Ahead of the Oct. 15 municipal election, CFJC Today asked candidates for Kamloops City Council to complete a questionnaire, offering voters the chance to evaluate their candidacies.
QUESTIONNAIRE:
Describe yourself, your occupation and your historical connection to the Kamloops area.
As a former commercial lender and administrator of a law firm, I decided to shift my business analysis expertise and started Daphane Nelson Business Consulting services at the beginning of 2019. I have contracted with Community Futures offices, the BC Cooperative Association and am currently incorporating a worker cooperative that will help businesses transition from single ownership to employee ownership, given the need for the Baby Boom generation to sell their businesses and retire.
I became enamoured with the cooperative model as a director with a local credit union; I was successfully elected for another three-year term this past spring and serve on the Governance and Investment and Lending committees this year but have previous experience on Audit & Risk and Nominations & Elections. I look forward to utilizing these skills in alignment with education to support including a bachelor’s degree in business, a cooperative developer’s designation and another designation from the Governance Professionals of Canada.
What differentiates you from the other candidates?
I don’t know that many folks in Kamloops are familiar with the potential benefits of the cooperative model and how its governance structure can be utilized in many different ways: housing, non-profit elder or day care, collaborating on larger social issues to enable an equal voice for all members. I would like to bring this lens to the council table to see what we can do together.
What do you think is the best way to resolve disagreements or conflicts with your peers, those in a different department or those in a different jurisdiction?
I prefer to sit and speak with the individual one on one to understand more about where they’re coming from. Having said that, I believe there is a minimum required level of honesty, integrity and consideration of the other perspectives needed from both parties in order to engage effectively. I don’t do well in systems where you go to the boardroom and despite your every effort to make effective arguments, you know they’ve fallen on deaf ears and the group made the decision before the conversation began.
What do you think is the biggest issue facing the City of Kamloops and how would use your elected position to address it?
We need to think outside the established silos and create solutions together so that Kamloops gains from our many shared resources and interconnected benefits. Through cooperation, action, and creative thinking I will encourage active, tangible solutions to the city’s many important issues. My message is simple; let’s make it easier for residents to live a comfortable life, do business, have an impact, feel safe and thrive.
It’s imperative to support local businesses as most are still grappling with the effects of COVID-19 and the more recent challenges of finding staff. Add the daily struggle of property crime and you could call it an imperfect storm for small business. Let’s make their lives less difficult by saying “yes” more often than “no” and backing them wherever feasible and possible. Because when our economy does well, we all thrive.
How do you plan to involve Kamloops residents in your decision-making?
My schedule will be open: I would love to sit with existing groups of citizens who are working on specific topics or issues to get an in-depth understanding of them.
In addition, you may have heard of Decentralized Autonomous Organizations, or DAOs which use high tech systems like blockchain to ensure democratic decision making. In alignment with this, I would like to set up polls on my website to engage with folks on specific topics weekly and have feedback on issues I will be voting on.
What does a sustainable future for Kamloops and area look like to you and what does it need from mayor and council?
I could literally talk for hours about this but will try to stay focused and will steal from my website on this:
People, Planet, Prosperity. Combined with sustainability, these are all intertwined and integral components of a healthy and vibrant community. We need to create ideas in a network and benefit from the communal resource. I stand for community, cooperating, action, creative thinking and finding actual solutions.
Kamloops is the epitome of urban sprawl and it’s difficult to get people from outlying neighbourhoods to buy in to the need to take transit or cycle when those infrastructures are still quite flawed despite the ongoing work being done to make these services better. I’m not saying we stop trying, I’m indicating a need to keep moving forward on this work.
There are other initiatives that we could consider to reduce our impact on climate, including a mindfulness around consumption (Reduce), fixing broken items instead of buying a new one (Reuse) and transforming recyclables within our community instead of shipping them elsewhere (Recycle).
I’ve already mentioned cooperative housing but I’m also working with cooperatively owned businesses helping to:
Retain good jobs – Employee ownership conversions retain jobs locally and take care of the people who have worked hard to build the business.
Financial success – Owners want a good sale price that can support their retirement. Selling to a broad base of employees can bring added tax advantages.
Ensure the mission lives on – Small businesses have a mission that matters. Whether it is a passion for quality or a triple bottom line, who better to carry it on, than the people who helped realize the mission?
Create positive community impact – Local businesses play a powerful role in their communities. Employee ownership keeps them anchored in place.
