A group of Langley residents is taking the township’s mayor and three city councillors to court for allegedly failing to declare conflicts of interest when voting in favour of projects by property developers who donated to their political campaigns.
In a petition filed in BC Supreme Court on December 13, Langley electors John Allan, Penny Lynne Allan, Janice Lorraine Braddell, John Fullerton, Julie Fullerton, Grit High, Alexander Grant Schierman, Nora Elizabeth Schierman, Gary David Sawatsky and Linda Elizabeth Temple claim township mayor Stanley Jack Froese, current Couns. Blair Garnet Whitmarsh, Robert Long, and former councillor Angela Dawn Quaale should be disqualified from public office for allegedly breaching the township’s Community Charter.
The petitioners claim they learned from media reports in October 2019 “that the respondents had received substantial contributions from property developers in the lead-up to the October 20,2018 municipal election, while application from those developers were in-stream and under consideration by Council.”
According to the petition, the mayor and councillors received thousands of dollars in political contributions “from persons who were owners, directors, officers, executives and/or employees of property development companies.”
The petition highlights several projects that came before council that the respondents supported from companies with employees that contributed to their campaigns. The projects include an 80-acre business park and retail complex from the Mitchell Group, four development permits from the Beedie Group, five projects from Vesta Properties Ltd. and several rezoning applications from Lanstone Homes, Infinity Properties Ltd., Polygon Homes and Essence Properties Ltd.
The petitioners claim the Mitchell Group’s project was covered by the township’s Williams Neighbourhood Plan, which came before council in April 2018. Froese, Whitmarsh and Quaale, according to the petition, received thousands from the company’s principals and voted for an amendment increasing the square footage of a proposed grocery store, while voting down an amendment for more park space.
“All three respondents voted in a manner that benefited the Mitchell Group,” the petition states. “None of them disclosed a conflict of interest or removed themselves from the relevant meetings.”
Meanwhile, the Beedie Group’s four applications were all carried when the “respondents voted in favour of the Beedie Group’s interests.”
“Mayor Froese received $1,200 only five days before the development permit for 9228-200 Street was considered, and a further $1,200 the day after it was carried,” the petition states.
“In the present case, the link between the contributions and the decisions set out above would lead a reasonably well-informed person to conclude that the contributions might have influenced the respondents’ votes,” the petition states. “In some cases, contributions were made within days of a matter coming before council, or within days after a vote which directly benefitted the developer.”
Moreover, the petitioners claim “the volume of contributions and the number of meetings and votes related to the developments particularized above demonstrate that the respondents’ behaviour was not inadvertent.”
The petition’s factual basis has not been tested in court and the respondents had not filed response documents by press time.
