New West councillor wants another term on council

Coun. Chuck Puchmayr is seeking a fifth term on New Westminster City Council.

Puchmayr served as a city councillor from 1996 to 2005, before serving as New Westminster’s MLA from 2005 to 2009. In 2011, the won a fourth term on city council.

“I am really excited about the direction New Westminster is going and I want to continue this progressive change that we’ve done the last few years,” he said of his reason for seeking re-election. “I want to be part of it.”
Puchmayr said he wants to continue working on improvements in the 12th Street/Edmonds corridor, railway anti-whistling initiatives and an evacuation plan for the rail corridors in New Westminster.

“There are a lot of things I am personally working on but overall I want to continue to make sure we have a clean, safe, progressive city,” he told The Record.

Puchmayr retired from provincial politics after undergoing a lifesaving liver transplant in January 2009.

“In Victoria you were exposed to very long days  – five, sometimes seven, days a week, sometimes getting one day off a month. As labour critic, there was as lot of travel, a lot of inquiries and inquests. It puts you all over the province,” he said. “This is, for me, a good semi-retirement job, and I am still able to contribute greatly to my city.”

Puchmayr sought an endorsement from the New Westminster District and Labour Council for the last civic election, but was too late in making the request and wasn’t endorsed. He’s among the candidates being endorsed for this year’s election.

Puchmayr joins fellow council incumbents Bill Harper, Jaimie McEvoy and Lorrie Williams in endorsing Coun. Jonathan Cote in his bid to win the mayor’s race over incumbent mayor Wayne Wright.

“I truly believed that Wayne was not going to be running. I was quite surprised that he is,” Puchmayr said. “I really respect Wayne. In fact, it was quite a few years ago when I suggested he run for council. Then he called me up and said ‘I filed my papers, I am running for mayor.’ I said ‘no, you’ll never get elected’ and here he is, he is still there. I respect him but I think it’s time to have a more open council. A lot of the decisions are made with council’s input in advance, as opposed to having things brought to us later in the game, which sometimes creates problems in the city.”