The outgoing mayor of Kamloops is committing to an orderly and seamless transition over the next two weeks.

While he will be in office until Nov. 1, Ken Christian tells NL News he will be taking the lead from the incoming mayor, Reid Hamer-Jackson, for the rest of his time in office.

“I think that [the new mayor and council] will chart their own course and I think there is a big learning curve, especially for ones that are new to the process, so they are going to be drinking from a fire hose over the next three months,” Christian said. “But I think they all have the capacity to do a good job on behalf of the citizens.”

“I have a few statutory obligations that I will fulfil but I think [Reid and I will] connect next week if he has time and I’ll take his lead on what he would like from me in terms of establishing committees and any kind of an orientation and we’ll go on from there.”

Christian – who also took to Twitter on Sunday to congratulate Hamer-Jackson – said he was not surprised by the result which had Hamer-Jackson in the lead the entire way.

“I was following [the results coming in] with a great deal of interest,” Christian added. “That was what the polls had pretty much predicted in terms of the result.”

“I think the situation with three incumbent councillors running to replace me really split that vote so it gave an option for anybody to kind of come up the middle and Reid took advantage of that and kudos for his team for running a very good campaign.”

Incumbent councillors Dieter Dudy, Sadie Hunter, and Arjun Singh finished second, third, and fourth respectively, with Ray Dhaliwal rounding out the five person field of mayoral candidates.

“Certainly, congratulations to all of those that put their names forward and certainly to the winners, it is a great evening for them and I think for Kamloops, it is going to be an adjustment, but we will soldier on,” Christian added.

“The campaign is over now its time to form a board of directors as it were for the corporation of the city of Kamloops to keep us going and keep the momentum up to build on the good work that we have done.”