Langley East Liberal MLA Rich Coleman has confirmed he’s been approached about running for mayor of Surrey and says he will give the idea “fair consideration.”
“It came up while I was away on holidays, actually,” Coleman said Monday.
Some people spoke to him before he left for a three-week vacation.
“At that time, I didn’t really give it a lot of consideration. When I got back from holidays a number of people came and sat down with me and wanted to talk about various things and this was one of them.”
Speculation that Coleman might run for the mayor’s job in Surrey began shortly after Surrey Mayor Linda Hepner announced in April that she would not be seeking re-election, ending three decades on council.
When Coleman was asked about the speculation in April, he called it an “an unsubstantiated rumour.”
Now, he sounds less dismissive.
“I didn’t discount it out of hand, and I haven’t done, but I’ve made no decisions,” Coleman said.
The MLA said he would give it “fair consideration,” but was not ready to make an announcement one way or the other.
Coleman spoke with the Times after attending a ground-breaking ceremony in Langley Township Monday morning.
The Langley MLA has 22 years in the legislature.
After Christy Clark stepped down, Coleman became the interim leader of the British Columbia Liberal Party and Leader of the Opposition in the legislature from Aug. 4, 2017 to Feb. 3, 2018, when Andrew Wilkinson was elected
READ MORE: Andrew Wilkinson won big in rural B.C. to clinch B.C. Liberal leadership
Coleman first ran for Langley Township council before winning the BC Liberal nomination in the Fort Langley-Aldergrove constituency back in 1996.
He’s been an MLA, cabinet minister and deputy premier in Victoria and won a sixth term in the last election as the representative for the new provincial riding of Langley East, which was created when the B.C. Electoral Boundaries Commission split Fort Langley-Aldergrove riding into three newly named or reconfigured ridings.
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