Kelowna voters sent a message to city hall that they want to be heard, mayor-elect Tom Dyas said on Saturday, after what he described as a “surreal” win.
“I believe what changed over the last four years is the community this time had a louder voice, they truly had a louder voice,” Dyas said.
“There (are) certain things that were concerning with regards to crime, with respect to housing, with respect to homelessness, with respect to traffic, and (I know) the biggest part of it that the community was missing was communication.”
Dyas led the race from early on — and once all 21 Kelowna polls were counted, he finished with more than double the votes of incumbent Mayor Colin Basran.
The final numbers had Dyas with 21,110 votes compared to Basran’s 10,821. David Habib came in a distant third with 1,518 votes.
Dyas went on to say that while there are smart individuals at city hall, there are also plenty of “amazingly intelligent individuals” who live in the city and work outside the local government.
“All of those will help change the direction of our city,” he said.
Basran wasn’t the only incumbent member of council who was ousted Saturday night.
Incumbent councillor Gail Given also failed to win a spot this year. Couns. Ryan Donn and Brad Siebens had previously stepped down, meaning there will be a few new or re-newed faces at the council table.
The new council consists of Ron Cannan, Loyal Woldridge, Rick Webber, Gord Lovegrove, Mohini Singh, Luke Stack, Charlie Hodge and Maxine Dehart.
Global News reached out to Colin Basran regarding Saturday’s results.
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