A Langley winery owner is throwing her hat in the ring in the run for Township council this fall.
Teresa Townsley, who owns Festina Lente Estate Winery and currently chairs the Langley Farmers’ Institute, announced her candidacy this month.
“It is no secret that the challenges residents of Langley faced during Covid were tough, but it is nothing compared to the economic pressures we will be facing in the near future,” said Townsley. “As someone who struggled through the process of setting up a farm business in the Township, I know how cumbersome, costly and intimidating the process is.”
She said that people starting a business may expect to find the council “will have their backs in the process” but discover the opposite is true.
“We pay a lot of taxes and everyone is feeling the squeeze,” Townsley said in her announcement that she is running. “We should expect that the councillors understand that they are responsible for ensuring that every hard earned dollar we send to their care is used in the best, most prudent and responsible way. We can’t keep raising taxes. If I ran my farm business the way Council runs the Township, I would have lost the farm by now.
This is not Townsley’s first experience with running for office.
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She was elected to the Delta school board in 2005, then stepped down to run as an NDP candidate in the 2008 federal election in Newton-North Delta. She came third in a three-way race that was won by then-incumbent Sukh Dhaliwal.
In addition to running for office, Townsley is a former trauma nurse and was one of the first sexual assault nurse examiners in B.C.
She relocated to Langley in 2010, building Festina Lente from the ground up and making mead.
Townsley is currently the vice-chair of the New Wave Wine Society, a provincial governing body forming policy and marketing opportunities for fruit wine and mead in B.C.
She was also vice chair of Tourism Langley for six years, and is currently chair of the Langley Farmers Institute and a member of the Township’s Agricultural Advisory and Economic Enhancement Committee.
Outside of business and politics, she is choir director of St. Joseph’s Parish.
Her campaign website is www.TeresaTownsley.ca.
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