HE’S BACK! Colin Basran re-elected as Kelowna Mayor

KELOWNA – The battle between friends for the job of Kelowna Mayor was won easily by incumbent Colin Basran.

Speaking to supporters at a local cafe this evening, he was jubilant after a hard fought campaign.

“I’m so excited to work with this new council. I’m so excited all the incumbents got in. We work so well together. And I’m so excited Loyal got in. Loyal will be a great addition to this council and we’ll get things done,” he said. 

Meanwhile it looks like all incumbent councillors will return and Loyal Wooldridge has edged out Gord Lovegrove for the last spot. 

After one term as city councillor and another as mayor, Basran stood on his record of economic growth combined with a social conscience to fight off three challengers.

Basran got off the mark early by announcing, in May, that he would run for re-election. There did not seem to be any real challengers until former friend and former president of Kelowna Chamber of Commerce Tom Dyas threw his hat in the ring in mid-September – delaying his long-rumoured candidacy until he had wrapped up his work on the Kelowna Rocket’s proposal to host the 2020 Memorial Cup.

What was, perhaps, more surprising was his full-on attack on Basran’s leadership ability. This coming from a friend who had vacationed with Basran in Hawaii and New York not that long ago.

One of Basran’s first responses was to unfriend Dyas on Facebook.

With 21 of 21 polls reporting, these were the results. 

Mayor
Colin Basran 18,118 56.95%
Tom Dyas 9,518 29.92%
Bobby Kennedy 2,671 8.40%
Bob Schewe 1,507 4.74%

Councillor
Maxine DeHart 16,706 8.98%
Gail Given 16,323 8.77%
Luke Stack 15,150 8.14%
Brad Sieben 14,675 7.89%
Mohini Singh 14,586 7.84%
Charlie Hodge 14,429 7.75%
Ryan Donn 13,236 7.11%
Loyal Wooldridge 12,495 6.71%
Gord Lovegrove 10,886 5.85%
Graeme James 8,789 4.72%
Amarjit Singh Lalli 8,087 4.35%
Dustin Sargent 7,688 4.13%
Lindsay Bell 5,897 3.17%
Craig Hostland 5,239 2.82%
Mark Boyer 4,136 2.22%
Kevin Bond 3,550 1.91%
Jeff Piattelli 3,243 1.74%
Wayne Carson 3,114 1.67%
Mo Rajabally 3,067 1.65%
Greg Dahms 2,829 1.52%
Stef Van Meeteren 1,974 1.06%


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Rob Munro

Rob Munro has a long history in journalism after starting an underground newspaper in Whitehorse called the Yukon Howl in 1980. He spent five years at the 100 Mile Free Press, starting in the darkroom, moving on to sports and news reporting before becoming the advertising manager. He came to Kelowna in 1989 as a reporter for the Kelowna Daily Courier, and spent the 1990s mostly covering city hall. For most of the past 20 years he worked full time for the union representing newspaper workers throughout B.C. He’s returned to his true love of being a reporter with a special focus on civic politics

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