COLLINS: Kamloops’ Mayor still doesn’t understand his role

I’m not convinced the mayor really understands his role. He is the cheerleader for the City. He is the public face of Kamloops. He needs to be at these events and let the public see him at these events.

The City needs the mayor not only to be at events but to be seen by his constituents. No point in attending a get-together involving the Chief of the Tk’emlups People and then duck out of the most important part of the meeting: the photo-op.

While some criticize gratuitous photo-ops, they play a role in giving residents a sense of leadership, that Council is working on behalf of the people. The mayor hasn’t got that yet. Nor does he seem willing to move forward. He seems, in my opinion, to want to portray himself as the “common man”, open collar, just “one of the boys.”

I don’t want a mayor who is “one of the boys.” I want a mayor to rise above and lead the boys (and girls.)

Mayor Hamer-Jackson says he’s not much into social media, doesn’t go around taking “selfies” to promote himself. But that’s exactly what he needs to be doing, again based on a long history of following politics.

Here are a couple of pieces of advice-:

1) Make your Mayor’s Report mean something. Put the items on paper to be part of the agenda. Verbally, maybe give a highlight and then ask council if there any questions. If they start sniping, you can make them appear as if they’re being unfairly critical.

2) You need to be on social media. It’s the way of the world today. It’s not hard. Get a Facebook and Twitter account, add any others you want, and start using them. You don’t even have to do a lot of the work yourself. You have supporters, many of whom could set up these social media accounts. Then you get others to take pictures of you at events, formal or casual, get them to send them to your social media person, write something meaningful, and away you go. It’s not hard, and it lets us taxpayers know what you’re doing. And yes, it allows us to be critical but that’s the price you pay for being a leader. And better to be criticized for something we can see you’re doing than for speculation about something we don’t know is happening or not.

My British father-in-law would call this behaviour “playing silly bugger”. This British phrase refers to silly and annoying conduct. I think we’ve seen enough of that. Finally- a quick comment. If the Mayor is planning all this “silly bugger” stuff on his own, maybe he should look at getting someone to advise him. If he has advisors, maybe he needs to take a look at some changes.

I’m Doug Collins and that’s One Man’s Opinion.

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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.

by Doug Collins

COLLINS: Kamloops’ Mayor still doesn’t understand his role

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