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Jon Lavoie - Memorial Park overlooking the museum and train in the am.jpg

CANDIDATES 2025 

​Read what the candidates have said either at one of the All Candidates' Forums or in the Peace Arch News.

[Italicized notes are made based on my own experience and knowledge from being on Council. Employment derived from candidates' nomination documents posted on the City of White Rock's website. Post secondary education is listed only when known. Statements that are too general may be excluded.]

Susan Bains

 

White Rock

HR Professional

 

Urban Development & Housing

  • Against mass development

  • Supports current OCP

  • Address the inability to age in place

  • Explore cost-effective renovation or rebuild options for City Hall
     

Governance & Community Engagement

  • ​Need for reliable and transparent engagement systems

  • Restore community committees

  • Bring back evening Council meetings so more residents can participate

  • Evaluate red tape issues
     

Fiscal Responsibility & Infrastructure

  • Invest in infrastructure

​​

Public Safety & Emergency Services

  • Enhance public safety

​

Economic Development & Tourism

  • Expand tourism

Rob Blair

White Rock

Realtor

 

Urban Development & Housing

  • Residential development funds sidewalks, roads, water, and sewers [Johnston Rd and Thrift Rd upgrades were paid for by taxpayers, not by developers]


Governance & Community Engagement

  • Public engagement has improved with the current council

  • Add volunteer positions to take advantage of the wealth of experience and knowledge in our community

  • Get all the city's departments in synch with each other

Inder Buttar

White Rock

Director of business development, numbered company; employee NEC

​

Environment & Livability:

  • ​Focus is on physical and mental health

  • Supports an indoor pool in White Rock in principle

Peter Davey

White Rock

 

Urban Development & Housing

  • Guided by an OCP that values sustainability and livability

  • Tower development should be community needed and environmentally driven

​

Governance & Community Engagement

  • Engagement that feels more like a conversation, less like an announcement

  • More open houses, neighbourhood meetings, and online tools for engagement

 

Public Safety & Emergency Services

  • Need ongoing support and proper funding​

Jas Dhaliwal

Surrey

Lawyer

Master of Laws at the Peter A. Allard School of Law (UBC)

 

Governance & Community Engagement

  • Need to understand why something is being done

  • Look at a candidate's values and sense of community

  • Find a way to take advantage of the many seniors in our community with knowledgeable and experience

  • Need a genuine dialogue between council and the community

  • More open forums, accessible communication channels, and genuine tow-way dialog between council and the community

​

Fiscal Responsibility & Infrastructure

  • Roads sidewalks and rec facilities  are not expenses, they are investments in the social side of our community

Tracy Ellis

White Rock

Real Estate

​

Governance & Community Engagement

  • Current council is more inclusive in involving the community

​

Public Safety & Emergency Services

  • Traffic calming - need a plan [Prior Council approved a Traffic Study; it remains to be implemented.]

​

Economic Development & Tourism

  • Changes to the waterfront and access from uptown to waterfront

Sharon Greysen

Surrey

Real Estate

​​​

Urban Development & Housing

  • Re-examine the OCP

  • Ensure compliance with provincial requirements [Prior to the Province implementing the Housing Supply Act, White Rock had already met its  targets for 2040. The provincial requirements as outlined in the Act affect all municipalities regardless of need. ]

  • Revitalize waterfront

​

Governance & Community Engagement

  • Need a consistent process for every project to involve the public

​

Gary Gumley

White Rock

President, Community Clicks Media Group

President, White Rock Lights Society

President, White Rock Homeowners and Taxpayers Society

​​​

Governance & Community 

  • We need to create a new municipality encompassing all of the Semiahmoo Peninsula. Plan 2032 to amalgamate South Surrey and White Rock into a new municipality; otherwise, we will not survive as a city. 

​

Fiscal Responsibility & Infrastructure

  • Reinstate a committee to focus on Finance, Audit and Budgeting

  • Fix what’s broken - pier $5 million collected of insurance money for it, let’s use it

  • Improve oversight of city spending 


Environment & Livability

  • Spearheaded White Rock Festival of Lights 

Peggy Howard

White Rock

Manager, Guildford Town Centre

Bachelors, Urban Land Economics (UBC)

​​​

Urban Development & Housing

  • Spoken to developers who propose projects no more than 4 storeys on the waterfront that could add as many as 200 units to the city's housing stock

  • Find a developer to buy the land along Marine Drive from Vidal St to Martin St to build mixed use building (4 storeys); this is a way to control the merchant mix much like in a shopping centre

​

Governance & Community Engagement

  • Will support the current mayor and council

Scott Kristjanson

White Rock

Councillor, 2018-2022

Leader of Machine Learning, Sendum Wireless Corporation

PhD Candidate, Computer Science (SFU)

​​​

Urban Development & Housing

  • Ensured building heights were lowered

  • Put residents first - not developers!

  • Retain existing rentals, not demolish them for non-OCP compliant buildings.

  • Work with BC Housing to provide truly affordable housing [rather than hiring high-priced consultant promoting "11 Pillars of Affordable Housing in White Rock"]

​

Governance & Community Engagement

  • Focused on delighing  our customers (residents/customer service), and ensuring employees are delighted to work here (reduce the high employee turnover rate)

  • Work with the community, not in your own  bubble

  • Measure what works and what doesn’t (collect the data) - he made the motion to do this but it didn’t happen

​

Fiscal Responsibility & Infrastructure

  • Voted to reduce taxes, but the motion did not pass

  • Snub the hub

​

Environment & Livability​

  • Better beach cleanup

  • Maintain the houses we have; otherwise, they end up in landfill

​

Economic Development & Tourism

  • Supported local business by talking to them and intervened on their behalf when necessary

Fiona MacDermid

White Rock

​​​

Urban Development & Housing

  • North Bluff Study is not a study; it is an OCP review. 

  • Input from previoius OCP review was clear: Limit heights to 8 storeys (12 if there are truly affordable units) and only in the town centre. 

  • Current "study" will result in taking out senior, middle income and low income renters.

  • Province has not mandated 20 storey along the bus route, it doesn’t strip municipalities from pushing back and making their own decision

​

Governance & Community Engagement

  • Meaningful public consultation, not the show-and-sell or limiting input to having participants place stickers or Post-It notes on a board (feels more like a classroom activity than a serious opportunity for input)​

Christine Masakoff

White Rock

Real Estate

​​​

Urban Development & Housing

  • ​Follow the OCP 

  • Against spot zoning

​

Governance & Community Engagement

  • ​Share information and resources with Surrey

  • Decision making  should be based on analysis and research and before moving forward

  • Information provided to people needs to be more transparent and without bias

​

Fiscal Responsibility & Infrastructure

  • Ensure strategic, transparent financial planning with resident input

Anthony Manning

White Rock

Councillor, 2018-2022

Safety Quality Auditor, Jazz Airlines​​​​​

​

Urban Development & Housing

  • Follow the OCP [Voted in favour of a 6 storey development where only 4 was permitted by the OCP. Only 4 units of the development were long-term non-market rentals. Low income seniors lost their homes. The development was tied to a Tenant Relocation Policy that was never monitored to see if it had been followed.]

  • Join the mobile business licensing program so trades don’t have to spend time and money requesting another license

​

Governance & Community Engagement

  • Reduce permitting delays

  • Need a City-wide audit to eliminate waste and inefficiency, creating better value for residents [Motion was adopted by former council to do this. Nobody followed up on it. Many motions adopted by former councils were never implemented.]

  • Need informal pop-ups on weeknights and weekends where residents can voice their concerns and be heard by elected officials and staff [Former council had monthly community conversations at the White Rock Library. Only one councillor took notes and shared them with other councillors. Few, if any, of the residents' suggestions or questions were ever followed up.]

  • Annual cap on the cost and number of consultants hired

​

Fiscal Responsibility & Infrastructure

  • Look at projects rolled over from year to year to determine if they are still needed

​

Economic Development & Tourism

  • Implement programs supporting business development 

  • Offer façade improvement grants of 3-5k [10k was offered decades ago and no businesses took advantage of it then]

  • Tax vacant commercial properties [Manning made a motion last term to submit a Resolution to the Union of BC Municipalities (UBCM). It was not admitted for debate at the Convention. The power to tax is a provincial power and it is up to the province to amend the Community Charter to allow this form of taxation at the municipal level.]

  • Determine city's business mix by limiting a surfeit on certain business types (follow West Vancouver's example)

​

Environment & Livability

  • Improve existing Centennial Park athletic facilities;

  • Cost-share with Surrey for maintenance and use of each other’s athletic facilities

​

Jerret Schwartz

Surrey​

Accountant, White Rock Tax and Accounting

​

Governance & Community Engagement

  • Focus on the  small things like street lights, bumps on the road

  • Public engagement should be an ongoing dialogue

​

Fiscal Responsibility & Infrastructure

  • Invest in infrastructure, including timely road repairs and upgrades that improve safety and quality of life

  • Ensure financial accountability so residents receive good value for every tax dollar

​

Environment & Livability

  • Support education and youth opportunities, a value I hold strongly as my wife spent several years as a teacher.

  • Promote arts and culture, and supporting the creative spirit that makes White Rock such a vibrant community

Adam Smith

Surrey

​

Urban Development & Housing

  • Highrises are somewhat inevitable

  • Government & Community Engagement

  • All voices should be heard, not just the loudest voice

  • Prioritize taxpayer service delivery and value for money

​

Governance & Community Engagement

  • prioritize better service delivery

​

Economic Development & Tourism

  • Committed to supporting local businesses and local job growth

​

Public Safety & Emergency Services

  • Safer streets

Greg Smith

White Rock

Executive with Health Canada

CEO of a health-based non-profit

Masters Public Administration (Carleton)

​

Urban Development & Housing

  • Need to expand our tax base [means increasing density]

​

Government & Community Engagement

  • We have a BIA; we need a citizens group as well

  • Need to balance the pressures between special interests that exist across White Rock

​

Environment & Livability

  • Rain water becoming ground water

​

Fiscal Responsibility & Infrastructure

  • Need to extrract more public benefit from large developments, particularly to promote our arts and cultural strengths

  • Hold the line on property tax and introduce special levies 

​

Economic Development & Tourism

  • Restore uptown core and waterfront to attract visitors

Howard Steiss

White Rock​

Real Estate

​

Urban Development & Housing

  • No more highrises

  • Upholding the existing Official Community Plan (OCP)

​

Governance & Community Engagement

  • Is satisfied with the city's process of public engagement

​

Economic Development & Tourism

  • Economic revitalization by putting public  art on storefronts, decayed housing,  abandoned houses 

  • Impose a tax on vacant and derelict commercial properties [Manning made a motion last term to submit a Resolution to the Union of BC Municipalities (UBCM). It was not admitted for debate at the Convention. The power to tax is a provincial power and it is up to the province to amend the Community Charter to allow this form of taxation at the municipal level.]

​

Public Safety & Emergency Services

  • improved pedestrian safety

  • implementation of robust crime prevention measures

​

Environment & Livability

  • Address excessive noise uptown and  excessive vehicle noise along Marine Drive

Chris Stroppa

White Rock​

Firefighter

​​

Urban Development & Housing

  • Given the crisis in lack of firefighting infrastructure, equipment and staffing, White Rock should not increase its density 

  • Highrises cause immense issues with congestion, overcrowding, problems that exist where Surrey has  facing will come here if we continue building towers

​

Governance & Community Engagement

  • Emergency services is main priority

Matt Todd

White Rock​

Counckllor (2002-2008)

Manager, Todd Tile​​

Student 

​

Urban Development & Housing

  • Building height has near zero impact on the experience of a pedestrian. Need to focus on walkability.

​

Environment & Livability

  • Focus on walkability

Phillip Warner

White Rock​

Bookkeeping​​

Welcome Home Inspections

​

Urban Development & Housing

  • WR should remain a community, not turned into a concrete slab

  • City Hall often promotes density as a solution to lower taxes, but in reality, it drives up costs through major infrastructure upgrades and expanded services like police and fire.

  • Unckecked development erodes character.

  • Keep public land (do not sell the current civic centre to developers)

​

Governance & Community Engagement

  • Will not make unrealistic promises in areas outside our jurisdiction

  • The city is being run by staff, not council

  • Residents input is blatantly ignored

​

Environment & Livability

  • Expand tree canopy

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