Former candidates for Langley council won’t seek appointment

The timing’s bad. And what’s more, it wouldn’t be right.

The two candidates for Langley City Council who were knocked out in last week’s Primary Election said they won’t try to get appointed to the seat left vacant by the resignation of Robert Gilman.

The city has started accepting applications from residents who want to serve on the council, and the city is expected to fill the vacancy on Sept. 19.

Jonathon Moses, a first-time candidate for the city council, said Monday he won’t seek the Position 5 post.

“I’m not going to apply, because I don’t think it’s right,” Moses said. “I had my chance at the polls and it didn’t work out.”

“If I give it a shot it would be through the ballot,” he added.

Kathleen Waters, the other candidate eliminated in the top-two primary, said she had no plans to seek an appointment now.

“I have no immediate plans to do that,” Waters said. “Having just come off a campaign, I just haven’t quite given serious thought to what I want to do next.”

She added that she was surprised yet pleased to hear of Gilman’s resignation.

Waters noted that she sought an appointment to the council in December without success. A clear majority that passed her over are still on the council.

Waters said she was pleased with her performance in the campaign, but said the city’s attempt to “smear her” and depict her as not living in the city when she sought a council seat in December, may have hurt her chances with voters.

“Considering that, I’m not at all disappointed in the number of votes I got,” she said. “I’m very pleased I got the votes I did.”

Waters added that it was hard to get the attention of voters with Proposition 1 on the ballot.

She recalled that during her doorbelling efforts across the city, most people didn’t want to talk about the candidates in the two council races, but about Prop. 1 instead.

“No one was paying any attention to who was on the council,” Waters said.

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