Feelings of betrayal and bafflement: How Langley Township council got awkward

Three years ago, Eric Woodward and Barb Martens were political allies topping the polls in Langley Township, as a new municipal political party won two-thirds of the municipality’s council seats.

That election gave Woodward, as mayor, and Martens, the top vote-getter among council candidates, the ability to try to deliver on one of the most ambitious set of election promises the Fraser Valley has ever seen.

But today, Woodward and Martens sit as far away from one another as possible at Langley Township’s council. Martens occasionally votes against Woodward’s preferred policies. And verbal interactions between the two are often tense—if not bordering on hostile.

With little coverage of political dynamics in the Fraser Valley’s fastest-growing city, a casual observer might feel like a person stepping into a room immediately after a fight between two friends. What happened here?

But today’s awkwardness isn’t new. Instead, it follows a slew of previously unreported clashes, including the ejection of Martens from Contract With Langley in December 2023, the revocation of a scholarship Woodward’s personal foundation had previously granted Martens’ daughter, and a lawsuit Martens’ daughter then filed against that foundation.

That lawsuit has just been settled, but reconciliation doesn’t seem in the cards, with Woodward still nursing grievances about a key 2023 vote—and a political hug with a one-time foe.

The new mayor

On the surface, the political fracture between Martens and Woodward is simply another story about two people who wrongly thought they could get along. But its background provides a glimpse at the Fraser Valley’s most ambitious—and contentious—municipal council, and a mayor who, whatever one wants to say about him, has approached local government politics with both an urgency and willingness to ruffle feathers that stands apart in the normally staid Fraser Valley.

Even before he entered politics in 2018, Woodward was a prominent presence in Langley’s political discourse. A businessperson who had launched several tech companies, Woodward sold those companies in the 2000s and turned his attention toward Fort Langley, where he bought up a large chunk of the community’s commercial properties. He sought to redevelop them, but repeatedly clashed with Township officials. That friction took many forms and frequently made the news; at one point, he painted an old building pink because the municipality wouldn’t issue him a demolition permit.

The Township’s behaviour rankled Woodward, who described his development efforts as an attempt to improve the area, rather than make money. In 2018, he pledged to transfer his Fort Langley property holdings into a new charitable foundation He said the assets—and money made from any development—would generate cash for local charities. Then he ran for council.

(The establishment of the Eric Woodward Foundation and the pursuit of politics were not entirely unrelated. He acknowledged that severing his personal financial stake in the properties would allow him to participate in various council discussions related to land development without being in a clear conflict of interest.)

In his first crack at political office, Woodward garnered the second-most votes of any council candidate. But as one of eight councillors, his influence was relatively muted.

In 2020, his political focus briefly shifted. That fall, he announced he would be running for the BC NDP in a Langley riding, but he then backed out just a day later citing “horrible, false personal attacks.” It was soon revealed that before being named as the NDP candidate, Woodward had filled out papers to potentially run for the BC Liberals. (Woodward said he independently chose not to seek the BC Liberal nomination. The BC Liberals said he had not been approved as a candidate.)

The contract

So Woodward remained at the Township council table and in 2022, he launched himself toward two big transformative projects.

The first was pure local politics. Woodward assembled a political organization called Contract With Langley that would run together on a shared platform. Municipal political parties—often called “slates”—are rare in the Fraser Valley, but not unheard of. To the east, a party called AbbotsfordFirst has operated successfully since 2014, with its candidates taking about half the available council seats in the three last elections. To the west in the Metro Vancouver area, slates and local government politicking is fairly. Although less formal than provincial or federal political parties, slates allow candidates to share campaign resources, reach new audiences, and endorse one another to their own core constituencies. They also allow individuals to explain how they might actually achieve the things they say they want to do. On a nine-member council, one vote might not go far, but being part of a formal block of members with shared goals can help a politician turn talk into action.

Woodward’s organization was built around the idea of a “contract,” in which each individual pledged to voters that they would fulfill a set list of promises. The contract was essentially an election platform, albeit one particularly detailed and specific. But many of those pledges had their foundation in Woodward’s other big project: the construction of infrastructure with money the Township did not yet have.

The Township has been one of British Columbia’s fastest-growing municipalities over the last 20 years, but local infrastructure has struggled to keep up with the growth. Although developers have always had to contribute money to the Township to pay for roads, sewers, parks, and other amenities, Woodward argued the municipality wasn’t getting enough in exchange for green-lighting projects. He pointed to the significant delay between when new homes were built and when the municipality could actually widen roads, build recreation centres, and improve parks with the money from those developments.

Because of the significant time it took for the municipality to collect sufficient funds, and plan, design, and build projects, Woodward argued the Township was suffering from an infrastructure debt, in which the municipality was always trying to catch up with the growth that had already happened. His complaints were neither unique nor unreasonable.

But actually addressing the issue would demand deviating from how local governments often conduct business.

Woodward wanted to immediately build an array of specific projects with money that would be borrowed, then repaid as new development occurred.

Those included fixing major roads, expanding the Aldergrove Community Centre, building a new youth soccer campus, building a new Willoughby pool and community centre, building three new ice sheets, replacing two fire halls and more.

(We’ll have more for what this means for the Township’s budget in a future story.)

In other communities, such projects usually take years to come to fruition, following years of consultation and planning—and after developer contributions have filled a municipality’s coffers to a sufficient level.

Woodward wanted to do it all as soon as possible. But to actually deliver on those promises, he needed a team of like-minded politicians to vote with him. Hence the slate.

On August 5, 2022, three months after he announced he was running for mayor, Woodward revealed he had formed Contract With Langley. Two weeks later, Martens was announced as one of the party’s candidates.

Martens was a longtime Vancouver police officer and former social worker, with a strong resume that included commendations for saving an emotionally distraught person, and for founding a provincial non-profit for female police officers.

Woodward said in an interview with The Current that he only met Martens that summer. But by the time Martens was recruited, the pair were already connected through his charity.

In February of 2022, Woodward’s foundation had announced the creation of a new set of scholarships. Over five years, a half-million dollars would be awarded to worthy students in the region. A press release said the scholarships would “cover the full cost of tuition for up to four consecutive years, or until a first bachelor’s degree or diploma is achieved.”

Two months later, in April 2022, the foundation awarded a bursary to Martens’ daughter and five others.

(We aren’t using the daughter’s name in this story because her personal involvement is tangential to the story, which would not be written if not for the two political figures involved. The Current was not able to speak to her directly.)

Neither Martens nor Woodward said they saw any potential for future problems or conflicts of interest when they linked up politically.

When it came to the bursary, Martens said her daughter had sought out scholarship opportunities independently, and said her own decision to join Woodward’s group was made several months later.

“We all live in the same community, there's crossover,” she told The Current.

Woodward said he and his board had approved the bursaries, but only after they had been recommended by Universities Canada, a non-profit that co-ordinates scholarships across the country. Having had limited involvement in awarding the scholarships, he said he didn’t have a concern about Martens being part of his political team.

Fast forward to the fall, and the election campaign was an unqualified success, even though Woodward and Contract faced another high-profile candidate with his own local political party.

Longtime former Langley MLA Rich Coleman had thrown his own (very large) hat into the political ring, and assembled his own slate of candidates under the banner of Elevate Langley. But Elevate never got off the ground.

In a four-person mayor’s race, Woodward won comfortably, claiming 42% of the vote, far ahead of former councillor Blair Whitmarsh’s 26%. Coleman finished a distant third.

Martens, meanwhile, was Langley’s favourite council candidate, topping the polls among councillors. Five of Contract With Langley’s six council candidates won a seat. (No Elevate candidate was elected.) Woodward had not only won the right to lead the Township, but also had a solid majority behind him to execute his ambitious agenda.

A new approach

Since the election, Woodward has re-engineered how the Township of Langley does business—and often done so with the same confrontational spirit that once led him to have a house painted pink as a form of protest.

The Township has borrowed hundreds of millions of dollars and used it to start work on an array of massive recreation and road projects. Instead of creating strategies and undertaking drawn-out consultation work, Langley just plowed ahead and started building much of what Contract With Langley promised in its 2022 platform.

The approach has rankled some—but Woodward does not shy away from confrontation. In a region where direct clashes at the council table are rare (or simply passive aggressive), Woodward’s approach to local politics comes with an edge. Township council meetings—which tend to last hours longer than those in other communities—often come with an undercurrent of interpersonal tension that can feel intensely uncomfortable to the neutral observer.

And it’s not just internal politics. Woodward has initiated a battle with Langley City over policing costs, while also pulling the Township out of a longstanding joint emergency management program with the city. Woodward sought to review, and possibly end, a 30-year-old land partnership between the Township and the Langley School District. And he’s been a vocal critic of new provincial land rules.

Woodward and Martens’ fallout has not previously been reported in the media. Although both parties characterized the specifics differently, the pair agree it took place in late 2023, following a contentious vote.

The fracture occurred over votes Martens cast relating to changes to the neighbourhood plan that would guide the future of Langley Township’s Williams area just south of Highway 1.

The city was considering amendements to the neighbourhood plan, including changes that would have impacted the future of a piece of land owned by Martini Film Studios, which was planning a massive expansion to its film facility. On Dec. 4, 2023, the township held a public hearing on the plan, after which council was to decide whether to proceed with the plan.

At the hearing, Martini representatives said the Township was moving too quickly, didn’t properly consult with landowners and could face legal repercussions. After the Martini representatives spoke, council was left to decide whether to move ahead with its plans.

As council discussed the matter, Martens said the Township appeared to be “missing the elephant in the room” by not making any amendments to reflect the feedback.

Martens then made a motion for council to defer the matter—essentially put it off until a later date. Martens said she hoped the Townsihp would wait until council could consult with their lawyers.

The suggesting that council not proceed clearly rankled Woodward who, as mayor, was chairing the meeting.

When Martens indicated she wished to make a motion, replied: “You have a motion all of a sudden. Go ahead.”

Martens: “It’s not all of a sudden. I think I’ve been speaking to it pretty clearly.”

Woodward: “It’s your third time speaking to the main motion. Go ahead.”

Martens: “So am I permitted to make a motion?

Woodward: “Go ahead, make a motion.”

Martens proceeded with her motion defer the decision. It was supported by just two other councillors and failed. Council then voted to approve the changes, with Martens and two other councillors opposed. Woodward then ended the meeting.

And that was it. There was no spectacular blow-up between Woodward and Martens, just prolonged awkwardness. But the political bond betwen the two had been shattered. You can view the exchange here.)

Shortly after the meeting, Contract members met and jointly decided to remove Martens from the organization, Woodward told The Current. He saw Martens’ vote to defer as a breach of Contract With Langley’s promise to fight for what it called a “fair deal” for taxpayers to pay for better infrastructure.

Woodward said Martens’ votes against approving the Williams’ plan—and its application of increased amenity charges to developers—was a breach of the Contract’s previous commitments.

“All members of council, but especially my candidates and my teammates were extensively lobbied by the development industry to not proceed with [increases to amenity charges],” Woodward told The Current. “At some point, Barb Martens decided that she no longer wanted to keep that commitment as part of our platform.”

Martens, however, maintains that her sole concern was the explanation she gave at the time—that the Township should take time to consult lawyers to try to avoid a potential lawsuit. She said she didn’t even consider the possibility that doing so would be seen to contravene the Contract With Langley platform.

“What was explained to me was: if you are in agreement with this set list of items, if this is what you want to champion, join the Contract, but you are free to have your point of view on anything outside of this set list,” Matens said.

“Since I took that stand, pretty much everything's been downhill since then, quite frankly. I’ve been kicked off every committee, kicked off everything.”

The next time council met in public after the Martini vote, the council table had been rearranged and Martens, who had previously been sitting next to Woodward, had been replaced by Van Popta. (The council seating arrangement is a power of the mayor.)

As it happens, in January of 2024, Township council voted to reconsider the same changes it had previously adopted—essentially turning the deferral into a reality. The matter was referred back to staff. (In June, the municipality amended its CAC policy which then triggered a lawsuit.)

The vote was clearly the end of Martens’ time on council, but it’s not the only point of tension.

Today, Woodward retains several grievances with Martens. He told The Current he felt “used” by her to get elected. He repeatedly highlighted to the fact that in January 2024, a month after she was ejected from Contract With Langley, Martens was named a candidate for BC United in the 2024 provincial election. That candidacy brought an endorsement from Coleman—Contract With Langley’s recent opponent.

After a text from The Current seeking to clarify the timing of Martens removal from Contract With Langley, Woodward replied with a series of texts, including a screenshot of a campaign video in which Martens embraced Coleman.

Martens expressed bafflement when told that her decision to run provincially for BC United had upset Woodward. She said she wasn’t previously aware that it had caused hard feelings and said there was nothing untoward about her decision to run for BC United. She said Van Popta had also sought the BC United nomination.

“What’s happened here is that a series of normal political decisions—people seeking higher office, parties making their choices—have been twisted into a personal narrative centred around betrayal,” she told The Current in an email. “That says more about the reaction than it does about the process.”

The bursary lawsuit

The ties between the two former political teammates would fray even further over the next year.

In April of 2024, the Eric Woodward Foundation revoked the bursary that had been paying for the education of Martens’ daughter.

Four months later, Martens’ daughter filed a lawsuit in small claims court, alleging that it was either explicitly or implicitly assumed that the bursary would cover four years of studies.

The suit alleged that the foundation had ended the bursary without cause halfway through its term and with more than $13,500 left in tuition to be paid. The suit said its premature end had upturned Martens’ daughter life.

In a reply filed in court, the foundation denied that the scholarship was a promise for the full term of studies and that it didn’t need a reason to end the bursary—although it said it would have had a justifiable cause, if such a cause was needed.

None of the claims were ever proven in court. The two parties in the lawsuit were set to meet in late May for a settlement conference to attempt to find a resolution. Woodward told The Current last week that a settlement had been reached, and that a clause prohibited revealing its terms.

Asked if he was involved in the decision to end the scholarship, Woodward said he was, adding that “it was unfortunate that we felt we had to move forward with that revocation.”

When asked if his frayed relationship with Martens played a role, he said: “It's hard for me to discuss that now, since the matter has settled.” Given the settlement, he said it was “appropriate for everybody to kind of move on at this point.”

When the Current asked Martens about the timing, she deferred to her daughter to comment if she wanted to, then added: “Like I said, all of a sudden, a series of unfortunate events unfolded after that vote.”

It falls apart, a bit

Nearly three years after Contract With Langley came to power with two-thirds of the Township’s council seats, the party’s majority is now gone.

Last fall, Van Popta was elected to the BC Legislature as a Conservative MLA. In a rare move, Van Popta held on to her seat, saying she could continue doing her job as a municipal councillor while also serving as an MLA. Doing so would save the Township the cost of holding a byelection, she argued.

But this spring, the NDP government, with the support of the Green Party, passed a new law banning MLAs from also holding council seats. That has forced Van Popta from her seat and left Contract With Langley with just four of the Township’s eight filled seats.

The departures have yet to significantly change the course of votes at the council table. Coun. Michael Pratt, an unaligned councillor, has generally backed Woodward’s policies and can be counted on for most major votes. Although Township council has fewer unanimous votes than other large valley councils, many projects and policies still pass easily.

But the long-term future is less certain. A by-election to fill Van Popta’s seat will take place in the coming months. Woodward himself recently said he’ll decide at Christmas whether to seek re-election in the next municipal election.

That vote is barely a year away. The future of Fraser Valley’s most political—and personal—council will hang in the balance.