Another Kamloops mayor had a close election call

Peter Milobar isn’t the only Kamloops mayor to have had a close call in an election.

If memory serves me correctly, it was 1980 when incumbent mayor Mike Latta had a scare. Regarded as a competent, people-friendly and popular mayor, he was supposed to sale through the election that year without a challenge. But retired nurse Dorothy Belleau, who had no community experience of note, and no previous involvement in politics, decided to go up against him.

There was one other candidate in the race — Terry Shaw, who liked to run for everything.

Come election day, there was no reason to suspect anything but a Mike Latta romp. Yet, as the polling stations began reporting, it was surprisingly close. Latta won almost every poll, but not by much. If you can’t make out the numbers on the accompanying picture, the final count was Latta, 6,017 to Belleau’s 4,436. Shaw pulled in 546. (By the way, the name Rothenburger shows up in that tally as well, placing second in the school board election.)

Unlike this year’s election, there were no hints that Latta was in any kind of trouble, and I’ve never heard a good explanation as to what happened. But Latta went on to serve as mayor for eight years, later being appointed a citizenship judge, a post he held between 1987 and 1992.

He passed away in Vernon a few years ago.