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Two new slate majorities, and the hard part begins

Newly elected mayors Jay Lundren and Delaney Mack

Two new slate majorities, and the hard part begins

By Rainer Fehrenbacher
8 min read

Both Langleys have new mayors, and both will govern with a slate majority.

On Saturday, Township of Langley voters elected Jay Lundgren and six of his Langley Strong running mates to council. In Langley City, voters elected Delaney Mack and all five of her Achieving for Langley City running mates.

Congratulations to every newly elected mayor, councillor and trustee. Running for local office is hard work. It takes months of door knocking, forums and evenings away from family.

Now comes the harder part. Each new majority inherits a problem it campaigned on. And each will own what happens next.

The results

Township of Langley

Lundgren won 18,302 votes to incumbent Eric Woodward's 15,459.

Langley Strong also won six of eight council seats: Margaret Kunst, Barb Martens, Blair Whitmarsh, Kim Richter, Teresa Townsley and Lauren Chalus. Progress for Langley's Steve Ferguson and Michael Pratt kept their seats.

Turnout rose to 31.55 per cent.

Langley City

Mack won 3,753 votes to incumbent Nathan Pachal's 2,411.

All five Achieving for Langley City council candidates won: Andrew Flitton, Michael Hylands, Scott Thompson, Rick Orlando and Simi Rajput. Heather Jenkins of Langley City First took the sixth seat. Turnout was 26.6 per cent.

School board

Langley Strong swept all five Township trustee seats, electing Charlie Fox, Holly Dickinson, Neil Turner, Candy Ashdown and Kathie Dalziel.

In the City, Langley Strong's Tony Ward and independent Celene Hoag won.

That gives Langley Strong six of seven seats on the School District 35 board.

Thank you

Woodward gave eight years to the Township, four of them as mayor. Pachal also gave 8 years. He led the City for the past four years, and congratulated Mack's slate on election night. Our thanks go to both, and to every outgoing councillor and trustee, for their service.

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Majorities mean ownership

A slate majority is real power.

Langley Strong holds seven of nine votes at the Township council table. Achieving for Langley City holds six of seven in the City. Neither mayor needs an opponent's vote to pass a budget, a bylaw or a plan.

That power comes with ownership. For four years, Mack and Langley Strong's four incumbents sat in the minority and could point to the votes they lost. Not anymore. What happens next, good or bad, belongs to them.

Only Ferguson, Pratt and Jenkins sit outside a governing slate. They can ask questions and bring motions, but they cannot block anything. That makes public attention more important, and we will hold both majorities to the same standard.

The Township: a debt that now needs a plan

Langley Strong's first test is the debt it campaigned against.

How big is it?

In April, the Township told CBC it had authorized about $602 million in debt, the highest per resident of any major BC city. Langley Strong counts $797.6 million, including $177.3 million borrowed through the Township's housing society. Either way, the payments are growing. During budget debate, Richter noted debt servicing will cost $47 million this year and could reach $64.2 million by 2030.

What the slate promised

An independent forensic audit in the first 100 days, with no new borrowing until it is published. After that, borrowing limits, reserve targets and a public timeline to pay down debt. The platform does not say how much its savings would produce. Lundgren declined to give a 2027 tax range before the audit.

How they might do it

This is our analysis, based on the platform.

  1. Let the audit set the baseline. Expect the first budget to be built around what it finds.
  2. Move the housing society. The platform would hand the society and its debt to a non-profit housing provider. That takes the debt off the books, along with the homes. In our view, any deal should lock in below-market rents. The platform does not say whether it would.
  3. Make new facilities wait. Projects under way continue, but new ones wait for growth triggers. Growing areas like Brookswood may wait longer for promised amenities.
  4. Grow the business tax base. The platform leans on more industrial and commercial land. That can help, but in our view it will take years to reach the tax roll.

The 2027 tax bill

The Township's five-year plan shows a 22.8 per cent increase for 2027. That is a planning figure, not a forecast. It assumes the costs come from general revenue, while the Township intends to keep using reserves and development revenue. Woodward noted that last year's plan projected 17.24 per cent for 2026. The actual increase was 3.97 per cent.

But the costs behind the figure are real. Debt payments are rising. New arenas and a new fire hall carry yearly operating costs, and six more firefighters are planned. By the slate's own figures, about $200 million in borrowing continues despite its pause.

Development revenue depends on growth, and growth is slowing. Home construction permits fell in the first half of this year, though multi-family permits held up.

In our view, that makes a large 2027 tax increase hard to avoid. The new council can soften it with reserves and development revenue, as the last council did. Or it can find savings well beyond what it has named. Either way, the choice is now Langley Strong's to own.

The bigger lever

In our view, the best long-term fix is the shape of growth. A Halifax study found its most spread-out areas cost about three times as much per household to serve each year as its most compact ones.

Before the election, Chalus told us homes, not parking, should come first next to Willowbrook station. Holding to that will do more for the Township's finances than any single cut.

Langley City: the pool vote and the Innovation District

Achieving for Langley City's first test was on the same ballot that elected it.

The pool

In a non-binding opinion vote, 59.2 per cent of City voters backed expanding Al Anderson Memorial Pool. A Timms Community Centre expansion with a performing arts centre failed, with 57.1 per cent voting no. Doing both failed, with 64.6 per cent voting no.

The pool expansion would add an indoor pool and other amenities. Pachal put its tax impact at 10.24 per cent, before grants and other revenue. He said his council would listen to the result.

Mack opposed both projects. At an October forum, she argued the City had neglected basics like RCMP staffing and should not be spending on an arts centre and pool, the Aldergrove Star reported. She warned that approving both could easily mean a 60 per cent tax increase next term.

Voters agreed with her on the arts centre, but not on the pool. That leaves her a real choice. She could honour the result, since her biggest warning was about both projects and voters rejected that. Or she could argue that the pool alone still does not fit.

In our view, a non-binding vote is not a mandate on its own. But 2,878 residents said yes. Setting that aside without a clear public reason would sit poorly with them. With six of seven votes, the decision is Mack's council's to make and to explain.

The Innovation District

The Glover Road Innovation District plan would link downtown, the new SkyTrain station and Kwantlen Polytechnic University's Langley campus with businesses, homes and public spaces. Council endorsed it unanimously on 15 June, so Mack voted for it.

Endorsement was only a first step. Staff were directed to prepare an Official Community Plan amendment. Metro Vancouver must also approve changing some land from mixed employment to general urban. We could not confirm whether the amendment has come back to council.

So the new council does not need to vote against the plan to stall it. It only needs to stop moving it forward.

In our view, it should keep going. The district puts homes, jobs and public space next to a SkyTrain station. That is the kind of walkable growth that spreads the cost of City services across more households. Carrying it through would be consistent with Mack's own June vote.

References

Election results

Township debt and taxes

Langley City

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Tagged in:

2026 City of Langley Municipal Election, 2026 Municipal Elections, 2026 Township of Langley Election, City, Township, Politics

Last Update: October 19, 2026

About the Author

Rainer Fehrenbacher Langley, BC

Rainer and his family live in the Nicomekl area of Langley City. During his free time, he enjoys going for bike rides with his amazing partner and laughing with his 2 year old son.

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