Doris Bill is the new chief-designate of the Kwanlin Dun First Nation (KDFN).

The former CBC North television journalist, who retired from that role last year, was elected Wednesday with 152 votes. She will be sworn in publicly on April 2.

Jennifer Ezderza was the runner-up with 139 votes.

Raymond Sydney and Wayne Jim, a former Liberal cabinet minister in the early 2000s, rounded out the pool with 97 and 60 votes respectively.

Incumbents Charlene Charlie, Jessie Dawson and Alicia Vance were re-elected to council with Howard MacIntosh, Sean Smith, and Dennis Calbery filling the remaining three seats.

An automatic recount was set to take place early this afternoon as only three votes separated Calbery and Ray Webb, who currently holds seventh place.

Speaking to the Star this morning, Bill said "it feels great” to have been elected.

"My team worked hard. We knew that it was going to be a tough race. In the last election, Jennifer Ezderza had the most votes ... for a council candidate, and we knew that she had a lot of support out there,” she said.

While she noted they have to wait for the results of the official recount, Bill said she is "very pleased” with the makeup of the new council.

"I think we have a really good selection of individuals, and I'm really looking forward to working with all of them,” she said.

"We have a few that are returning to council and that's a good thing; we need that corporate knowledge. I'm going to be leaning on them a lot.”

Bill said she was pleased that the voter turnout exceeded the halfway mark (about 54 per cent), but noted there's still room to improve.

Prior to the election, Bill outlined a number of her key priorities.

Those included improving communications with the wider community, lands development, developing an alcohol and drug strategy and building an elder-care facility within the community.

Another key initiative, which she reiterated this morning, is working toward a new administrative building that can accommodate all of KDFN's departments aside from health and daycare services.

"We may not be able to complete that this term, but maybe we can lay the ground work for that.

"It's certainly something that we need to work towards,” she said today.

But the chief-designate's first priority is her orientation.

"We've got a huge learning curve ahead of us,” she said.

"This community, there's so many things going, so many good things, and we just need to build upon the work that's been done.

"(Outgoing) Chief (Rick) O'Brien and his administration did a lot of the heavy lifting and it's up to us to move that forward, the work that they did.”

Other Yukon and Whitehorse leaders offered their congratulations to Bill this morning.

Premier Darrell Pasloski was not available to speak to the Star this morning.

Elaine Schiman, the spokesperson for the cabinet, said Pasloski spoke with Bill earlier today and offers his congratulations.

Mayor Dan Curtis said city hall is very excited about Bill's election. He noted many of the city's officials have worked closely with her in her previous capacity as a CBC reporter.

"When I saw the candidates, I was really encouraged because I've worked with at least three of them and I'm sure it would have been a delight to work with any of the chosen, but knowing Doris like we do, we're very, very excited and looking forward to continuing the close working relationship that we have with the KDFN,” the mayor said.

Curtis noted land development is one area where the two governments work closely together.

Liz Hanson, the leader of the official Opposition, noted that on a personal level, she was happy to see a woman elected as chief.

"I'm always pleased to see women succeed in politics and we've got now in the urban Whitehorse area the Ta'an Kwach'an chief, the Kwanlin Dun chief, and the grand chief of the Yukon First Nations are all women, so that says a lot about how progressive First Nations voters are,” she said.

Hanson added that she was pleased to see that so many people participated in KDFN's electoral process.

Four candidates ran for chief, while 17 contested a seat on council.

"Any time you've got four good people running for chief, you're going to have a tight race, and I always like the notion of that because it gives us all as elected officials an extra impetus to make sure we're doing just as she said when she was interviewed this morning – listening to the people,” she said.

Sandy Silver, the leader of the territorial Liberal party, said Bill's election is "great news.”

"She ran on a platform of openness and transparency, and I hope the current territorial government will learn from her lead,” he said.

Ezderza, Sydney and Jim could not be reached for comment this morning.

Ruth Massie, the grand chief of the Council of Yukon First Nations, was also unavailable.