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Stephen Karpuk: 8,122 votes
LOCAL NEWS
Hard to fight against blowing political winds
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From A6
Hunter said she felt Hamer-Jackson supporters bought into his quick-fix ideas, such as the drug- recovery centre proposal for rural Kamloops, which she said lacked details, such as how to ensure people access it. She said it’s not as feasible a project as he made it seem.
Hunter said she hopes Hamer-Jackson will drop the “toxic rhetoric” once on council and learns how to lead, arguing he will need to both lead the city council and represent Kamloops in a positive way.
“And the current approach is not going to get him there,” Hunter said.
Singh was wearing a Kamloops Blazers sweatshirt and hugging supporters at St. Andrews on the Square after the results. He said he thinks he and his team ran the best campaign they could.
“Obviously, it wasn’t as successful as I thought it would be,” he said.
Singh said he is interested in understanding what people are saying in the community through the results, adding he was surprised by Hamer-Jackson ‘s victory.
Singh said he believes some people in the community will feel “apprehensive” by the results, including staff at the ASK Wellness Society, the social agency that was targeted by Hamer-Jackson during the campaign, with the mayor-elect calling for an independent review shelters and motel rooms for the homeless operated by ASK Wellness and other social agencies.
Singh said he is happy with the council elected, which he described as balanced with experience from incumbents, all three of whom were all re-elected. Singh said he will continue to build the community, but he doesn’t know if he will run again for council.
Of the five mayoral candidates, only Dudy stopped in at Hamer-Jackson’s election night party at the Mount Paul Golf Course to congratulate him on his victory.
“He’s a very toxic individual, so I would rather not go out of my way to spend any time around him,” Hunter said.
Dhaliwal said he didn’t stop by as he was also celebrating his birthday as part of his election night party at the Coast Kamloops Hotel.
“We were still dancing and partying and karaoke,” Dhaliwal said.
Arjun Singh said he sent Hamer-Jackson a congratulatory text, but in retrospect feels he should have dropped in.
ANALYSIS FROM AN EX-MAYOR
Former Kamloops mayor and former MLA Terry Lake campaigned for Dudy. He predicted the race was going to come down to HamerJackson or Dudy, but noted he thought voters would ultimately go to the centre.
“Typically, Kamloopsians do that,” he said. “In a way, they did. They voted for someone with a kind of populist right-of-centre view, but council has a mix, so there’s a balance there. But the people are never wrong. That’s what I’ve learned over the years, so the new mayor and council are going to have to learn how this works and how they can make positive change for our city because we are at a crossroads, for sure. And it’s going to take a lot of work to get us on the right track.”
Asked if anything could have been done differently by Dudy’s campaign, Lake replied: “No, you know, time for change is a very, very powerful political wind. And, if that wind is blowing, it’s very hard to go against it, so I think this was a timefor-change moment for Kamloops voters.”
Lake said Hamer-Jackson has two paths in front of him.
“He could try to do the things that he said he would do and I guarantee you, he will flame out and possibly have a bunch of good city staff leave because they can get jobs anywhere,” Lake said.
“Or he can learn how this all works and build relationships and work hard to try and understand how he can make a positive change. And I hope he will do the latter and I think he has good intentions. He’s a good man and I hope he takes the time and learns to do things in a way that brings people along, rather than blows things up.”
Dieter Dudy congratulates Reid Hamer-Jackson on election night. Hamer-Jackson was elected mayor on Saturday, while Dudy finished second in the five-candidate race. MICHAEL POTESTIO/KTW Is your Will open to Interpretation?
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TYSON McNEIL-HAY
