It’s farewell to city hall for one mayoral candidate and “never say never” for another.
When the votes were counted on Saturday night, two-term councillor Patrick Johnstone topped the mayoral race with 6,676 votes. Ken Armstrong garnered 5,227 votes and Chuck Puchmayr placed third with 3,912 votes.
Armstrong, the New West Progressives’ mayoral candidate, said it was a great night for the New West Progressives, who made a breakthrough on city council by getting Daniel Fontaine and Paul Minhas elected. He said he’s grateful for the support of more than 5,000 people who supported a first-time candidate with no council experience.
“They showed a lot of faith and trust in me, my team and in our ideas, and I am truly grateful for that,” he told the Record. “Obviously, I would have preferred to have won. But I hold my head high.”
Puchmayr said he’ll continue to be involved in community endeavours, but is officially retiring from politics. Armstrong said he’s going to take some time to decompress and get back to his main job as a lawyer before making any decisions about future political runs.
“I'm not I'm not going to rule out running for anything in 2026. I'm not to rule out seeking other public office,” he said. “In the interim, I have no specific plans. … We'll worry about later later.”
Armstrong is confident the Community First New West mayor and four councillors will be welcoming to the two New West Progressives on council.
“I'm confident that they will be receptive to diversity of opinion,” he said. “And I'm hopeful that some of the ideas we have put forward will be adopted by this council. I have every confidence that they'll be respectful of Daniel and Paul.”
Armstrong believes there’s an opportunity for the two parties to work together for the betterment of the community on issues like affordable housing and active transportation initiatives, such as bike lanes.
“There's an opportunity for collaboration and exchange of ideas when we have a commonality of a desire for improvement,” he said.
Armstrong said the election results show there is a diversity of opinions in the city about various issues, and council has to be mindful of citizens’ different perspectives. He said Johnstone didn’t get the majority of the mayoral vote, as he and Puchmayr had more votes combined than Johnstone.
“You need to be respectful of different ideas and be respectful of the diversity of opinions that the voters showed our councillors that they have,” he said
