Ashton wins but faces close battle from two challengers

By JOHN MOORHOUSE/Penticton Herald  Sunday, November 20, 2011
 PENTICTON – In a mayoral election many observers said was too close to call, it ended up being the nail-biter they thought it would be.  Incumbent Dan Ashton defeated challenger Julius Bloomfield by just 146 votes – 3,124 to 2,978 in Saturday‘s Penticton election. Former councillor Katie Robinson was a solid third with 1,989 votes.  Bloomfield had a lead of less than a dozen votes right up to the announcement of the advance poll results which swung the final tally to Ashton.  With 37 per cent of the popular vote, Ashton becomes the first Penticton mayor since Jake Kimberley in 1993 to be re-elected to consecutive terms. Kimberley also won in 2005.  Ashton, commenting shortly after the tally was announced at the Penticton Trade and Convention Centre, admitted the final result was not a ringing endorsement and some contentious issues definitely affected the vote.  “That goes to say there were some changes being contemplated by the community,” he said. “There‘s been some issues at the very end of this campaign but as we said, this council wasn‘t going to stop. We were going to continue to do business as we did.”  One of those contentious issues, the sale of city land for a proposed $15-million hockey school dormitory near the South Okanagan Events Centre, is due to come up for final council approval on Monday night. The city paid $2.3 million for the nine residential lots and is selling them for $925,000.  Ashton said there was definitely a lot of strong feelings over issues such as these among the electorate.  “I think when those things are digested and understood a little bit better, people may realize that council was trying to do its best for the community.”  An obviously disappointed Bloomfield acknowledged it was tough to lose by less than 150 votes.  “It doesn‘t any closer than that,” he said. “I knew it was going to be close, but I didn‘t think it would be that close.” Bloomfield said Robinson had a stronger showing that he thought she might, which made a huge difference.  He cautioned the incumbent council members against assuming the status quo is acceptable to the majority of voters.  “I think it‘s a wake-up call for the old administration. They‘re going to have to take notice of what the voters have said today,” he said. “Obviously I would have liked the message to be 160 votes in the other direction.  Commenting from her home Saturday night, Robinson agreed that the vote-split between herself and Bloomfield made the difference.  “There was always a concern right from the start that Julius and I would split the vote – and I think that certainly played out exactly as we were concerned about,” she said.  “If one or the other of us hadn‘t been there I think we would have had a totally different outcome.”  Robinson expressed surprise that five of seven incumbent council members were re-elected. She, too, cautioned council against assuming that the city‘s current direction is acceptable to the majority of voters.  “The results we saw tonight was not what I heard people talking about over the last few weeks. They seemed to be very dissatisfied with the current council.”