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Cook wins mayoral race; six councillors elected

Preliminary results for the municipal election are in.
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Mayor Kerry Cook received many hugs from supporters at her home Saturday night after hearing she won the mayoral race against Scott Nelson and Walt Cobb.

Kerry Cook was elected mayor once again.

Preliminary results for the 2011 municipal election are in.

Cook received 1,777 votes.

Mayoral candidate Scott Nelson received 1,090 votes and mayoral candidate Walt Cobb received 747 votes.

The following councillor candidates were elected:

Laurie Walters: 2,296

Surinderpal Rathor: 2,022

Sue Zacharias: 2,004

Ivan Bonnell: 1,742

Geoff Bourdon: 1,501

Danica Hughes: 1,156

For the fluoride referendum, residents were asked "The cost to add fluoride to the City's water system is increasing from $22,000/year to approximately $94,000 per year. Are you in favour of the City continuing to add fluoride to its water supply?"

2,453 voted no.

970 voted yes.

Doug Neufeld also defeated Rob Zacharias in the school board election for Zone 6. Neufeld received 2,057 votes while Zacharias received 1,037.

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There were lots of "woo-hoos" in the crowd of supporters gathered at Cook's home, when word came in that she had been elected to her second term as mayor of Williams Lake.

"It's pretty darn exciting," Cook said when the hugging stopped and there was finally a moment for a formal comment. "It's been a long day. We worked hard. We have a great team and we are really pleased with the results.

"We are right on the brink of some very exciting times and I am so excited to be able to be leading the city once again. It's been an honour and a privilege," Cook said.

After hearing the results, Nelson went to the mic at his campaign headquarters and congratulated Cook on her win.

"I think she ran a very successful, honest, open, clean campaign," Nelson said. "The community spoke very loudly and very clearly. Williams Lake is the best place to work, play, live, and invest in, and whatever we can do to continue moving this community forward, we need to do it together now. I'm very supportive of Kerry."

Cobb, after hearing the results, said he was obviously disappointed.

"But the electorate made the decision. Kerry is re-elected and we just get on with the rest of our lives," Cobb said.

The following are results from the remaining councillor candidates:

Mike Jacobson: 1,135

Mike Bouchard: 1,004

Peter Bowman: 955

Richard Vollo: 900

Steve Forseth: 756

Gordon Keener: 663

Paul Kandola: 592

Tanessa Fairburn: 502

All results are preliminary at this time. The Declaration of Official Results will be made at 4 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 23.