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Green won’t be ‘intimidated out of office’

Township mayor more determined than ever not to step aside
John Gordon Photo Green_Rick
Langley Township mayoral hopeful Feb 2008.
Rick Green

Mayor Rick Green says he will not step down while a special prosecutor reviews an RCMP investigation into events alleged to have occurred in September, 2010.

Asked if he would temporarily step aside, Green said, “Heavens, no,” adding that “it blows me away that there would be people in the community who would suggest such a thing.”

Green said that the allegation is that a provincial statute was breached. “It’s not a criminal investigation.”

He said on Thursday that “not only won’t I step aside, I’m more determined than ever not to be intimidated out of office. It’s Langley politics and that’s what this is about.”

David Crossin is the special prosecutor appointed by Assistant Deputy Attorney General Robert Gillen. In a statement last week, the Criminal Justice Department in Victoria said: “Given the position of Mr. Green, as well as the complainants and potential witnesses in the case, Mr. Gillen concluded that it was appropriate to appoint a special prosecutor.”

It will be up to Crossin whether to charge the mayor and if a charge arises, he will handle the prosecution and any subsequent appeal.

The RCMP revealed in January the investigation into the mayor’s conduct relating to Brownshak Developments, a limited company which was dissolved in 2003.

Green revealed that in 2009 he had received an anonymous letter and copies of corporate records relating to Brownshak. He claimed that these documents support allegations of improper conduct by Brownshak and its principals, who were the wives of realtors Joel Schacter and Bob Bailey, and of MLA Rich Coleman and Township administrator Mark Bakken.

Legal counsel found no wrongdoing on the part of the women, and in 1996 then-Conflict of Interest Commissioner Ted Hughes found that allegations of conflict against Coleman (referred to in the literature which Green had received anonymously) were without foundation.

Green said last week that he was annoyed with the suggestion that he was the one who made allegations of “wrongdoing on the part of residents in the community.”

“That is absolutely, completely, totally false,” Green said. “What this has to do with is an anonymous letter that had suggestions made in it. There was never any suggestion by me to council, to staff, to anybody. All I am saying is that I in no way, at any time, made any suggestions of wrongdoing by anybody.”

Last September, Green admitted he misled council, the majority of whom punished him by stripping him  of his Metro Vancouver directorship.