Putting up election signs, creating social media posts, going to forums, holding strategy meetings, sleepless nights and headaches are typical on the campaign trail, but West Kelowna’s new mayor can skip all that.

Stephen Johnston has been a West Kelowna city councillor for eight years and now he’s the next mayor without winning a single vote because no one is running against him.

The nomination period for local candidates closed on Friday and Johnston was the only one with his hat in the ring, but it’s actually pretty common for mayors in B.C. to be acclaimed.

“It’s not unheard of,” Johnston told iNFOnews.ca. “It is rare in larger municipalities. But definitely the opportunity for anyone to run was there. I’m very grateful for the support and honoured to have the opportunity to serve.”

This year there are 36 municipalities who only had one candidate for mayor, according to CivicInfo BC. In 2022 and 2018 there were a similar number of mayors who didn’t have to win any votes.

Typically, those mayors are in smaller communities with a few hundred or a few thousand registered voters.

Johnston said the fact that a city as large as West Kelowna let him run unopposed is a mix of low civic engagement and the fact that his odds of winning were good from the start because of his experience on council.

“We do have historically lower civic engagement, especially when it comes to elections. That’s one thing that I am hoping we can begin to remedy over time because I really do believe in public participation,” he said.

In 2022, there were only 5,522 votes cast out of 28,098 eligible voters, around 19 per cent of eligible voter turnout. The provincial average was around 30 per cent voter turnout in local elections in 2022.

He said that he’s not worried about frustration from voters who would have preferred a traditional race because the election process is out of his control and this is just the way things worked out.

“There’s a legislative process that we underwent here in West Kelowna just like they did in every municipality across B.C.,” he said.

Johnston is going from a salary of $33,614 as a councillor to $96,000 a year as mayor, with a raise scheduled for the new year.

This isn’t the first time Johnston has tried to be mayor of West Kelowna. He ran and lost in 2014, but he secured 41 per cent of the vote. Then in 2018 he landed a seat on council where he says he’s shown voters what he’s about.

“People are well aware of how I handle myself at the council table and in the community,” he said. “I would just encourage them to reach out to me to get to know me.”

Johnston said that even though he already has the job he’s still going to be campaigning to give residents the same opportunity to get to know him that they would have if he was vying for their vote.

“Instead of doing a traditional door-knocking campaign and putting up a ton of signs,
we’re gonna focus that energy and those resources on events like meet-and-greet barbecues,” he said.