Thank you from Doug

Thank you to West Kelowna for getting out to vote. I thank especially those who supported me and want me to carry on building our community. I will not let you down.

Congratulations to re-elected and newly elected members of Council. It is good to see a solid core of the team return. We have made very significant progress in upgrading West Kelowna since incorporation, and credit must go to our past councils and past and current staff.

We have a good and talented council as we go forward, and I've always said I would stack our council up against any in the valley and the province, and the new Council is of the same caliber. We have lots of work together and I look forward to working with our new Council for the next four years.

I thank all of the other candidates for putting their names forward. As you would have found out, standing for election, even at the local election level, is not for the faint of heart, and it is a life changing experience. You have made democracy work in West Kelowna. We can be thankful that we live in our Canadian democracy where we argue about issues of importance to our community and then settle them at the ballot box.

My heartfelt thank go to my team headed by Broc Braconnier and seconded by Willie Findlater. Thanks for of your hard work and for being great sounding boards. Thank you to the rest of the team for helping me out with signs, events and small donations.

I appreciate the talented work of the District of West Kelowna staff for their work and running a fair and complete election.

I learned a lot during this campaign and will take some things to heart. People want us to improve our relationship with Westbank First Nation. Citizens like the infrastructure upgrades we have done in our young municipality and want them to continue. They want downtown enhanced, but we have to do a much better job of communicating the benefits and costs of the Civic Centre when more becomes known.

My commitment to you is that we will show demonstrated results in infrastructure upgrades and keep taxes at a modest level.  Your taxes are investments in providing basic services many of which come to your door or are in your neighbourhood, or to partner with senior levels of government for major infrastructure upgrades that are so badly needed in West Kelowna.

Thank you again for your support. I will do my best to make us all proud of our community of West Kelowna.

November 15, 2014 Election night photo contributed by Kelowna Now