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By Sadie Hunter

In The Loop

HUNTER: Kamloops deserves proper representation

Jan 17, 2023 | 10:30 AM

I DON’T THINK I WAS THE ONLY ONE hoping the January “new year, new me” vibe would also apply to city council. The first couple of weeks of 2023 have shown the holiday break did nothing to shift perspectives and attitudes toward working as a team.

It appears the rest of the council is finding its way together and gelling – but without the mayor. This is largely due to the mayor’s own actions and decisions. Deferring duties to those in the deputy mayor role, not participating in key opportunities to build a team and continuing to make public jabs at certain councillors is not helpful. The longer this goes on, the larger this divide will get.

The mayor has stated he is the one responsible for building a team but, in the same breath, says he wants to do this through individual meetings. This approach seems to be in direct conflict with the goal. I don’t know what kinds of teams he has years of experience building but, as someone who professionally works with companies to build culture and teams, I can say for sure this isn’t how it’s done. In fact, this approach will only create more division. To come together as a team, difficult conversations, discussions and figuring out how to work together must be done… together.

With all the internal, and very public, conflict over the last three months, a facilitator is not a nice-to-have but a necessity. I would also note repeated workshops and meetings wouldn’t be required if the mayor joined in and engaged. Multiple sessions have been required because of the way the mayor is handling team-building. If he was truly worried about the cost to the taxpayer, he would fully lean into the process and get the work done as a professional and move ahead with the much more important work all of them were elected to do on our behalf.

While housing insecurity and community safety are certainly top priorities, so is setting the 2023 tax rate. In a recent interview on RadioNL, it became clear the mayor has absolutely no idea how Revitalization Tax Exemptions work or how to lower the tax rate, which is provisionally proposed to be 5.6 per cent. I was, however, happy to hear he finally read the Community Charter and the Council Procedure Bylaw, key documents in understanding how the job of a mayor or councillor must be done and the legal requirements and limitations of the role.

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Speaking of the job of mayor, one of the main functions — aside from acting as chair for meetings — is to represent the city and those who elected him at public functions and events. Does attending these events mean taking credit for the work of others? Absolutely not. The expectation is the mayor attends and then gives credit to those who have done most of the heavy lifting. It’s a way for the mayor to publicly give thanks to those who are doing this very important work on behalf of the citizens of Kamloops. Often those people are also in attendance and will receive applause from the audience once they are properly recognized by the mayor. It is not the job of staff to represent the city at events and ceremonies.

A great example of this lies in the BC Reconciliation Award presented to Tk’emlups te Secwepemc and the City of Kamloops in Victoria last week in recognition of their commitment to and ongoing work towards true reconciliation. One look at the event photo will show this presentation was intended to be a government-to-government acceptance with Kúkpi7 Casimir and the mayor receiving an award presented by the premier.

It’s common knowledge much of the daily, and very important, work largely takes place between liaisons between the two communities, but the protocol is the leaders of each community accept the award. In fact, staff are not able to represent the communities as they were not elected by anyone to be a representative. Do they deserve our gratitude and recognition? Absolutely.

Let’s be clear here. The councillors attending events as deputy mayor are doing so at the request of others, not for the glory of glad-handing or to take credit for the work of others. That is an asinine thing to say and disrespectful to everyone who is inviting the mayor to attend. Read that again – the mayor is invited to attend. Why? Because it is his job to be there, to give thanks and praise to others for their generosity, for their hard work, for their contributions to the community. Skipping events is akin to saying their work, cause or contribution doesn’t matter and an incredibly disrespectful slight.

Contrary to the narrative recently offered by the Armchair Mayor, these councillors aren’t trying to expand the role of deputy mayor for glory. They’re trying to figure out how to navigate the sudden expectation they will attend everything the mayor won’t, which appears to be most things. Mel got one thing right; being the mayor is a full-time job, with an equivalent salary paid for by the taxpayers of Kamloops. The job description is full-time representation of all Kamloops citizens, whether they voted for you or not. This representation includes respectfully and graciously attending events, leading and engaging.

The definition of mayor is literally “the elected head of a city, town or other municipality; the titular head of a municipality that is administered by a city manager.” Perhaps Google could’ve been put to use some time before October 15.

If the mayor truly wants to be a leader, then he needs to stop being petty, rise above schoolyard differences, stop keeping score and act like a professional. Despite any differences in viewpoints on any one issue, I think this is something we can all agree with.

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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 Pattison Media.