The final count is in, with voters in Kamloops dusting off their apathy (somewhat) to demand a change in direction, while at the same time, avoiding the temptation to turn the political dial up to “11” just to see what could happen.

Two-term councillor Mike O’Reilly is now mayor-elect O’Reilly, handily taking the election for the top seat around the council chamber horseshoe.

O’Reilly would finish with 13,235 votes, representing just over 44% (44.15%) support among those who voted for Mayor of Kamloops — nearly double that of his next closest competitor among the 6 people on the ballot, which was Pivot Kamloops’ Nelly Dever.

Dever — who spearheaded the four-person political slate known as Pivot Kamloops — would finish 2nd with 6,969 ticks next to her name — 23.25% support among the 29,980 ballots accepted for the Mayor’s race — a voter participation rate of 35.16% percent for the mayor’s chair in Kamloops.

The overall voter turnout in Kamloops would come in at just under 35.5% (35.486%), as 280 of the 30,260 who submitted ballots either didn’t vote for a mayoral candidate or had that portion of their ballot rejected for some reason. (Voting for multiple candidates for mayor being the most likely scenario)

One time city councillor Ray Dhaliwal, making his 2nd straight run for mayor, would come in 3rd with 3,916 votes, or just over 13% (13.06%) support.

Incumbent Reid Hamer-Jackson would finish in 4th place with 3,548 votes in his favor, or just shy of 12% (11.83%).

The other two candidates on the ballot, Ivory Winston and Kris Lloyd-Middleton, would finish with 1,374 and 938 votes respectively.

The drop down to 4th place for incumbent Hamer-Jackson saw his total vote total for 2026 halved from the 7,298 that easily propelled his victory in the 2022 campaign.

Was there a “Hamer-Jackson Effect” on incumbents?

While voters in Kamloops would err toward transitional continuity from one council to the next in handing the mayor’s chair over to Mike O’Reilly, voters would not have as much sympathy for the other ‘two-or-more” term councillors on the ballot.

Incumbent Nancy Bepple would fall 71 votes short of retaining her seat, swapping positions with the candidate she bested for 8th position in the 2022 campaign, Pivot Kamloops’ Randy Sunderman.

While previous political efforts and name recognition didn’t seem to negatively impact Sunderman’s campaign effort, the “no incumbents” campaigners could make an argument that of the nine — including the Mayor — who make up the outgoing City Council in Kamloops — only four will be returning as elected representatives.

Nancy Bepple is joined on the outside looking in by council veterans Dale Bass and Bill Sarai, whose showing on Saturday was in stark contrast to his previous campaign results, where he would finish 2nd in council voting in the 2022 campaign behind only Neustaeter and ahead of now mayor-elect O’Reilly.

This time, Sarai would draw over a thousand fewer votes (6,080) than he did when he first found his way on Kamloops council as a relative unknown as the 8th and final seat in the 2018 version of Kamloops Council by garnering over 7,200 (7,218) supporters to his cause then.

The 6,080 votes earned by Sarai this election represents an over 43% (43.37%) decline in voter support compared to the 10,737 he convinced to back him for a seat on council in 2022.

Bass, whose campaigning was limited this time around due to non-election issues, would also see her vote tally decline from a height of over 9,000 votes (9,059) — or just under 44% (43.88%) and a 5th place finish in 2018, to a 6th place finish in 2022, despite dropping over 800 votes (8,245) in that campaign — to this time seeing her support plummet by over 1,800 fewer “X’s” (6,381) than she garnered in 2022.

Bass — as well as Sarai — would both finish with over 2,000 fewer votes than fellow incumbent Nancy Bepple, suggesting the two councillors (as well as ousted first-term incumbent Steven Karpuk) may have seen rejected by the voters not due to policy decisions, (Bass and Bepple’s voting records and political views are fairly closely aligned) but — possibly — by their public clashes with the Mayor.

Bass was often singled out by Hamer-Jackson for being the person whose signature would be on the various code-of-conduct complaints filed against him, even though a number of which were signed by her on behalf of the broader City Council, as well as by her on behalf of members of staff who — according to the complaints themselves — feared coming forward themselves out of fear of retribution.

Sarai’s own disputes with Hamer-Jackson became much more pronounced in 2024, when he himself was found in violation of the Council Code-of-Conduct and into a forced into public ‘mea culpa’ for a recording he made a year earlier.

Sarai was eventually forced to admit to the RCMP that he secretly recorded a meeting between himself and Hamer-Jackson the previous year, and didn’t reveal its existence until faced with the possibility of obstruction charges while the RCMP looked into how the Mayor’s home mail box became engorged two years ago with a copy of the so-called Honcharuk Report.

That document is officially known as the Integrity Group Report, but is better known as the Honcharuk Report after its author Terry Honcharuk.

He was tasked by the Integrity Group to investigate allegations of intimidation and harassment levelled against Hamer-Jackson stemming from — but not exclusive to — a shouting match which spilled out of the Mayor’s office sometime in the summer of 2023.

The recording would reveal it was Sarai, rather than Hamer-Jackson, who left the office screaming.

That revelation would ultimately lead to the Mayor demanding a restoration of his full salary — slashed due to an unwillingness to follow council-mandated remedies for the various code-of-conduct rulings against him — on top of having the findings from subsequent probes into his conduct be withdrawn on what seemed to be based around the “fruit of the poisonous tree” concept in US case law, which can absolve a suspect of all legal charges based on an illegal or illicit collection of initial evidence.

Various attempts by Hamer-Jackson put his case forward — including at the same special hearing for Sarai’s dressing down — would not be seconded by any other member of council, thus not able to come up for discussion.

Steven Karpuk also had to ‘eat crow’ early on in public office, after he publicly accused the Mayor of making ‘off color’ jokes while delivering a speech to over 200 people attending a Canadian Homebuilders Association dinner — only to have it revealed afterward that Hamer-Jackson was not the deliverer of said “groaners.”

That incident, which would quickly be dubbed by some as “fart-gate,” would linger over Karpuk’s reputation for some time, despite an effusive public apology made the next day via Radio NL and at a subsequent council session.

However, the “Hamer-Jackson Effect” might not be the ultimate blame for ballot-box disappointment either.

Councillors Kelly Hall and Margot Middleton, both of whom will be returning to council for a 2nd term, also had their public run-ins with Hamer-Jackson.

This would include Hall — in the weeks following the release of the Braun Report — openly using Middleton’s call for the Mayor to resign his position as a verbal ‘poking stick’ to try to goad Hamer-Jackson into following Middleton’s recommendation.

That report by former Abbotsford Mayor Henry Braun — who was sent to Kamloops by the Ministry of Municipal Affairs to determine what was going wrong with council — would ultimately pin the blame for the schism between the Mayor and the rest of council on Hamer-Jackson himself.

At the same time, Councillor Katie Neustaeter, whom Hamer-Jackson singled out for very public legal action, would end up finishing 3rd this election, just one of three to secure more than 10,000 (10,266) votes in this year’s election.

While Neustaeter would shed just over 1,300 (1,317) votes this time, expectations of garnering the same nearly 50% (49.83%) voter support she delivered in 2022 would have been a tall order, given that the top vote getter among those on Kamloops council this year garnered just over 36% support, with an equal amount of candidates in the running this election as there were in 2022.

Five new faces with some familiarity

That man who garnered just over 36% of the vote was Rob Bertrand.

The political rookie is one of five new faces which will be appearing around the council horseshoe sometime next month once sworn in.

Bertrand, who is the GM of Notre Dame Tire, comes into the new role without a major agenda priority to unpack.

Through his conversations and posts online, Bertrand echoes what a lot of voters expressed concern about in the lead-up to the election — namely crime and public spending.

While not show-stopping when it comes to policy, the messaging — plus his role as the man who is helping keep you safe by putting new tires on your vehicle and his presence in the community during the campaign and on social media — has earned him the support of nearly 11,000 (10,937) voters and the seat next to mayor-elect O’Reilly as his “right hand man.”

In a somewhat interesting twist, the man who will take up a seat directly to the mayor’s left is — himself — a card-carrying “lefty.”

Jesse Ritcey, who was making his 2nd straight run for council after earning nearly 6,000 (5,894) votes in the 2022 race which did leave him well short of the top-8 back then, would capitalize on his almost-expected presence at most community events in Kamloops with a resounding result from Saturday evening.

Ritcey — who is also one of the NDP’s leaders in the Kamloops Centre riding — would finish with over 10,000 votes this time (10,424) for 2nd spot in the council rundown, besting incumbent Katie Neustaeter by 158 votes for left hand “power seat” around the council horseshoe.

In his early 40’s, Ritcey is a life-long Kamloops resident who runs the Kamloops Naturalist Club, which helps kids and others become more acquainted with the outdoors.

One of the surprises of Saturday night was the guy who finished 4th — Steve Bucher.

Bucher comes in with a somewhat unique background.

After growing up in Rayleigh, Bucher would go on to graduate from UCC (now TRU) and eventually take up a career as a mortgage broker, which he continues with at Mortgage Intelligence.

But in 2023, Bucher would return to school, enrolling in Royal Roads University and subsequently earning a degree in Conflict Management and Analysis.

His campaign focused on community safety, but with practical solutions tied to the concept:

“A municipal government cannot solve addiction, mental illness or homelessness on its own,” stated Bucher during the campaign.  “But the city can help create a safer environment and make sure stakeholders aren’t falling through the cracks.”

“Some practical steps our city must take,” wrote Bucher in a statement on community safety plans.

“Strengthen community-based response teams so Community Service Officers and outreach workers can respond quickly to disruptive or concerning behaviour.”

“Improve follow-up and reporting. When residents report repeated incidents, they should know where to report them, what happens next, and what patterns are being identified,” he continued, suggesting his goal is to try to bring practicality to the position.

One of the better known “new faces” around the horseshoe is going to be Randy Sunderman.

Sunderman is no stranger to the political scene in Kamloops, having narrowly missed out on a shot at council in the 2022 election, being narrowly outperformed by Nancy Bepple, who would snag the last seat on council four years ago.

This time around, the opposite would take place, with Sunderman beating Bepple for that last chair by just 71 votes.

Sunderman is an economist by trade, and has lived and worked in Kamloops for a number of years, though his actual firm continues to be based out of Vancouver.

Sunderman also spent time as the main spokesperson for the Kamloops Voters Society before trying his hand at the political scene himself.

He the only one of the four from the Pivot Kamloops slate to make it through to City Hall, after he made a conscious choice to stick with the municipal campaign rather than test the provincial waters again with the BC Greens.

And the last new face around the council horseshoe is Christopher Mitra.

Mitra’s background isn’t easy to track.

He is a self-described “Confidence and Success Coach” at An Inspired Life, which is a brand he founded himself.

Mitra’s Facebook page lists him as attending Simon Fraser University where he says he got a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration.

Mitra was born and raised in Kamloops, with his profile online placing him around 59 years old.

His An Inspired Life profile also has him branching out into other areas:

“As a tech entrepreneur, he founded a successful software development company and now mentors university graduates looking to start their own companies,” states Mitra in his brand profile. “With a background in Computer Science and over 15 years as a Tech Entrepreneur, I don’t approach coaching with fluff. I approach it with logic.”

But a further dive into Mitra’s background does indicate a time working at the BC Lottery Corporation, at least according to online posts from people purporting to know him on a personal level.

“As life long Kamloopsian, I have witnessed the city’s evolution firsthand,” stated Mitra. “My professional journey includes over a decade as an Auxiliary RCMP member, ensuring community safety and accountability, and a background as a Tech CEO focused on fiscal responsibility and professional governance.”

Radio NL will be reaching out for further clarity on Councillor-elect Mitra’s background.