Civic Election is Over

Storteboom Wins!

Hardworking and very community active South Fraser OnTrax board member Rudy Storteboom is now Councillor Elect Rudy Storteboom in Langley City! Rudy spends much of his time serving our community on boards and committees. He has worked extremely hard over the years and he deserves this council seat so much. Way to go Rudy!

Now that the civic elections are over we will see if candidate promises materialize and we can re-focus on the issues at hand. The political campaigns in the region have all highlighted transportation and light rail transit as huge issues for our people. Now let's see what will be done with this much-needed public infrastructure.

In other election news in the Township of Langley, Councillor and long-time LRT advocate Jordan Bateman received overwhelming public support by getting more votes than any other mayoral or council candidate with 9,273 votes. Strong LRT advocate Charlie Fox was next with 7,956 votes. Grant Ward who has been very active in the LRT discussions was also re-elected last night and we are very thankful for that.

Langley Township lost a very sincere and hard-working mayor last night with Mayor Kurt Alberts losing his bid for re-elected (6,588 votes). With his deep background in urban planning and his creative support for LRT, I will greatly miss my discussions with him on these issues, but he will always remain a friend. We know that with his background and personal integrity he will do well in future endeavors.

Langley Advance photo

The electorate in the Township has spoken and Rick Green is now the mayor elect with 7,842 votes. In the interest of keeping our community a dynamic one, we must support our elected leaders and trust that smart growth in line with the Township's Sustainability Charter and light rail will happen sooner rather than later. During his campaign, Rick Green discussed LRT and said that current mayor and council have not done enough to remove the heavy rail traffic from the Township, and to speed the building of light rail in the south Fraser region. I called Rick Green this morning to congratulate him on his victory and to let him know that we would greatly appreciate efforts to remove or reduce heavy rail from the Township. I also expressed our desire to see light rail transit now. Rick assured me that, "You will not see a stronger advocate for passenger rail".