Good process but high costs: Kamloops council Code of Conduct a work in progress

“It’s a shame that we’ve already spent this much money to date before the changes were made,” said Councillor Margot Middleton. “But moving forward, I’m really hoping that we can get things under control — that Code of Conduct complaints are not a norm for us, but are are one-offs.”

City of Kamloops CAO David Trawin used to be the one to handle complaints made both by the public and city staff.

“Earlier in the year, the public could make complaints to me if they felt that there was a Code of Conduct violation. That was changed,” Trawin told CFJC News. “In late spring, because of the cost associated with those complaints under the Code of Conduct bylaw that if I receive a complaint, I’m obligated to send it to an investigator as per the bylaw.”

Since then, all Code of Conduct complaints are investigated by a third party, including four complaints made by former city councillor Denis Walsh. Walsh pointed out what he believed were instances of bullying, harassment and misleading statements.

“It was a bloody waste of money, of taxpayers money. $66,000 for four complaints and two of them were dismissed as trivial,” said Walsh. “Like, why would you hire such an expensive firm to do something that’s so simple? Like, is there nobody in Kamloops that has the skill set to do mediation or investigation?”

While staff were following the procedure, council saw the almost $100,000 price tag as a wake-up call.

“This is a government mandate. This isn’t something we just dreamt up and said, ‘Hey, let’s do this,;” said Middleton. “But I think the incidents we’ve and the cost of investigations, the outcome of those investigations to show that there was no merit to the complaints and whatnot, and that sort of staggering over $60,000 bill to investigate complaints is an indicator that change was needed.”

While the cost is not palatable for councillors or the public, Trawin defended the process, adding that city hall is still a place of work.

“I would have to say to a general person, most of them would feel that it would be nice where these things didn’t happen. But at the same time, it is part of the governance section where there’s bullying and harassment conduct and there are areas of conflict of interest, comments on that,” he said, “so I think for the sake of good governance, you have to have such a bylaw in place in order that good governance is followed.”

Middleton believes there are better and less expensive avenues for residents to express concerns.

“We cannot continue in this same vein of anybody who has a little bit of a beef or personal complaint or whatnot, wants to drive it through the Code of Conduct process. It’s not sustainable. We can’t do it,” she said. “I think perhaps we need to look at other processes that can be used that don’t start costing thousands and thousands of dollars to process.”

by Sydney Chisholm

Good process but high costs: Kamloops council Code of Conduct a work in progress

Our Community