Sadie Hunter will be back at Kamloops city council next week after being on leave during the provincial election campaign.

Hunter lost in the Kamloops-North Thompson riding by just 196 votes to Liberal incumbent Peter Milobar. She had been trailing by nearly 800 votes before mail-in ballots were counted.

“I’m a pragmatic person, so yes I watched the numbers change but I wasn’t ready to think it would flip necessarily. Statistics were really close the whole way through. Where I landed was at a 0.8 per cent difference as it was. I knew it was going to be close after the mail in ballots and that is definitely what happened,” she says.

“I think it says people in the region are looking for change, to be honest. It’s the closest race there’s been in this region in some time, probably over 20 years. I think it’s an indication people are looking for something a little bit different and a little different representation.”

Hunter says while she’s not an elected MLA, she is still an elected official, and says she’ll continue to listen to concerns from people in the region.

Kamloops council meets next on Nov. 17,

Hunter is also a director with the Union of B.C. Municipalities, and the UBCM executive meets on Nov. 18 and 19.