Langley Strong mayoral candidate Jay Lundgren said there will be more candidates coming for the Township council and school board races this fall.

He told the Langley Advance Times that not only will he be running alongside four incumbent councillors, Langley Strong plans to run a full slate for the council, with four more council candidates yet to be announced.

In addition, they plan to run a team for the Langley Board of Education in the Township.

“We’re going to have a very diverse group,” Lundgren said.

The race will be defined by two opposing slates – the new Langley Strong, and the incumbent Progress For Langley, headed by Mayor Eric Woodward, and that part’s four incumbent Township councillors and two school trustees. Progress for Langley has recently announced a new candidate, Michele St. Germain.

Before this year, Lundgren had never run for office, but he’s considered it.

“It’s been something that’s been on my radar for a long time,” he said.

Whistler’s Mayor Jack Crompton is a friend, and has encouraged him to run, Lundgren said, as have others. As a longtime resident, he said he has connections built up over 40 years with people in businesses, trades, unions, teachers, firefighters and RCMP officers, and developers.

He had been considering a run for a council seat, but when he met up with Langley Strong, which was building a team to take on the majority Progress For Langley slate on the Township council, they suggested he run for mayor.

“I laughed that off at first,” Lundgren said.

But he said he thought it over, and said he feels that Langley Township needs new leadership, in spite of the fact that he personally is new to politics.

Lundgren said he knows there is an experience factor, but that he expects to have four incumbents behind him. Councillors Margaret Kunst, Barb Martens, Kim Richter, and Blair Whitmarsh, all the councillors outside of Progress For Langley,

Raised and educated in Langley, Lundgren lives her with his wife and four children.

He has a background in business, including as the VP of Agency Media, and a partner at two other firms – Ava.ai, which offers AI services for small businesses, and Coastal Drone, which runs drone pilot training courses.

However, he talks more extensively about his youth coaching. He’s mainly coached in youth basketball, he said, but also baseball and ball hockey, putting about 15 to 20 hours a week into it, he estimates.

As for the upcoming campaign, Lundgren said he doesn’t know Woodward, aside from a couple of brief interactions.

He said the big issue will be around the significant increase in public borrowing Progress For Langley had undertaken over the last four years to build out infrastructure.

“The ballot question is definitely going to be around the debt,” Lundgren said.

The election will be held on Oct. 17.