Coun. Rob Kirkham was elected mayor of Squamish on Saturday (Nov. 19), beating out political newcomer Auli Parviainen in a close race for the top job.
In unofficial numbers, Kirkham, who at the outset of the campaign pledged to retire from his job as manager of the local Bank of Nova Scotia branch if elected, defeated businesswoman Parviainen by just 179 votes, 2,283 to 2,104.
Ron Bahm, who announced on Tuesday (Nov. 15) that he was pulling out of the race and throwing his support behind Parviainen, finished with 147 votes.
Meanwhile, incumbents Patricia Heintzman, Doug Race and Bryan Raiser won re-election to Squamish council, with Heintzman topping the vote-getters with 2,292 votes. Race was second with 2,088, followed by newcomer Ron Sander (1,728), Raiser (1,648), and newcomers Ted Prior (1,630) and Susan Chapelle (1,601).
Rounding out the top 10 in the preliminary vote count in the 23-candidate council race were Jeff Cooke at 1,327, Peter Kent at 1,187, Mike Jenson at 1,103 and Eric Andersen at 979.
After that were Terrill Patterson (900), Balvinder Biring (727), Brad Hodge (664), Uffe Hansen (663), Chris Wallace (617), Nate Dolha (530), Larry McLennan (502), Sarah Braebrook (491), Geoff Dyer (477), Rob Weys (451), Phil Audet (335), Debra McBride (314) and Douglas Neville (162).
Incumbent District 48 Squamish school board trustees Rick Price and Andrea Beaubien were re-elected in a four-person race. Price topped the list with 2,292 votes. Beaubien won a close race for the second seat with 1,655, followed by Bianca Peters with 1,566 and Alice Guss with 1,446.
