SURREY First civic party received another jolt on Tuesday as the City’s longest standing sitting councillor, Barbara Steele, who is seeking re-election in the October civic election announced that she has resigned from the party that she was a founding member of.

Steele becomes the second sitting Surrey First councillor in less than a month to resign from the civic party, citing issues of leadership and integrity in making it impossible for her to continue with Surrey First.

“It has become clear that philosophically I can no longer be a part of Surrey First,” says Steele, who has been a councillor for two decades. She is well known for her work in the areas of senior’s issues and advocacy, as well as her service on the executive of the Union of British Columbia Municipalities (UBCM), where she is a past president.

Steele says she will run alongside Surrey Councillor Bruce Hayne, who resigned from Surrey First stating similar integrity issues in June, in seeking an eighth term on Surrey Council.

“I’m looking forward to running in the election this fall to continue the work I’ve started on behalf of the good people of this city,” says Steele. “I joined Surrey First because I believed in the work, the values and the vision of my friend and colleague Dianne Watts. This is no longer the party that represents the ideals we began with, and in good conscience I can’t be part of it.”