A Langley Township councillor being sued by the mayor and two other councillors has responded with a counterclaim, in an ongoing defamation lawsuit.
Councillor Kim Richter and her husband, Bob Richter, were two of the defendants named earlier this year in a lawsuit by Mayor Eric Woodward and Councillors Tim Baillie and Rob Rindt.
The original lawsuit claims that the mayor, Baillie, and Rindt were libelled by an article on a website called Langley Monitor in 2024, and videos posted by the Langley Township Watch Facebook page in early 2025, were defamatory. The article and videos all made claims that a “political insider” got a special deal when the Township purchased new fire trucks in 2024.
The allegations in the statement of claim, nor in recent responses to it, have been tested in a court of law.
Also sued were former MLA and mayoral candidate Rich Coleman, Langley businessman Thomas Martini and his company, Lorval Developments, public relations professional Jean Francoi Louis Hardy, political operative Micah Haince, and White Rock’s Kalim Kassam.
Several defendants, including Coleman and Haince, have already filed responses denying any responsibility for the allegedly libellous videos.
The first response from the Richters denies any involvement in any campaign of defamation, and specifically that they had no hand in creating the videos.
The response goes on to say that “this lawsuit is part of a campaign by the plaintiffs using public funds” to deter the Richters from participation in public affairs.
That allegation is at the centre of a countersuit the Richters filed against Woodward, Rindt, and Baillie on Oct. 22.
The counterclaim says that the lawsuit against the Richters is part of a campaign against them that amounts to abuse of process.
It alleges that the mayor and plaintiffs have launched “a series of formal investigations” against Kim Richter, “numbering three at the present time,” causing her “to be mired in overlapping processes and causing the Richter defendants to incur substantial expense including legal fees…”
The conterclaim also alleges that the investigation of the Langley Monitor and Langley Township Watch pages were investigated using public Township funds.
“The resolution to fund the investigation was supported by the votes of the defendants by counterclaim at a meeting of the municipal council and the resolution involves the personal and pecuniary interests of the plaintiffs, and the resolution was passed without proper authority,” it says.
The Richters are seeking a declaration that the defamation suit was an abuse of process, and that using public funds to investigate defamation claims was a conflict of interest, and damages.
According to Woodward, because the original allegations involved Township staff and firefighters, the initial costs of the lawsuit were covered by the Township, until it was determined who was allegedly behind the videos.
“Once that was determined, it was confirmed that taxpayers are most definitely not covering any costs whatsoever,” Woodward told the Langley Advance Times.
Thomas Martini and Lorval Developments also filed their response to the original lawsuit, filing on Oct. 24.
Martini’s response denied any involvement in the creation, procurement, authorization, approval, or publication of the article and videos. They also denied any “incitement or encouragement of others” to publish them.
The statement of claim then criticizes Woodward, saying he has a reputation “as someone who uses the profile of his elected office to mock, diminish and disparage, including publicly and with intemperate language, those with whom he disagrees, and uses actual or threatened litigation to stifle criticism of his conduct.”
Lorval and the Township were previously involved in a legal battle over the legality of the Township’s Community Amenity Contributions bylaw. A judge found in favour of Lorval, and the CAC policy had to be scrapped.
“The plaintiff Woodward,” the response later says “commenced and is prosecuting this litigation against these defendants not to vindicate this reputation but for collateral or improper purposes, namely, to intimidate perceived opponents, stifle criticism and dissuade these defendants from providing financial support to other candidates in the 2026 municipal elections.”
The Martini response does admit that Lorval developments contacted Rich Coleman in the spring of 2024 about a March 25 council meeting, and that on April 5 of the same year, Martini wrote to Coleman concerning emails exchanged in September 2022 between Martini and two other local men. However, the response denies that anything in those communications could amount to organizing to publish the allegedly defamatory information.