Goodbye Open for Business, Hello Open for Opportunity says Colin Basran

Kelowna's newest Mayor is Colin Basran as he managed to garner 56 per cent of the votes, well more than the 35 per cent for his nearest candidate, Sharon Shepherd.

Colin Basran with his wife and parents (Photo Credit: KelownaNow.com)

Basran was greeted by hundreds of supporters at his party headquarters at the Coast Capri hotel in Kelowna on Saturday night. As numbers trickled in from polling stations it was obvious from the start that Basran was to become the next Mayor. He thanked his wife, parents and supporters for electing him to lead the city but didn’t forget to pay a special thanks to those who supported him from council, specifically Walter Gray and Andre Blanleil.

"He (Blanliel) endorsed my campaign and he made the decision to step aside, I think that he wanted this as much for me as he did for him and I truly believe he would have been an amazing mayor for our city, but for whatever reason he decided not to pursue the chair,” explained Basran. “I think he takes great pride in helping my campaign and now seeing the result he’s proud, and I’m proud to have him as part of my team.”

Colin Basran thanking supporters at his party headquarters (Photo Credit: KelownaNow.com)

Basran said he didn’t expect a win, or even receive the numerous amounts of votes that he did, he was just as nervous as anyone else on Election Day.

“It’s been a long road, a lot of peaks and valleys and the hard work was worth it and I couldn’t be happier with the result,” said Basran. “What’s next? Meeting with the rest of my team and finding out what we have in terms of common ground and then building on that and setting a vision for the city.”

Colin Basran addressing his supporters (Photo Credit: KelownaNow.com)

The previous council with Walter Gray ran on the platform “Open for Business”. Basran plans to do the same, but with a different mantra.

“It has been open for business, and I’m going to talk to my teammates, but I envision the next mantra to be ‘Open to Opportunity’ because opportunity not only means economic but social opportunity as well,” said Basran. “It means partnerships, there’s a lot more to opportunity than just economic opportunity, we need to be a well-balanced community.”

The crowd at the Colin Basran headquarters (Photo Credit: KelownaNow.com)

Here are the unofficial results from the 2014 municipal election:

Colin Basran -16,888 votes (56.70%)
Sharon Shepherd – 10,512 votes (35.30%)
Mark Thompson – 1,143 votes (3.84%)
Chuck Hardy – 548 votes (1.84%)
Kelly Row – 450 votes (1.51%)
Glendon Smedley – 84 votes (0.28%)
Sam Condy – 80 votes (0.27%)
James Murphy – 78 votes (0.26%)

All numbers are preliminary until made official by Chief Election Officers.

For the full election results and information on the new City of Kelowna Council click here.

Submitted video from Colin Basran's HQ - video credit - Reid Schretlen