Sampson, Ramsay join incumbents on council
Kyle Sampson and Cori Ramsay will join Mayor Lyn Hall and the six incumbents on Prince George city council.
Hall cruised to victory in the mayoral race with 11,702 votes, easily defeating political rookie Willy Enns 1,045.
As he has done for the past several elections, Brian Skakun topped the city council field with 9,475 votes, followed by Sampson, a first-time candidate, with 8,304.
The other five incumbents finished third through seventh – Garth Frizzell with 8,199, Murry Krause with 8,008, Susan Scott with 7,775, Terri McConnachie with 7,111 and Frank Everitt with 6,680.
Ramsay, also a first-time candidate, took the eighth and final spot with 5,693 votes, defeating Dave Fuller (5,001) and former city councillor Cameron Stolz (4,971) by 700 votes.
“I was hoping for this,” Ramsay said. “But I didn’t let myself get too excited because I didn’t want to jinx it. I’m elated, I couldn’t be prouder of the work I put in. I have an amazing team behind me and they really championed me into this and everyone’s been so supportive and I couldn’t be more grateful.”
In the next four years, Ramsay said tackling poverty in the downtown core and homelessness will be major focuses for her.
“Working on accessibility for the city as well will be a priority,” she said.
“Really I am in it to do the best job I can to really make a difference in my city.”
As it quickly sunk in that he was voted in second only to Skakun, Sampson said he was overwhelmed with the support.
“I’m so grateful, humbled, excited – there’s a lot of feeling right now,” Sampson said. “And it feels really good.”
He said the focus for the next four years will be keeping Prince George strong well into the future.
“I think Prince George elected a great team and I look forward to sitting down with them and see where all of our visions lie,” Sampson said.
“I really want to look ahead to the future of Prince George. I think we need to start planning ahead, looking long-term and doing our part to make sure that Prince George is growing in a sustainable way and I’m really proud to be part of that.”
Skakun is eager to work with Sampson and Ramsay.
I think it’s absolutely incredible. Cori Ramsay and Kyle Sampson are bringing a different dynamic to council so that we will have some younger voices there,” he said.
“I think we’re going to get more younger people and youth engaged. This is probably the happiest I’ve been out of pretty well all the elections I’ve been through and it’s amazing.”
Viv Fox received 3,697 votes, with Chris Wood at 2,266 and Paul Serup with 1,746 to round out the field.
There were a total of 13,184 ballots cast, just 24 per cent of the total number of eligible voters.