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By Mel Rothenburger

Armchair Mayor

ROTHENBURGER: Appointment of referee for council must be Job One in 2024

Jan 6, 2024 | 7:25 AM

WE COULD USE some good news this year, considering that 2023 was, basically, crap cakes.

For 2024 to be better, though, there’s a lot of baggage that needs to be cleaned up. First on the list is this business with the provincial advisor who’s supposed to help Kamloops City council re-invent itself.

There’s still no hint on why former BC Liberal MLA, and former mayor, Peter Fassbender was given the heave-ho after barely getting the job underway. More importantly, still no word on a replacement or what, if any, new terms of reference will be.

The Eby NDP should be embarrassed about this mis-step. It’s an important assignment. Somehow, this referee-to-be has to wade into the meat and potatoes of the dysfunction at City Hall, find common ground between Mayor Reid Hamer-Jackson and the Gang of Eight, and miraculously transform them into a Team of Nine.

The province will foot the bill, which is expected to be around $25,000 a month for about four months.

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Since it’s now been more than a year since they took office, and there remains not the slightest sign that they’re willing to work with each other despite the occasional olive branch offered by the mayor, it will take a special kind of mediation.

At the end of it, a report is supposed to be written that will provide a game plan. The challenges are many. Personalities and egos must be put aside. Leaks must be plugged. Constant punitive investigations must stop. Temptations to snipe must be avoided. The mayor must be allowed to communicate freely with staff again. Relationships must be developed within the council that include all nine, not eight vs. one.

In other words, they have to put on their big boy and big girl pants and do their jobs, and stop obstructing a mayor who was elected to carry out a very specific mandate. To do that, of course, they’ll all have to agree to follow whatever recommendations are provided, since they won’t be binding.

It could be a bumpy road. Harrison Hot Springs council, which completed a similar exercise last fall, was losing staff to resignations right and left, and meetings had degenerated into angry confrontations. Mayor Ron Wood claimed he was being subjected to bullying and intimidation, and that there was a “mole” in the organization. He offered $5,000 of his personal money to hire an investigator to ferret out the mole, so to speak.

The mayor refused to attend a couple of closed-door meetings with Ron Poole, the provincial advisor — Wood apparently objects to too many closed meetings — and voted against endorsing the advisor’s report.

That report included, among other things, recommendations for training for council members, review of its social media policy, and a council-CAO covenant to ensure clarity of roles. Not exactly ground-shaking stuff but the mayor was joined by another councillor in voting against approval; it passed by a vote of 3-2 but media reports suggest problems continue.

Before Harrison Hot Springs’ cry for help, former Kamloops CAO Randy Diehl was appointed to advise the council in Lions Bay, where the mayor and council were at loggerheads. The mayor there, whose name is Ken Berry, is new to politics and was elected to shake things up.

“There seems to be unprecedented chaos running through our democratic institutions,” Diehl told the Vancouver Sun. He favours heavy sanctions including recall for wayward civic politicians.

One of his recommendations to the Lions Bay council was that it centralize external communications, something that wouldn’t fly here.

In August, the embattled council of the tiny village of Silverton also called in help from the province. Since misery loves company, I guess the Tournament Capital can take heart that it’s not the only one that’s unhappy.

There’s no shortage of other things that need to be fixed or, at least, turn out for the best in 2024. Things like the NDP’s foot dragging on the new cancer clinic, how Kamloops will deal with Eby’s housing dictates, keeping the Noble Creek Irrigation System functioning for another year, dealing with fallout from the B.C. Supreme Court decision on drug consumption in parks, and what will most certainly prove to be an unpopular tax hike.

Before council can deal effectively with those issues, it needs to buy into a good work plan for itself, but until the province gets off its butt on the advisor issue, it doesn’t even have one to consider.

Good news in 2024 might not come easily.

Mel Rothenburger is a regular contributor to CFJC Today, publishes the ArmchairMayor.ca opinion website, and is a recipient of the Jack Webster Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award. He has served as mayor of Kamloops, school board chair and TNRD director, and is a retired daily newspaper editor. 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 Pattison Media.