By Armchair Mayor

ROTHENBURGER: How easy it is to spend taxpayers’ money and delay decisions

Mar 27, 2019 | 7:06 AM

KAMLOOPS — IN POLITICS, IT’S SO VERY EASY to put things off, and so easy to spend taxpayers’ money.

A couple of unrelated items caught my eye during Tuesday’s City council meeting.

One of them was a proposal from the Heritage Society to officially designate Riverside and Pioneer Parks with heritage status to prevent development like the proposed farmers’ market in the parking lot of Riverside Park.

Coun. Kathy Sinclair expressed interest in the idea but asked that council receive a report on heritage issues because council hasn’t looked at heritage “in a comprehensive way.” Instead of a report, it was referred to a committee.

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So now we’ll have a committee examining Kamloops heritage. Obviously, the topic wasn’t included in the orientation sessions the new council went through at the end of last year.

The value of heritage has been the stuff of dozens if not hundreds of reports, studies, policies and ongoing examination by the heritage commission, museum and City.

How about councillors just do their homework? Maybe then they’d be prepared to act on this important request dealing with the future of two key city parks.

Then there was the recommendation from council’s development and sustainability committee to spend $20,000 on something called the “Deep Resiliency Retrofits of Multi-Family Rentals” project.

Coun. Dieter Dudy moved the recommendation and it was about to go through without debate when Coun. Denis Walsh asked a simple question: “What is it?”

That was followed by an awkward few minutes as several people in the room stumbled about trying to answer. Eventually, some semblance of an explanation was pieced together and it was approved, though several councillors voted against it.

Oh, yeah, and there was a request to ban plastic bags, too. That was put off till later.

I’m Mel Rothenburger, the Armchair Mayor.

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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 the Jim Pattison Broadcast Group.