Manfred Bauer earned 399 votes to be elected the new mayor of Keremeos, defeating Glenn Gouguen who received 125 votes.
Walter Despot decided to not run for re-election.
Bauer said the community won’t see much change during his term.
“There wont be any big changes because when I and other candidates did door-to-door, a lot of the people were actually quite content on what has been done in terms of amenities we have here and where the community is going,” said Bauer.
“We are not in debt like some areas, we are quite healthy and hopefully that is going to stay that way.”
The newly elected mayor said they are one of the few districts that didn’t have a decline in student enrolment and they are looking at a growing population. With that, Bauer said they would be looking at densifying.
“Big infrastructure projects like that are expensive. We are working on a liquid waste management plan right now, we are in phase two and that will be the biggest financial challenge for sure,” said Bauer.
Jeremy Evans (403), incumbent Gary Thielmann (351), Arlene Arlow (337) and incumbent Charlene Cowling (317) were elected to Keremeos council, leaving out David Stein (222) and Frank Kennedy (81).
Evans had served on council prior to 2008, as did Bauer, leaving Arlow as the lone newly elected councillor without any previous experience on council.