globe and Mail reports that the Canada Revenue Agency is going after Barrie for allegedly not paying taxes on the money he allegedly stole.Read the rest here.Len Barrie is still listed in the Tampa Bay Lightning’s media guide as a co-owner of the NHL team, but those close to the team say he is out of the picture.
His financial problems with the Bear Mountain golf resort and housing development near Victoria were severe enough to scuttle his attempt to buy out fellow owner Oren Koules in late summer. Now it appears as if the problems will worsen.
In the wake of a damning report by the company’s former auditor that accused management at Bear Mountain of misappropriating funds, a source said Canada Revenue Agency is looking into the development’s finances.
Barrie, who was accused in the report and by a member of the development’s executive committee of improperly financing at least part of his share of the Lightning with Bear Mountain funds, did not respond to a request for comment.
Log it, pave it, call it a "Green Initiative"
and 300 meters long (and still growing!) Heavy machinery lumbers backand forth in a massive rut along Atkins Road and the railroad tracks between Veteran's Memorial Parkway and Savory School.
Last summer, the railroad right-of-way was a shady and pleasant path populated by thrushes and finches. Next summer, it will be a dead strip of asphalt baking in the sun.
Lot A, Plan VIP81958, Sec. 81/82/84, Bear Mountain Parkway (outlined in blue). It's just past the "tunnel" on the way to the resort, for local reference. Photo credit: CRD.
All of us here at WTF Langford? Headquarters send our deepest regrets. We failed you. Despite working around the clock for months, plowing through mountains of city documents, and risking permanent brain damage from prolonged exposure to Langford's mayor and council, we somehow missed the big story that was right in front of us.
In the past year, we've heard a boatload of rumours about Bear Mountain going bankrupt, getting sold, seeking re-financing and more, including bizarre stories about men in black! helicopters at midnight! hookers and blow! etc. But now the Globe and Mail has brought some of the financial facts to light, and yes, it's shaping up to be just as sordid as you'd expect.Barrie accused of misusing fundsBear Mountain may indeed be a money-losing bottomless pit (as we predicted last week) but will it turn out to be a money-losing bottomless pit run by thieving criminal lunatics? That's the question of the day!
UPDATED Wed. Sept. 2
David Shoalts, Globe and Mail. Photo: Bruce Bennett/Getty ImagesLen Barrie took money improperly from the Bear Mountain resort and its investors in order to pay for his share of the Tampa Bay Lightning, according to a member of the real-estate development's executive committee.
Scott Bye, a financial adviser to a group of NHL players who was appointed to Bear Mountain's executive committee after the players became concerned about its finances, said yesterday that Barrie, the chief executive officer of Bear Mountain, owes the company "between $16-million and $20-million dollars."
Barrie told The Globe and Mail on Monday that all of the money in question was either paid back or accounted for, following a damning report by the company's auditor, but Bye said yesterday this was not true.
"To my knowledge, zero," Bye said in a telephone interview from his office in Fargo, N.D., when he was asked how much of the disputed money was paid back by Barrie.
Read the rest.
Toxic sludge! Super-mineralized semi-liquid refreshment, straight from the 19th hole. A lifetime dose of manganese in every mouthful!Would you support a company that paves over rare species, breaks its promises, relies on force and intimidation, and destroys native cultural sites?
Photo mosaic by Pete RockwellNobody saw that coming, eh? Well, greed does strange things to people. Cue the world's smallest violin orchestra, playing a sad waltz.Barrie ... is fighting to save that gamble – a massive development near Victoria called Bear Mountain.
Like many real estate developers, Barrie and his 17 investors – who include current and former NHL players such as Mike Vernon, Gary Roberts, Joe Nieuwendyk, Ray Whitney, Rob Blake, Ryan Smyth, Sean Burke, Rob Niedermayer, Scott Mellanby, Matt Pettinger and Trevor Kidd – were whipsawed by falling prices and the drying up of bank credit.
Some of those investors are angry and some are not, but they all have two things in common: They are not talking about it and all fervently hope Barrie can pull a rabbit out of his hat.
As opposed to blowing sunshine up their butts? These poor suckers must be praying for an obscenely-wealthy rabbit with impaired judgement.
He needs to work out a new financing deal on the 500-hectare development that includes two golf courses, a resort, hotel and as many as 5,000 condominiums, townhouses and residential lots.
And an interchange! Don't forget that. How many resorts come with their very own half-built highway project?
No doubt some were concerned when Vernon, who is one of the largest investors, sold his custom-built Calgary house this week for a city-record $10.3-million. Vernon would not comment on the sale, but one of his friends said it had nothing to do with any problems with Bear Mountain.Maybe it's a problem with the location. Was the house built on a native burial ground, by any chance?
The B.C. project was going well until last October, when the worst of the recession hit. Suddenly, housing sales dried up and the value of the project dropped. Even worse, Barrie's bankers got nervous about the big loans that came up for renewal this year.
Uh oh. Did someone say "default?"
Barrie did announce recently that he closed a deal worth $350-million with Siraj Capital Ltd., an investment company based in Dubai. ... Under this arrangement, Siraj Capital gets control of the residential side of the Bear Mountain project for what amounts to a $350-million loan with stiff terms.
Does that mean they'll own the rest of the native cultural sites on the mountain? Will they get to blow those up like Barrie did with the cave? We know they don't get the mineral rights with the deal.
But even this depends on Siraj being able to raise the $350-million by selling units in a weak market. If the units cannot be sold by the first week of October, the deal will likely die.
In the past year, they've tried flogging condos in Spain, United States, Canada, and BC, with little success. The sales office in Victoria, 20 km from Bear Mountain, went tits-up way back in 2007.
Jeez, STFU and don't queer the deal!The reason all of the Bear Mountain investors are keeping quiet, even the unhappy ones, is that none of them want any negative vibrations to kill the Siraj Capital deal. They see it as the only hope of getting their money back, let alone making a profit.
Hah! It must be a pleasure doing business with such a gentleman.If successful, it may also go a long way to soothing Barrie's major lender, HSBC. Apparently the bank wants to be repaid a lot quicker than Barrie thinks is manageable (say two years versus five or more) and it wants higher fees than Barrie is willing to pay.
The half-built but apparently deserted "interchange to nowhere." Photo: Pete RockwellLangford in No Hurry to Finish InterchangeOh? Is that why Langford called in 100 armed officers with dogs and sniper rifles to clear out a few protestors? Is that why they disregarded established civil law process and then used feller-buncher machines to nuke every last tree in a matter of hours? Is that why they gave Leigh Road homeowners FIVE DAYS to submit to the city's buyout/expropriation order? Is that why they didn't consult with the community al all? Holy crow, WTF would Langford do if it WAS in a hurry? Bulldoze the houses with the people still inside? Drop a bomb?
By Edward Hill - Goldstream News Gazette
Langford officials say there is no big rush to finish the $25-million project, now eyed for 2010 or 2011.
Last summer, the Spencer Road Interchange construction area was a hub of work. These days the area is quiet and Langford says completion hinges on getting connector roads built on Skirt Mountain.Of course, let's build the secondary roads first, then maybe we'll put in the highway access. Makes perfect sense!
“There is no functional urgency at this point,” said interchange project manager Tim Stevens. “The Spencer Road intersection at the highway is still working.”WHAT? That's madness! Don't you remember? If the interchange doesn't go forward, everyone in Langford and Victoria WILL DIE!!
Langford mayor Stew Young came out with guns blazing to defend his council’s decisions, telling those in attendance that if the interchange is not built “You will kill Langford’s economy—you will kill Victoria’s economy." ("Bylaws play to packed house," Monday Magazine, January 23, 2008.)
Oh well, that was then. This is now...
Stevens said the amount of planning is considerable, especially along Leigh Road where poles, power lines and other infrastructure needs relocating.Uhhh, but they told us this thing's been planned since like 1994, when Len Barrie first rode his dirt bike up the hill and decided to piss on everyone below. We're confused now. What exactly does Langford's planning department DO? Didn't they notice the power lines on Leigh Road when they supposedly started designing this monstrosity so many years ago?
Langford acting clerk administrator Jim Bowden said the pace of construction depends on if the City gets millions in government infrastructure grants to help build connecting roads between the interchange and Bear Mountain Parkway.Ah, yessss, those preciousss government grants. As we've pointed out, there may be a little problem with that. Don't forget the city is including those unreceived grants as revenue in the 2009 Fudge-it Budget. Which reminds us: WTF is going on with Langford's accounting department?
Interchange construction also depends on the pace of the 2,800-unit south Skirt Mountain development, he said.Ha ha! Good one, Jim! But WRONG. Please refer to the Master Development Agreement, a signed, enforceable contract between the city and the South Skirt Mountain developers. Here's Schedule C, page 26, paragraph 4 of the Agreement:
Bowden said the interchange is still on budget and the City hasn’t needed to borrow beyond $9.75 million authorized by council. Bowden said the City has borrowed between $5 and $6 million for the project.Here's the original:
Bowden said the interchange is still on budget and the City hasn’t needed to borrow money yet. Council authorized Langford to borrow up to $9.75 million for the project.
Stop the presses! Oh, too late, ten thousand copies have already been printed and distributed. (Ten bucks says we won’t see a correction next week! Ha, suckers.)
Remember, folks, it is NOT ILLEGAL for city officials, politicians, and even journalists to lie (in most cases). So don’t worry – nothing shady is going on, just Langford business as usual!
The controversial Bear Mountain ("Spencer Road") Interchange project has been "abandoned," WTF Langford? has learned.
Sysco Victoria, part of the multinational food conglomerate Sysco Corporation, is seeking millions of dollars in damages from developer Les Bjola and his partners for breaching a development contract, WTF Langford? learned this week.
Good news for old bones: Langford City Councillor Denise Blackwell (left) has retired from the BC Archeology Branch, the department that gave Langford developers permission to blow up a million-year-old cave and 8,000-year-old native graves. Earlier this year, the same department gave the order to withhold the archeology report on South Skirt Mountain, according to Blackwell's statements at a public hearing. This despite the law that requires these reports to be available to the public. For shame! Oh wait, this is Langford - where elected officials have no shame. Carry on, then!
Because toxic sludge is GOOD for you!
It just ain't fair. A loser scandal-rag like WTF Langford? commits every conceivable outrage on the interwebs and skates away scot-free, while good upstanding resort developers like Len Barrie and his pals get their pants sued off by everyone in town, plus a bunch more in Nanaimo and Vancouver.
