Bob Day is the new mayor of Lake Cowichan.
Preliminary results on Saturday night had Day ahead of former mayor Ross Forrest 488 votes to 469. Final results are still pending.
“I don’t think it’s sunk in yet,” Day said late Saturday night.
In third place was Jayne Ingram with 170 votes, followed by Mike Hallatt with 130 and Corrie Helliwell with 106.
Day served three terms on town council for a total of 10 years before running for mayor in 2018. He finished second to Rod Peters in that election, with then-incumbent Forrest in third.
Peters stepped down in July when his wife’s health declined, and Coun. Tim McGonigle has been serving as acting mayor since then.
“This is a council that has had a couple of leaders over the last few years in a mayor and [acting] mayor,” Day noted. “Now they have a mayor, and I hope to bring stability back to our leadership.”
Running for mayor is different from running for council, said Day, who took lessons from the 2018 campaign into this one.
“I went in with no expectations,” Day said. “We knew we had to work hard to get those 19 votes.”
Day believes his time on council has prepared him for being mayor.
“I’ve been visualizing this for a long time,” he said. “Now I have to execute my plan. And I do have a plan.”
Day thanked all the volunteers who helped in his campaign, as well as all the voters: those who supported him and those who didn’t.
“Those are the people I now have to go out and make happy,” he said of residents who voted for one of the other candidates. “I want to run again, and I hope to be successful for six years instead of just two.”
That all goes back to the primary goal of his campaign.
“Building community together was my promise,” he said.
