Gaining office wasn’t an aspiration for Jack Froese when he first dipped his toes into politics in the Fraser Valley.
“There was no lifelong goal of becoming mayor,” said the outgoing mayor, who has served 11 years and three terms in office.
Froese chose not to run in the recent municipal elections, which saw current councillor Eric Woodward win the mayor’s chair in a four-way race. Woodward will be sworn in and officially take over on Monday, Nov. 7.
Froese said his first involvement in politics in the Fraser Valley was helping his father-in-law, Jack Hougen, who was a longtime councillor and reeve in Sumas and Abbotsford. Froese helped Hougen with one of his campaigns, and that put the idea of politics in the back of Froese’s mind.
Through the next couple of decades, Froese said that he simply found himself building community ties.
A farmer in the North Otter area, he got into coaching soccer for his kids, and eventually joining the Aldergrove Soccer Club’s executive.
Because he wanted to go into policing, he spent a year as an auxiliary constable for the Langley RCMP, before starting a 19-year career officer with the Vancouver Police Department.
He joined the Greater Langley Chamber of Commerce, in part because its dinner meetings were a nice excuse to get out of the house and go to dinner with his late wife, Debbie.
He worked on former councillor Bev Dornan’s campaign in 2008, his first direct involvement in local politics. After retiring from the VPD in 2009, Froese also joined the Aldergrove Rotary Club, and was on the board of the 2010 BC Summer Games, which were held in Langley.
“You slowly get yourself intertwined in the fabric of the community,” Froese said.
It was after the Summer Games that Froese was considering running for the Township council. But a friend suggested he run for mayor, instead.
From 2008 to 2011, Rick Green had been mayor, a term embroiled in controversy. Green was frequently at odds with the rest of council, which censured him. The RCMP investigated Green, but no charges were ever laid.
Froese met with local MLAs, MPs, and former mayors before deciding to throw his hat in the ring in the spring of 2011. That fall, he would win a three-way race against Green and longtime Township councillor Mel Kositsky.
The first year in office was a bit of an adjustment, although Froese said he wasn’t surprised by much.
“After 19 years in the police, nothing surprises you anymore.”
He had expected that everyone on council would work together consistently. He quickly found that each councillor has their own ideas about what’s best for Langley.
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“You get these different, various points of view,” said Froese.
He said he came to realize that was simply a part of the process.
“It’s a democracy. You want those different points of view. Sometimes, you don’t get your way.”
Growth has been one of the biggest challenges of Froese’s term in office.
The Township has grown at a steady three to four per cent per year, but that growth is based on a bigger number every year.
When Froese took office in 2011, the Township’s population was 104,000. The latest census, last year, found almost 131,000 residents, although more recent estimates put it closer to 137,000.
That has brought issues the Township has had to face, especially around building more infrastructure, parks, rec centres, and helping the school district with new school sites.
Early in his first term as mayor, Froese was at a Federation of Canadian Municipalities meeting, where he ran into a mayor from the Maritimes, and while Froese was talking about the problems of growth, the other mayor had different concerns.
“His problem was shrinkage,” Froese said. “The young working people were leaving.”
Ever since, he’s wondered what the “magic number” for growth was.
Although Willoughby’s development as the next big neighbourhood was decided on in the late 1990s, it has gathered steam during Froese’s tenure. He was involved in the approval of five of the 10 neighbourhood plans for the Willoughby area.
He also presided over a council that wrestled with a new Official Community Plan for Brookswood.
The first plan was so controversial that council turned it down in 2014.
“I thought, ‘What did we do wrong, what could we do better,’” Froese said.
He created a mayor’s task force to revamp public engagement.
The next version of the Brookswood OCP would go through that new engagement process with the community, and while it was still somewhat controversial, the next version passed in 2017.
His other mayor’s task force was also connected to a big project in Langley, this one in Aldergrove.
“I arrived just after the Langley Events Centre was finished,” Froese said.
The next big project the community had been demanding was a new pool for Aldergrove.
During the task force’s consultation with the community, the project kept growing, eventually becoming a combined ice arena, pool, and waterslide area.
As the decision approached, Froese remembered staff brought in three binders, about four inches thick each, representing 20 years of previous studies on a possible pool for Aldergrove.
The message was – did council want to keep studying things, or build?
Froese credited a $10-million federal grant – rare for a municipal rec facility – with helping get the Aldergrove Credit Union Community Centre built.
Froese said one of the things he’s most proud of was the council’s vote on approving Creek Stone Place, a supportive housing project with 49 rooms.
“We got a unanimous decision by council, and I thought that was a really good moment,” he said.
While Creek Stone helped get people off the streets and into stable housing, the homelessness problem has not been solved. Froese said it’s been getting more visible, and that local municipalities have few ways of dealing with it.
He also said that some wins were behind the scenes.
One that saved a lot of money for taxpayers was a procedural fight over whether or not the Township could spend development cost charges (DCCs) on new highway interchanges.
The Township was using DCCs, which are collected from developers, to fund its share of the upcoming 232nd Street overpass project. But the province suddenly informed the Township that under its interpretation of the law, that was no longer allowed. Using general revenue would have meant borrowing and much higher costs, possibly including property tax increases.
A furious lobbying effort that included meeting with Premier John Horgan resulted in a change in the regulations, and saved the Township a lot of money, Froese said.
Froese also remembered how politicians from across Langley, including the late Conservative MP Mark Warawa and Liberal MP John Aldag, teamed up to ensure that two replica Sopwith Pup biplanes could make it to Vimy Ridge in France in time for the celebrations marking 100 years since the battle at that site.
It helped that the then-minister of defence, Harjit Sajjan, was former VPD, as was Froese.
There are projects Froese wished he could have seen get off the ground during his 11 years as mayor.
“I think where we’re a bit weak in Langley Township is the arts,” He said.
Various councils have been debating some sort of performing arts space for decades.
The Township has set aside land at the LEC, and may get federal funding for a project, but it’s not in the works yet.
“It was something I’d have liked to see in my 11 years, but it wasn’t to be,” Froese said.
But some projects have to be seen through by future mayors and council.
He said now that he’s about to step down, he’s going to travel and spend more time with his grandchildren. He’s also going to enjoy not having to constantly check in with Township business, even when on vacation.
“Being able to go away and disconnect is something I’m looking forward to,” he said.
Froese said he had gone into the job thinking that three terms would be enough. He’s become the longest serving mayor of the Township in a generation – while Kurt Alberts also served three terms, all of those were three years long, before the term length was changed.
“I’m very honoured to have served as mayor,” Froese said.
He said he’s kept in mind advice given by George Ferguson, the late former mayor of Abbotsford.
“Don’t ever forget that the people are your bosses,” Ferguson told him.
Have a story tip? Email: matthew.claxton@langleyadvancetimes.com
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