Dan Coulter has won the Chilliwack School Board byelection.
Coulter earned 520 of the votes cast, beating out second place finisher Harold Schimdt by 181 votes.
Ben Besler, who played an active role in the BC Liberal win just a few months earlier, finished third with 279 votes.
Karen Jarvis was fourth with 238 votes; Cory Neyrinck fifth with 54 votes; and Rob Stelmaschuk sixth with 23 votes.
Coulter, who billed himself as the first ‘progressive’ candidate to seek a seat on the Chilliwack school board, was endorsed be former trustee Louise Piper, whose resignation necessitated the byelection.
Coulter also enjoyed the support of former NDP MLA for Chilliwack-Hope Gwen O’Mahony.
Voter turnout for the byelection could be called tepid, at best. The 1,453 ballots cast were far short of the nearly 10,000 cast in 2011, which was second worst voter turnout in the province.
With roughly 64,000 eligable voters in Chilliwack, participation was around 2.3 per cent.
Chilliwack voters will be heading back to the polls in less than a year. Municipal elections – including school board – are set for November, 2014.
