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Three new trustees elected to Richmond Board of Education

Richard Lee was the only incumbent not re-elected to the board of education.
davidyang
David Yang was elected to the Richmond Board of Education.

Three new school trustee were elected to the Richmond Board of Education in Saturday’s municipal election – two who ran with the Richmond Community Coalition, Alice Wong and Rod Belleza, as well as David Yang, who ran with the Richmond Education Party.

They will join incumbent trustees Ken Hamaguchi, who topped the polls with almost 16,000 votes, Donna Sargent, Heather Larson and Debbie Tablotney.

Trustee Richard Lee, who lives in Vancouver, was the only incumbent not elected to the board of education.

In a speech at the Richmond Curling Club, where Richmond Education Party was watching the results coming in along with RITE Richmond and Richmond Citizens’ Association candidates, Yang spoke about teacher and other staffing shortages and the need to “support critical infrastructure.”

He also spoke about the difficulties of growing up in Richmond with English as his second language.

“Kids like me, had to fight every step of the way, to learn their vocabulary, to get their English, right, and most importantly, to learn to get along with the great big family that we are here in Richmond, and in this country,” he said.

“I want to be that voice for the ELL kid who's just struggling to learn his English in class, I want to be the one who's talking for our special needs students, I want to be the one who will be there to support them," Yang said.

Final results:

Ken Hamaguchi

15909

Elected

Donna Sargent

13855

Elected

Alice Wong

13769

Elected

Heather Larson

13475

Elected

Debbie Tablotney

13361

Elected

David Yang

12099

Elected

Rod Belleza

11304

Elected

Linda Li

10540

 

Chris Dinnell

10529

 

Andrew Scallion

10039

 

Richard Lee

9833

 

Rachel Ling

9509

 

Kay Hale

8032

 

Dean Billings

7331

 

Rajan Paul

6269

 

- with files from Vikki Hui