The Richmond Community Coalition (RCC) has announced a new candidate for city council and three more for the school board.
Current Richmond school trustee Jonathan Ho will run under the RCC banner in this fall’s municipal election.
He will be accompanied on the RCC slate by school trustee hopefuls Rahim Othman, a project manager and community volunteer, Rod Belleza, a former school trustee and Keith Liedtke, a local realtor.
Ho, who has been a resident of Richmond since immigrating to Canada in 1997 from Hong Kong, was elected to the Richmond school board in 2014.
Being in the banking business, Ho’s most notable contribution in those four years was his focus on improving the financial literacy of Richmond’s students, with the launch of the TWOKAM (Talk With Our Kids About Money Day) program.
During his term, Ho, along with fellow trustee Alice Wong, voiced concern over the introduction of the school board’s SOGI (sexual orientation and gender identity) policy.
He was also part of the Richmond-based Marijuana Legalization Concern Group, led by Coun. Chak Au, which opposed the legalization of marijuana.
In RCC’s press release, Ho said he is looking forward to “encouraging harmony and balance” and “taking action to make the changes our residents want.”
He will run for RCC alongside incumbent councillors Chak Au and Ken Johnston, and two new candidates, Parm Bains, a communications instructor at KPU and former officer for the B.C. government, and Melissa Zhang, a financial services professional and past president of the Sunshine Lions Club.
Running under the RCC banner for school trustee is prominent Richmond realtor Liedtke, who moved to Richmond from Ontario at age 27, having built up his own travel agency from scratch.
He’s now a long-established realtor in the city and, amongst other things, serves on various, local, not-for-profit boards.
Liedtke is also past chair of Gateway Theatre and Richmond Museum boards and currently serves as a director of The Bayit Synagogue.
Joining him on the RCC trustee slate is fellow newcomer Othman, a project manager and community volunteer, who was also a voice last year for the Syrian-Canadian Council of B.C., in the wake of American missile strikes on Syria.
According to the press release, Othman believes in “enriching multiculturalism, social acceptance and cultural harmony” and has long been an active volunteer in community activities that promote the aforementioned.
Having visited, worked or lived in 28 countries in four continents, Othman is always “fascinated with multiculturalism and believes that it enriches our society.”
Making up the triple-header of trustee candidates is banker, local volunteer and former school trustee Belleza, who served on the school board from 2008 to 2014 and was the first Filipino to be elected to public office in B.C.
In 2014, Belleza ran along side Coun. Carol Day on the Richmond Independent Team of Electors (RITE) slate.
