Langley Township has a new mayor, Langley Board of Education has a leftward slant and one of the hardest-working councillors in both Langleys was booted off Langley City council — losing by just 36 votes.
That’s a one-sentence summary of what happened on election day Saturday, but of course there are many more aspects to the wide variety of decisions made by voters in the City and Township.
First, what about voter turnout? Voter turnout in Langley City went down in absolute terms from 2008, even though the City has enjoyed modest growth. The official turnout rate was 20.8 per cent.
For some reason, Langley City almost never has good voter turnout, and this substantially favours long-term incumbents. Thus we now have a council with two members who have served 21 years, and will be just shy of a quarter-century by the time their next term is up. A third member, Ted Schaffer, retired in 2008 after serving 18 years, but has now been re-elected.
Rudy Storteboom, who lost by a narrow margin, had only served one term. His work ethic will be tough to duplicate on council.
In the Township, the number of voters rose by over 4,000 (more than the total number who voted in the City). Official turnout rose from 22.4 per cent to 25.9 per cent. Interestingly, that is exactly the same as the average turnout in all Township elections since 1978 — a significant sample size which indicates that 75 per cent of Township residents have little interest in voting municipally.
This jump in turnout was largely due to a three-way fight for mayor, and a large number of council candidates. It’s great that more people voted, but clearly there is a long way to go before the majority of residents feel engaged enough and comfortable about taking part in the democratic process at the local level.
Mayor Rick Green’s style of leadership clearly hurt his re-election chances, and the fact that he put a slate together didn’t help him either. Slates seem to be like poison to those who vote in Langley. I believe that Mel Kositsky’s final numbers on Saturday were at least partially hurt by the fact that he was endorsed by all sitting councillors a week before voting day. Some voters interpreted that as a type of slate as well.
However, winner Jack Froese has the great benefit of being truly independent. Not one member of council backed his candidacy in the final week. He owes them nothing, and if he works with them, as opposed to trying to tell them what to do, the Township has the potential to go forward over the next three years.
He does recognize that no mayor can do much on his own, but at the same time, he is a visionary and independent thinker, and that should serve the Township well.
The board of education now has five of seven trustees who were backed by the Langley Teachers Association and CUPE. I expect that Wendy Johnson will be named chair at the first meeting, and will be loyally supported by the other four. No matter what the unions want, the board has huge financial challenges in paying back its debt, and I don’t envy trustees their task.
