“It’s 5-4. It’s 5-4.”
The words were said as the elected incumbent looked at the large screen at Kamloops City Hall on election night, the screen that displayed the vote tallies that have changed the makeup of city council.
While some online commenters at kamloopsthisweek.com decried what they saw as a status-quo city council, many of those watching the results at city hall opined the election was a de facto referendum on the proposed Ajax copper and gold mine.
After all, when the ballots had been counted, almost half of city council is now officially opposed to the mining project south of Aberdeen.
Incumbents Donovan Cavers and Tina Lange have been joined by new councillors Dieter Dudy and Denis Walsh in the fight to stop KGHM’s Ajax plan.
That means five council members are either not ready to state their views or waiting for more information before committing to a stand.
Dudy and Walsh ran as part of the five-person Vision Kamloops slate, with fellow members Brad Harrison, Jenny Green and Daphane Nelson failing to get elected.
A plank in Vision Kamloops’ platform was its opposition to Ajax, which means four of the nine council members are now officially against the mining proposal.
This means official opposition to Ajax at city hall has doubled after the election.
And that ties back to the “5-4” comment at the top of this column.
The incumbent who uttered those words was referring to a general split on council — Peter Milobar, Ken Christian, Marg Spina, Arjun Singh and Pat Wallace vs. Donovan Cavers, Dieter Dudy, Denis Walsh and Tina Lange, at least on the Ajax issue.
Some would argue the 5-4 split could also be arranged by trading Singh for Lange when grouping councillors according to a socially conscious bent.
There will not be a blanket voting bloc according to the lineups of the two groups.
As Walsh said at Vision Kamloops’ election-night party at the Noble Pig: “There will be times and issues where me and Dieter disagree.”
And, certainly, while Lange and Cavers agree on their opposition to Ajax, the political DNA of the two is anything but uniform.
As for the comment that the municipal election was a de facto vote on Ajax, it depends on how one looks at the results.
Of the 28 councillor candidates, 11 were publicly opposed to Ajax. Of those 11, four were elected. So, is that a de facto win or loss for Ajax via the civic election?
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The success of Dudy and Walsh is not a surprise to many.
If any non-incumbents were going to be elected, it was that duo based, in part, on strong name recognition (Dudy took Milobar to the edge in the 2011 mayoral race and Walsh served as a councillor from 2008 to 2011) and the anti-Ajax stance they (and their Vision Kamloops slate) adopted.
Nelly Dever’s loss was cited by some at city hall and at Milobar’s election-night party at Hotel 540 as the lone surprise of the election. But, with Dudy and Walsh forecast to be elected, that left one incumbent at risk (there was also an empty seat due to Nancy Bepple’s resignation in the spring).
Why Dever? It’s hard to say.
It could be her ties to voting in favour of the recent council pay raise. It could be voters did not have passion for her personal project of improving the corridor along Tranquille Road from the airport.
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I advised Andy Philpot to avoid poker tables.
The extremely likeable community volunteer finished ninth for the second consecutive election.
Ninth is one spot from being elected or, in poker parlance, on the bubble, one spot from finishing in the money.
There is no pain like the pain of finishing ninth in a councillor race in Kamloops.
Christopher Foulds is editor of Kamloops This Week. His email address is here. His blogs can be found here and here. Follow him on Twitter here.
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