File Photo (Image Credit: CFJC Today)

By James Peters

Two and Out

PETERS: Undergirded by damning Braun report, Kamloops council shifts from education to enforcement

Jun 14, 2024 | 12:30 PM

THERE HAS BEEN A SHIFT of gears at Kamloops City Hall. Have you noticed?

No, not the whiplash-inducing shift that happened with the last election in October 2022.

This shift happened after municipal adviser Henry Braun delivered his report to council’s Committee of the Whole on May 7 of this year.

The change in course from the eight councillors has been quite remarkable — and it doesn’t seem Mayor Reid Hamer-Jackson was ready for it.

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Braun’s report, created after a period of intensive fact-finding and interviews, could not have been any worse for Hamer-Jackson.

It implicated him not only for his actions toward council and staff, but for his attitude toward them.

Braun said things would not improve until and unless Hamer-Jackson took significant steps and had a major change in mindset.

For council and certain staff, it was validation.

All nine around the council horseshoe, including the mayor, voted to request an adviser.

Braun was an outsider, selected by the provincial Ministry of Municipal Affairs, with no connection to the people he was interviewing.

He was tasked with objectively studying the situation and offering guidance on how to fix it.

That guidance clearly and definitively put the mayor on the spot — and that was the TSN Turning Point, so to speak, giving the eight councillors license to change their course of action.

In the past few weeks, council has removed Hamer-Jackson as the city’s spokesperson, it has docked his pay and it has barred him from closed committee meetings.

When new bylaws are put in place at the city, managers often talk about moving from education to enforcement.

That’s what council has done — no longer trying to teach the mayor how to do his job and lead the team, council is now penalizing him for not doing it.

It’s in the process of painting Hamer-Jackson into a corner and then putting a cage around him to keep him there.

Nearly two years in, it’s hard to argue that it wasn’t about time.

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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.