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Voters choose experienced candidates

Voters choose six new councillors to join two incumbents on Penticton city council
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Candidates gathered with friends, family, children and grandchildren to hear the results of Penticton’s 2018 civic election Saturday at the Penticton Trade and Convention Centre. Steve Kidd/Western News

Mayor-elect John Vassilaki is going to be leading a very different council than the one elected in 2014

Only two incumbents retained their seats in the 2018 civic election. Helena Konanz, Andre Martin and Tarik Sayeed choose not to run and Max Picton finished five spots out of the running, with 2,334 votes.

Penticton voters also showed a preference for older candidates and the tried and true, like Vassilaki himself.

Former mayor Jake Kimberley topped the list of winning candidates with 4909 votes, followed by Frank Regehr (4,386 votes), Julius Bloomfield (3,449 votes), Katie Robinson (3,101 votes) and incumbent Judy Sentes (2,772 votes).

Incumbent Campbell Watt (4,566 votes) is now the youngest member of council.

In all, there were 24 candidates for the six positions. Unlike the 2014 election, where the first runner up was 696 votes behind the sixth candidate.

In 2018, Coun. Judy Sentes was only 209 votes ahead of Jesse Martin’s 2,563 votes and Marie Prior was only 28 votes behind him. In all, seven candidates were within 700 votes of Sentes in 2018.

For the Okanagan Skaha School District, voters returned Shelly Clarke (4,599 votes), Tracy Van Raes (4,156 votes), Barb Sheppard (3,762 votes), with James Palanio (3,503 votes) filling the fourth Penticton trustee seat along with Dave Stathers (2,505 votes) and Linda Van Alphen (1,898 votes) filling the two Summerland positions.

For the rural area representative, Kathy Pierre received 848 votes, edging out incumbent Ginny Manning (834 votes) by 14 votes.


Steve Kidd
Senior reporter, Penticton Western News
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