Mayor’s claim citizens accused him of sexual harassment based on council statement ‘not credible’: investigator

While a summary of the complaints was made public earlier this year, the full unredacted copy of Chamberlain’s Oct. 2023 report was only just released to CFJC Today this week.

Neustaeter reads statement on behalf of council

In the report, Chamberlain says Neustaeter told her the March 17, 2023 statement she read inside council chambers was made in response to the mayor’s “interference with their work” after Hamer-Jackson replaced councillors on standing committees with members of the public, some of whom were his friends and campaign donors.

Neustaeter also told Chamberlain “there were also concerns from both her and other Councillors whose ‘family members were absolutely unnecessarily involved’ by the mayor in political issues.”

Chamberlain says Neustaeter provided evidence about interactions between her father — former MLA Kevin Krueger — and Hamer-Jackson that she believed were inappropriate, and also “noted the Mayor had raised concerns about two Councillors’ family members’ employment with the City.”

According to the report, Neustaeter also told Chamberlain that while the Deputy Mayor — in this case, Councillor Kelly Hall — typically would have been tapped to read a statement such as the one she read, she was picked to step in as Hamer-Jackson had removed Hall as chair of the Community and Protective Services committee.

“Councillor Neustaeter explained she was chosen because she was not personally affected by the changes to the Standing Committees, and she had a background in communication work,” Chamberlain wrote.

In the report, Chamberlain said while Hamer-Jackson filed a lawsuit against Neustaeter in June of 2023 claiming the statement she read was “defamatory and had resulted in members of the public believing that he had engaged in sexually inappropriate conduct towards females,” she found that the mayor’s evidence was inconsistent and not credible.

Chamberlain said Hamer-Jackson told her the comments he made to various local media outlets — including iNFONews, RadioNL and CBC — were not his and that he was relaying “what other people were saying to [him]” about Neustaeter’s statement, though he declined to provide names to the investigator.

Chamberlain also noted McMillan told her that if the “same words [were] spoken by a different person of a different gender and age, the context is different.” She added McMillan also clarified that the comments he made to Kamloops This Week was an attempt to “paraphrase that feedback [he was] hearing.”

According to the report, Neustaeter told Chamberlain that none of the language in her statement referred to concerns about sexual harassment or inappropriate conduct “of that nature.”

Blue Grotto Incident

Neustaeter also told Chamberlain that she was aware of a “well-known” incident at the Blue Grotto nightclub from March 31, 2023 involving the Mayor and Joshua Knaak of ARPA Investments, whom the mayor is also suing, in a bid to “put an end to the rumours.”

While Knaak declined comment after the lawsuit was filed, Hamer-Jackson spoke to CFJC Today in June.

“If people are going to run around and say, ‘Somebody is grabbing somebody by the butt or they’re grabbing people on a dance floor’ or whatever the case might be, I think that we ought to get accountability here,” the mayor said in June.

Chamberlain’s report states that when Hamer-Jackson approached Knaak at the Blue Grotto to shake his hand, Knaak “didn’t have any interest” in doing so. It also quotes Knaak as telling Hamer-Jackson, “My wife is on her way here, if you could keep your hands off her this time that would be great.”

In the report, Chamberlain says Knaak told her of an incident between his wife and the mayor from January 2023, though no details were specified. Knaak also “denied that any of the Councillors were involved in this interaction between him and the Mayor,” Chamberlain added.

While Chamberlain’s initial report stated the incident at the Blue Grotto between Hamer-Jackson and Knaak took place on March 9, 2023, an addendum report released in January later clarified the date discrepancy as a “genuine lack of recall.”

“During our follow-up meeting, Knaak [who is listed as Witness A in the reports] reiterated his initial evidence to me that his interaction with the Mayor had no connection to the statement made by the Councillors in March 2023, or any conflict between the Councillors and the Mayor,” the addendum stated.

Chamberlain also said Knaak’s wife did not participate in the investigation as she was “concerned about retaliation from the Mayor.”

She wrote in the addendum report that she found Knaak to be a credible witness as he had “provided consistent evidence” throughout the process “based on his understanding and belief” about the alleged January incident between his wife and the Mayor.

“I find that it is not appropriate to draw an adverse inference from [Knaak’s] refusal to provide his wife’s contact information to me in these circumstances,” Chamberlain wrote, citing existing case law. “The [March 31, 2023 incident at the Blue Grotto] was [Knaak’s] reasons for making those comments to the Mayor.”

“[Knaak’s] wife’s evidence about her own interaction with the Mayor would not impact my assessment of [Knaak’s] evidence.”

Mayor’s statements were ‘contradictory’

In her original report, Chamberlain said Neustaeter denied that the incident at the Blue Grotto (on March 31) factored into the statement that she read (on March 17) on behalf of her colleagues.

“There is no dispute with the Councillors’ evidence that the statement did not intend to refer to sexual impropriety,” Chamberlain wrote. “The Mayor said that he did not know what [Council’s] intention was, and provided evidence about his own interpretation and the interpretation of members of the public.”

Chamberlain also noted that both the mayor and McMillan provided evidence to say that citizens in Kamloops had approached them to tell them that they believed that Neustaeter’s statement referred to “sexual impropriety.”

“[They] both referenced these incidents in the media. However, both declined to provide me with the names of these individuals or any supporting evidence to corroborate that this occurred,” Chamberlain wrote.

“In particular, in our initial meeting, the Mayor declined to provide particular details to support this aspect of his evidence, citing the reason for his refusal to be that he had an upcoming Civil Case dealing with some of the same facts. The fact that the Mayor may have a civil matter involving similar or the same subject matter is not a valid legal basis for him to withhold this information. The Mayor was advised of this, and then altered his reason for not providing the names of individuals, namely that one individual had been driving a blue truck and he did not actually know that individual’s name.”

“These two explanations are contradictory,” Chamberlain added.

Chamberlain said Hamer-Jackson was asked to but did not attend a follow-up interview to explain the inconsistency. She also said the mayor did not provide a valid reason why he could not attend a second interview.

“He was advised that his failure to attend and provide the names of individuals who he claimed accused him of sexual misconduct may result in an adverse inference being drawn against him,” Chamberlain added. “The Mayor continued to fail or refuse to attend a meeting, and then stated he believed providing me with the names of the individuals he was referring to without the opportunity to advise them and request their participation would be a breach of their privacy rights. I had already advised him there was no legal basis for refusing to provide the information sought.”

“Further, his answer, that there was a privacy issue relating to disclosing the name of ‘individuals’, i.e. numerous persons, was inconsistent with his explanation where he referred to only one individual in a blue truck whose name he said he did not know.”

Mayor breached code of conduct

In her conclusion, Chamberlain reaffirmed that Hamer-Jackson could not be held responsible for comments made by McMillan, as he had not instructed his lawyer to make those comments nor did he endorse them.

“However, the Mayor’s comments were not limited to his opinion about [Neustaeter’s statement]. He went further, and he publicly cited that, because of the statement, he had encounters with citizens who also interpreted it the way he had,” Chamberlain wrote, saying she found the mayor had breached Section 3.11(a) of Council’s Code of Conduct.

That’s the section that states council members “must not issue, or allow to be issued on their behalf, any communication that the Member knows, or ought to have known, is false or misleading.”

“The Mayor asserted that the Citizen Comments [statements made by members of the public to the mayor] were true and based on fact. He bears some onus to provide evidence in this investigation to substantiate that what he claimed in public statement to have occurred as a consequence of [Neustaeter’s statement],” Chamberlain added in her findings. “The Mayor told the public that, following the reading of the [Neustaeter’s statement], negative incidents involving members of the public happened to him. The Mayor repeated this assertion in his investigation interview, but has repeatedly refused, on various basis, to provide information to support his assertion.”

“Given the Mayor’s unwillingness to provide names or specific particulars of the incidents he referred to in the Citizen Comments, and my finding that his evidence was inconsistent and not credible for the reasons set out above, I find that the Mayor breached the Code of Conduct with respect to the Citizen Comments.”

Chamberlain also said there is no evidence to corroborate Hamer-Jackson’s statements that he was approached by citizens who called him “pervert” or otherwise implied that they believed that Neustaeter’s statement referred to sexual impropriety.

“If he says he had a conflict in a bar and someone called him a ‘pervert’, them who am I to argue? But this investigation isn’t about that,” Neustaeter told CFJC Today in a statement.

“It’s about the fact that it had nothing to do with me.”

In her report, Chamberlain recommended that the city “consider appropriate censures” against the mayor, including a public apology and training on the Code of Conduct.

In June, after his pay was cut, Hamer-Jackson told CFJC Today he wasn’t going to apologize for something he didn’t do.

“If people want to make stuff up about you…I’ve known some of these individuals for two years and ever since I met them, (there are allegations that) I grope women, I’m a racist, I’m all these things. It’s not right,” he said. “And the 10 per cent (pay cut)… I didn’t get into this for the money.”

Neustaeter and Hamer-Jackson are scheduled to be in court the week of Jan. 20, 2025, when the Kamloops councillor is expected to ask a judge to have the lawsuit dismissed.

Earlier this month, Hamer-Jackson told CFJC Today he plans represent himself in his lawsuit against Neustaeter “at this time,” in an effort to cut down on his mounting legal bills.

None of the allegations in either of Hamer-Jackson’s lawsuits against Neustaeter or Knaak have been tested in court.

by Victor Kaisar / James Peters