While "no-chance" Rich Coleman was denying made-up news of his potential Surrey mayoral candidacy – the City's governing team of Surrey First is set to choose their mayoral candidate through a ballot vote by members on Monday. Councillors Mike Starchuk and Bruce Hayne are front-runners to get the green-light to run for mayor as the party's choice but Tom Gill is also in the mix but most insiders say he will not get the green-light as he is not seen as a winning candidate. But there are also rumours that if Hayne and Gill don't get the party okay – they will most likely run as independent candidates for mayor and both have already began assembling their teams for the coming battle.

By R. Paul Dhillon

With News Files

SURREY – There was a lot of BS from the obvious suspects that Liberal MLA Rich Coleman was thinking of running for Surrey mayor and Coleman quickly put those fake rumours to rest by saying that he is definitely not considering running – forget about running.

 “It’s an unsubstantiated rumour,” Coleman told the Surrey Now-Leader Friday.

Coleman told the Now he was on a ferry Thursday evening when a friend text messaged him a link to a report that had surfaced, suggesting he was going to run.

 “(The story) said I’ve already started to talk to people about a slate, building a team,” Coleman told the Surrey newspaper. “I’ve been in Victoria the last two weeks and haven’t been on this side of the water, except weekends. I got a bit of a kick out of it.”

Coleman did tell the Now he’s received phone calls asking if he’s interested in the job.

“As soon as Linda (Hepner) decided not to run (for mayor), people phoned and said, ‘What do you think about that?’…. But I’ve got a job to do and a session to finish and I just didn’t think anything of it, and I haven’t given anybody an indication that I am.

 “It really is a rumour,” Coleman added. “I’d never say absolutely no to anything but I haven’t even talked to my wife about this.

“Politics is such an organism. Every time an election is coming along people start scouting around.”

While "no-chance" Rich Coleman was denying made-up news of his potential Surrey mayoral candidacy – the City's governing team of Surrey First is set to choose their mayoral candidate through a ballot vote by members on Monday which will be presided over by Mayor Hepner, who will hold the tie-breaking vote in case there is a tie.

Councillors Mike Starchuk and Bruce Hayne are front-runners to get the green-light to run for mayor as the party's choice but Tom Gill is also in the mix but most insiders say he will not get the green-light as he is not seen as a winning candidate.

But there are also rumours that if Hayne and Gill don't get the party okay – they will most likely run as independent candidates for mayor and both have already began assembling their teams for the coming battle.