The new Richmond city council will be sworn in just over a week – but there will only be two new faces around the table.
Kash Heed and Laura Gillanders were the only non-incumbent city councillors elected, replacing Harold Steves and Linda McPhail who both didn’t seek re-election.
The inaugural meeting of the new council will be on Monday, Nov. 7 at 7 p.m.
Heed, a former BC Liberal MLA for Vancouver-Fraserview and solicitor general, told the Richmond News he was approached last winter to run for mayor of Richmond. However, he didn’t think he could beat the incumbent mayor, Malcolm Brodie, so instead ran for city council.
He didn’t rule out running for mayor in the future.
Brodie handily beat out his opponents with about 68 per cent of the vote while his main opponent, RITE candidate John Roston received 27 per cent of the vote.
Heed is a retired police officer, having worked in the gang and drug units of the Vancouver Police Department. He was also the chief constable of the West Vancouver Police Department for less than two years before entering politics.
Heed ran under the Richmond Rise banner along with a former councillor, Derek Dang, who wasn’t elected.
Gillanders, whose family runs a construction company, has been involved with FarmWatch, an organization that advocates to save farmland. She also sat on the city’s agricultural advisory committee.
In the election, incumbent Coun. Chak Au topped the polls, followed by Carol Day, Bill McNulty, Alexa Loo, Michael Wolfe and Andy Hobbs.
Gillanders took the seventh spot while Heed took the eighth.
Three of the councillors on this new council belong to RITE Richmond: Gillanders, Day and Wolfe. Meanwhile, McNulty and Loo joined forces under the Richmond One banner, Hobbs ran with Richmond United – which didn’t elect any other councillors – and Au was with the Richmond Community Coalition, which also didn’t elect any other councillors.
In the last few days of the election, Brodie, who was running for his eighth term as mayor, endorsed Hobbs, Au, McNulty and Loo. He hadn’t endorsed any candidates in previous elections.
