Ahead of the Oct. 17 municipal election, CFJC Today asked candidates for Kamloops City Council to complete a questionnaire, offering voters the chance to evaluate their candidacies.
QUESTIONNAIRE:
Describe yourself, your professional background, and why you’re running for public office in Kamloops?
I’ve called Kamloops home for 31 years. My wife Toni and I have raised three kids here, and now we have three grandkids running around too — this city is where my whole life is planted. I spent over three decades as a letter carrier with Canada Post before retiring in 2019, and if you ask anyone who’s worked with me, they’ll tell you that the job teaches you two things: you show up every day, rain or shine, and you actually talk to the people on your route. That’s how I still operate as a councillor — I take calls and visit residents in every corner of this city, not just the ones who show up at council chambers.
I’m running for a third term because experience matters right now. I have been appointed as president of the Southern Interior Local Government Association, which represents 37 municipalities, regional districts and townships in the Interior, which has now appointed me to the UBCM executive board as well as a director at the TNRD. These seats at the provincial table give Kamloops a direct line to Victoria. By not taking advantage of these opportunities, this would set the city back five or six years at exactly the moment we cannot afford to lose momentum.
What do you think is the biggest issue facing the City of Kamloops and how would you use your elected position to address it?
There are two main issues that I see facing Kamloops. One is community safety and the other is that our growth is outpacing our aging infrastructure. I will use my regional and provincial seats I already hold — SILGA president, UBCM executive board, Airport Authority president to lobby the province directly for voluntary and involuntary care beds in the Interior. Additionally, the hiring of more Crown Prosecutors in our judicial system will help alleviate the backlog and lack of consequences for street crime and disorder. I’d also keep pushing for visible, consistent community policing, which would include regular foot patrols and accountability for repeat offenders, because growth without safety just breeds frustration.
Housing, roads, water, and public safety are all being squeezed by a city that’s growing faster than our capacity to service it. I’d tackle it by utilizing the relationships I have established with federal and provincial ministers and senior staff, cut the red tape that’s slowing down multifamily and rental construction — every month a project sits in permitting is a month that doesn’t help our vacancy rate. Infrastructure dollars that match our growth, instead of Kamloops taxpayers footing the whole bill for provincial downloading.
Following a term highlighted by infighting and tension at city hall that impacted Kamloops’ public image, how would you ensure civil discourse and good governance would take place between yourself, fellow elected officials and city staff?
I won’t pretend this term was smooth — it wasn’t, and I own my part in that. I made a mistake early on; I apologized publicly and in writing to the mayor, council, staff, and the public, and I meant it. What I’d point to going forward is what I’ve actually built since: my working relationship with all levels of government, including Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc. Council has gone from professional to genuine friendship, and other municipalities now point to that relationship as a model. I was also endorsed by over 200 elected officials in the Southern Interior to hold the position of president. That’s proof civil, productive governance is possible even after a rocky start — it just takes people choosing to do the work of repairing trust instead of walking away from the table. I’d carry that same approach into council chambers: disagree on policy without making it personal, and keep the focus on residents, not on each other.
Considering recent years of large municipal tax increases in Kamloops, how would you address the city’s tax rate going forward?
Nobody on council likes seeing double-digit provisional numbers come out of staff reports, and residents like it even less. My approach is to keep taxes predictable while still investing where it actually matters — not just trimming symbolic line items to make a headline number look better but going after the structural cost drivers: contracted labour costs, downloaded provincial responsibilities, and infrastructure that the province should be cost-sharing on. That’s exactly why I use my SILGA presidency to advocate at the provincial table, not just at city hall — Kamloops shouldn’t be absorbing costs that Victoria should be helping carry. I want a tax rate that residents can plan around, not one that swings ten points a year depending on the budget cycle.
As major infrastructure projects are on the horizon in Kamloops, how would you prefer the city go about gaining the electorate’s approval – via referendum or the alternative approval process (AAP)? Why?
I’ve actually voted on this one — I was part of the council minority who opposed using an AAP for the new RCMP headquarters and pushed for it to go to the electorate more directly. My reasoning is simple: we watched the Build Kamloops AAP end up in B.C. Supreme Court, with a resident challenging the process and the delay costing this city an extra $4.5 million. When the legitimacy of a $150-million-plus borrowing decision gets tied up in litigation, taxpayers pay twice — once for the project, once for the lawyers. A referendum costs more upfront and takes longer, but it gives council a mandate nobody can credibly challenge afterward. On projects this size, I’d rather spend the extra weeks and dollars getting a clean answer than risk a court fight that costs more than the AAP was supposed to save.
What are your thoughts on communication between the City of Kamloops and its residents? Are there areas of improvement you’d like to see?
Always. I think we’ve made real strides — the multiple in-person budget sessions this year where residents could literally walk up to a councillor and ask a question is the kind of thing I want to see more of, not less. But I’d like the city to lean harder into plain-language communication, especially on things like AAPs and tax bylaws, where the process itself is confusing even for people who are paying close attention. If residents don’t understand how a decision was made, they lose trust in the decision — full stop. I’d push for more of these direct, in-person formats spread across all four corners of the city, not concentrated downtown, because that’s genuinely how I’ve built my own relationships with constituents for two terms.
