Three New Westminster school trustees bid farewell on Tuesday night as they wind up their term of office.
Mary Lalji, Mark Gifford and Anita Ansari opted not to run again in this fall’s civic election, and they all took a few moments at their final board meeting on Oct. 25 to reflect on their time as trustees.
Lalji, who was first elected as an independent in a byelection in 2016 and then re-elected in 2018, said she’s learned a lot over her years in office, noting that the board has had to work through a number of “contentious issues.”
She said keeping an open, transparent relationship between trustees, parents and students is key, and she encouraged all district parents and students to “strongly hold trustees accountable” and to continue to voice their concerns in the future.
Gifford, too, wound up a two-term stint in office; he was first elected as a labour-endorsed candidate in 2014 and re-elected as part of the labour-endorsed Team Cote in 2018.
“It hasn’t, it won’t and it shouldn’t always be an easy place to be,” he said, noting that while the board has much to celebrate, it also has much to figure out moving forward.
He offered his best wishes to the incumbents and new incoming members.
“Take care of yourselves and try as best as you can to take care of one another as you serve the community,” he said.
Ansari, a one-term trustee who was first elected with Team Cote in 2018, called her time as a trustee “my unexpected MBA.”
“It was a really interesting time to live through, a once-in-a-lifetime kind of human situation,” she said. “To be part of a small but mighty team, bringing along community and education and mental health during this time, has been an honour and a privilege.”
New school board will be sworn in Nov. 1
Incumbents Dee Beattie, Gurveen Dhaliwal and Maya Russell, who ran with the labour-endorsed Community First New West, and the New West Progressives’ incumbent, Danielle Connelly, are all returning to the board for the next four years.
They’ll be joined by three Community First newcomers: Cheryl Sluis, Elliott Slinn and Marc Andres.
The new and returning trustees will be sworn in at an in-person meeting in the school district office on Tuesday, Nov. 1 at 6 p.m. That meeting will include the oath of office and a celebratory reception.
There will also be a special virtual meeting on Monday, Nov. 7 at 5 p.m., when the new board will select its chair, vice-chair and representatives to various other organizations.
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