White Rock mayor won’t seek third term
After 30 years in White Rock’s government, first as city manager and now as mayor, Wayne Baldwin has announced he will not run in this fall’s municipal election.
“I made that decision during that last election (in 2014) if I did get elected I would not go again,” Baldwin said Wednesday afternoon. “Seven years is enough.”
Baldwin began his career in White Rock as the city manager, a position he held for 23 years before retiring in 2006. Five years later, Baldwin decided to enter the political fray, even though being mayor “was not on my bucket list.”
“I just saw some things happening that I knew were wrong and I wanted to make a positive change,” he said.
Baldwin calls that first term “one of interrupted good intentions,” involving the deaths of two councillors, a byelection, and a fatal incident involving a jogger and an Amtrak train that prompted a review of the city’s rail crossings. Baldwin decided to run for re-election in 2014 primarily because his first term was so chaotic.
Baldwin said he’s proud of what he’s accomplished as mayor — in particular the 2015 purchase of the city’s water utility — and believes he is leaving on a high note in spite of criticism.
Baldwin, who turns 72 this summer, also feared becoming a mayor who was “long in the tooth.”
“It’s time for a change,” he said.