9,477 votes and claimed $2,609 in election expenses. As a councillor he led the development and implementation of a vicious dog bylaw which allows the city to designate dogs which bite or threaten people without provocation as 'dangerous' and place restriction on their containment and public handling. He differed from the rest of council by resisting the $3-million commitment to build the Kamloops Wildlife Park, opposing the renaming of Overlanders Bridge to the Phil Gaglardi Bridge (which approved by the rest of council but later rescinded), and favouring higher parking fees in the downtown area. He took time in 2004 to work as Liberal John O'Fee's campaign manager in the federal election which they lost to Conservative Betty Hinton. In 2005 he was elected to the board of the Union of B.C. Municipalities, attended the Federation of Canadian Municipalities convention in St. John's, Newfoundland, and visited Aichi, Japan as part of a cultural exchange with Kamloops's sister city. Mayor of Kamloops With the incumbent mayor retiring, Lake sought to be elected as mayor in the November 2005 election. He faced two others: public relations worker Al McNair and crime-prevention officer Pete Backus. City debt emerged as a primary point of contention during the campaign, with Lake arguing that the debt is an investment in the community and was at a manageable level, and McNair arguing it was too high and uncontrollable. Lake won the election with an unexpectedly high number of votes (11,727) while spending $38,564. He identified airport expansion as his top priority. However, WestJet resisted flying to Kamloops by demanding guaranteed revenue and federal MP Betty Hinton and provincial MLA Kevin Krueger both saw highway upgrades as higher priorities. In 2006, Lake was appointed to the board of governors for B.C. Transit. Also in 2006, Lake opposed his council who voted in favour of sending a letter to the province requesting a ban on uranium exploration and mining and Lake sought reforms to the Agricultural Land Commission (via a motion to the Union of B.C. Municipalities) after they refused two Kamloops development applications. As a board member of the Thompson-Nicola Regional District, Lake suggested the province should enable local governments (outside of Metro Vancouver) to levy a gasoline tax so that local public transit could be removed from property taxes. While Kamloops was struggling with a bylaw to ban cosmetic pesticides, Lake advocated for a province wide ban.