ROTHENBURGER: Busking bylaw was a solution looking for a problem

The idea came up at a meeting of the mayor’s new community services committee on April 8 with a staff proposal to “regulate performers based on qualifications.” The Kamloops Arts Council would be authorized to review applications for permits.

It emerged out of last year’s Busker’s Festival, and the belief that there needed to be a legal distinction between more talented buskers and your average panhandler.

A motion at the committee meeting by Coun. Dale Bass, seconded by Coun. Mike O’Reilly, to ask that council authorize administration to develop a draft policy was approved.

Motions from committees have no authority until council as a whole approves them, so that simply meant the committee was forwarding the proposal to council with its blessing. Since the new community services committee includes only three councillors including the mayor, the motion was approved unanimously at committee.

Why the matter needed to be on the committee’s agenda instead of going straight to council is a good question.

After news of the idea got out in local media, the brown stuff hit the fan. People hated the idea. The gist of public sentiment was, leave the buskers alone. All of them.

That led to a well wordsmithed news released from the arts council offering the assurance that “membership benefits” (a.k.a. the privilege of paying to play) would not be mandatory.

Discussion would continue into the fall, said the arts council, so nothing to worry about now.

That was cut short on Tuesday when the minutes of the committee came in front of council. Christian and O’Reilly stuck to their guns, O’Reilly saying he wanted to see what the bylaw revision looked like before passing judgment.

Bass jumped ship, suggesting “discretion” could be used in determining the difference between buskers and panhandlers. But that, in essence, was what the proposal was all about in the first place, with the arts council wielding the discretion.

Others just thought the whole thing was a waste of time and that the issue really wasn’t an issue at all. Director of culture and other things Byron McCorkell insisted there was a problem. “We’ve identified we need a solution…. Let us do our job; that’s what we’re here for.”

In the end, it was shot down 5-4, with Bass voting along with the dissenters. There will be no more talk of licensing buskers unless somebody has a change of heart.

Very few panhandlers have musical instruments and those who do often aren’t of the best calibre but there’s not enough of them to worry about so let them go at it. They aren’t the ones who hassle people at ATM machines or otherwise make a nuisance of themselves.

While the impetus behind the proposal was to improve the quality of busking, what about improving the quality of panhandling? There’s plenty of room on the streets.

While we’re on the subject of this week’s City council meeting, I’m flummoxed as to why the City needs another graphic designer, and why it needs to create a full-time permanent position to fill a leave of absence by an existing employee.

The current graphic designer position was created last year to replace the web master. A report from communications manager Wendy Heshka noted that the current graphic designer is going on leave for a year, so the cost of the new hire — just under $73,000 in wages and benefits — won’t kick in until 2020.

That may be, but why not hire a temp until the leave expires and re-assess at that time? That’s what a private business would do.

Heshka said the existing position has saved the City money in outsourcing. Future workload, she said, will be more than the one graphic designer can handle.

Singh spoke against the motion, then voted for it. Walsh voted against it, and suggested savings could be made elsewhere in the $640,000 communications budget as well, such as the $35,000 spent on the annual City calendar, most copies of which “sit in a cupboard.”

The motion passed 8-1.

Here’s a footnote: the “Council Highlights” sent out by the City’s communications department after the meeting briefly mentioned the approval of the second graphic designer but not the busking decision. Are Council Highlights supposed to summarize the meat of the meeting or just list the nice stuff, such as proclamations and delegations?

Just wondering.

Mel Rothenburger is a former mayor of Kamloops and newspaper editor. He publishes the ArmchairMayor.ca opinion website, and is a director on the Thompson-Nicola Regional District board. He can be reached at mrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca.

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Editor’s Note: This opinion piece reflects the views of its author, and does not necessarily represent the views of CFJC Today or the Jim Pattison Broadcast Group

by Mel Rothenburger

ROTHENBURGER: Busking bylaw was a solution looking for a problem

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