File Photo (Image Credit: CFJC Today)

By Victor Kaisar

Special Council Meeting

Sarai to address secret recording of Hamer-Jackson at special Kamloops council meeting Tuesday

Dec 2, 2024 | 2:34 PM

KAMLOOPS — Kamloops councillors are set to hold a special meeting Tuesday (Dec. 3) in the wake of the revelation that Bill Sarai secretly recorded a conversation with Mayor Reid Hamer-Jackson nearly two years ago and then lied about the origins of it earlier this year.

There are just two items on the agenda, a discussion about the role of Deputy Mayor for December — which was supposed to be filled by Sarai — and an address from the second-term councillor.

The Deputy Mayor role has taken on added prominence in Kamloops as the City’s official spokesperson, after the Mayor was removed from that role in May.

It is not clear what Sarai plans to say at the meeting, which is scheduled to begin at 2:00 p.m..

Sarai previously told CFJC Today that he “said all that he has to say” about the decision to record what turned out to be a heated argument with Hamer-Jackson, and his attempt to try and conceal that he had made the recording.

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The contents of the recording – which included yelling that could be heard in areas near the mayor’s office at City Hall – were first reported by iNFONews.ca.

While there have also been calls for Sarai to resign his seat, the recording of a private conversation is not illegal in Canada, as long as at least one of the parties present is aware of it.

In November of last year, Kamloops council brought in a new policy that prohibits the recording of all conversations of city staff without the consent of all parties involved.

That new policy was put in place after a separate instance where mayor’s wife secretly recorded a phone conversation between Hamer-Jackson and CAO David Trawin connected to the Noble Creek Irrigation System.

It was adopted a couple of months after the mayor attempted to get a member of the public to read a transcript of the call into the public record during a meeting of city council.