Former Langley City mayor Peter Fassbender has been shuffled from the ministry of education to taking charge of TransLink.
Fassbender, MLA for Surrey-Fleetwood, was part of a cabinet shuffle announced by Premier Christy Clark on Thursday.
Fassbender is now minister of community, sport and cultural development, and minister responsible for TransLink.
TransLink had previously been part of the responsibility of Transportation Minister Todd Stone.
It was Stone who dealt with the Mayors’ Council and was the main provincial voice on the contentious, and ultimately losing, referendum on increasing the PST in the Lower Mainland to pay for increased transit.
Fassbender will be given oversight of a regional transportation authority that is governed by a Mayors’ Council, a board, and a CEO.
Local mayors and the Mayors’ Council as a whole have criticized the structure as unwieldy and unresponsive.
Fassbender himself was on the Mayors’ Council when he served as Langley City mayor until the 2013 provincial election.
Backbencher Mike Bernier will take over as education minister.