Ahead of the Oct. 15 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 occupation, and your historical connection to the Kamloops area.
Kamloops is an integral part of who I am and how I show up in this world. As a wife for more than 20 years to my loving husband, and mom to three teenagers who are on the cusp of adulthood, we have never felt more invested in and prepared to commit to the success of the city we call home than we are today.
Although not as many as my 92-year-old grandpa who grew up on Lorne Street and graduated from Kamloops Secondary School (now SKSS) 75 years before me, I have seen this wonderful city go through incredible changes, and also ignore great opportunities.
I walked the streets of Barnhartvale to RLC in childhood, learned to swim in the Riverside Park pool, shopped at the Farmer’s Market on Saturday mornings after soccer games, played on the long-gone waterslides, cheered on the Blazers in the Memorial Arena (now the Sandman Centre) after watching the community fight its development, attended the College of the Cariboo and TRU-OL, and enjoyed all of the recreation that Kamloops has to offer.
Watching the community ebb, flow, and change with the years, my love for this community and all of its foibles has never wavered.
After marrying in Kamloops, I spent our newlywed years working as a support worker, in a restaurant and convention centre, and a radio station in order to put my husband through his master’s degree debt-free. Eventually, we moved to the Shuswap and co-ran Sunnybrae Bible Camp where I was privileged to shift my career to raising our babies and running our home during those first precious years.
We moved our family to Kamloops in 2010 and found it to be the ideal place to raise our children and build our life during those formative years. After a stint as an on-call education assistant with SD73, I began my career with the Jim Pattison Broadcast Centre where I worked in various on and off-air capacities until I joined United Way Thompson Nicola Cariboo and became the Executive Director in March, 2020 (yes – THAT March, 2020).
Serving in the top leadership role for an anchor not-for-profit for Kamloops throughout the pandemic was the greatest professional learning opportunity of my life. Managing the fiscal responsibility, ethical practice, complex funding structure, Board accountability, administrative duties, staff wellness, government contracts, community priorities, needs due to extreme environmental events, and many vital relationships was an experience that I would not trade, nor ever wish for again. I am extremely proud of all that was accomplished through our organization at that time.
In July 2021, six United Ways across the province successfully amalgamated to become United Way British Columbia (another profound leadership learning experience) and I am now the Director of Communications for the province and manage staff from Nanaimo to Kelowna. United Way BC has been tremendously supportive of my decision to run for Kamloops City Council and has allowed me to consolidate my role and reduce my hours permanently to create the time needed to serve the city well in this capacity.
My combined professional background in the service industry, support work, media, and the charitable sector empowers me to brings a unique blend of qualification and perspective to the table. This is in partnership with my extensive volunteering in Kamloops that has created insight to the inner workings of the organizations and activities that make our city a healthy, inclusive, and caring place to live: Rotary, SD73, TRU Foundation, the City of Kamloops, wildfire response, BC Winter Games, the Kamloops and District SPCA, Kamloops Alliance Church, Kamloops Youth Soccer Assoc. and more.
What differentiates you from the other candidates?
Who I am in this community and what I can offer differentiates me from other candidates.
I know business, governance, public service, and (most importantly) I know Kamloops.
I’m committed to maintaining the unique culture of our city while bringing forward a new vision that capitalizes on opportunities and accomplishes necessary change.
In true Kamloops fashion, I play hard and work harder; no one will be more dedicated to growth that reflects the lifestyle and voices of this city than me.
But also, I understand the job. Serving your community as a councillor means consistently applying good judgment to the issues that impact citizens while reaching beyond personal beliefs in the interest of all. When elected, I’ll work for the whole and have the proven ability to make difficult decisions without bias.
Councillors work on issues that don’t necessarily feel like an area of interest but are necessary for an exceptionally run community. The exciting and the mundane; I’ll show up.
Effectively executing this role means being collaborative and consultative, skills I have uniquely honed through my professional experience. A lifetime of dedication to Kamloops while building relationships across sectors and demographics has prepared me to understand where we’ve been and where we need to go – together.
As the Executive Director of a local non-profit, I also have proven my ability to exercise fiscal responsibility, manage crisis, identify and adjust poor process, and follow the courage of my convictions.
Additionally, I don’t just live in this city; I’m involved in it. I’ve demonstrated that I not only have Kamloops’s best interest at heart, but also that I have the experience, dedication, fortitude, and results to back it up.
My vision for Kamloops is one where all can thrive, which requires an awareness of our challenges, but a focus on the solutions. While I’m realistic about the pace with which it can be achieved in local government, I’m not afraid of change and recognize that we shouldn’t do things just because it’s how they’ve been done before.
Additionally, I know enough to know that I have a lot to learn, and I’m here for it.
What do you think is the best way to resolve disagreements or conflicts with your peers, those in a different department, or those in a different jurisdiction?
The problem with working with groups of people on behalf of a group of people is that you must work with people. We are prideful and selfish creatures, and we tend to focus too closely on our own priorities and experiences. I do it, you do it, we all do it from time to time.
But I’m continually learning how true it is that we don’t need to all the think the same way or offer the same things to reach a sound resolution. Indeed, the more diverse the thought in the room the more likely that we can achieve the best result. Diversity of approach and opinion is not a problem to be solved, but rather a gift to be embraced (no matter how much it may not feel like it when sharpening iron against iron). Thoughtful disagreements at a council circle or the range of opinions in the community are signs of the possibility of growth.
Our priorities, experiences, and gifts are all different, and when we acknowledge that, when we embrace that, we can begin doing the work that’s needed.
Conflict resolution and negotiating solutions is difficult and universal. Its success requires that all parties be willing to listen, consider, compromise on details that don’t violate ethics, and be able to admit when they are wrong. It requires open communication, softened words, and respect for distinct experiences and knowledge in the room, but admittedly my awareness of these things does not mean that I do any of these things perfectly all of the time.
Consequently, it helps to recognize that the older I get, the more often I realize that I’m wrong, which has allowed me to invite the wisdom of mentors and institutional knowledge-keepers into my life to offer both perspective and accountability.
There is a time to stick to your guns and a time to lay down your weapons; the trick is knowing which should happen when. This requires stepping out for our echo chambers and into uncomfortable spaces with as little judgment and as much willingness as our fragile humanity can manage.
Municipal politics appeal to me at this point in my life because I’m weary of the partisanship and political games that hamper our ability to effectively build community. If I’m successful in this campaign, I hope that the people I join around the horseshoe will bring a similar heartbeat for togetherness and the preference for practical thinking that I do, but also that we will respectfully challenge each other’s thinking with clarity and conviction.
But when we inevitably fail in that endeavour, I recognize that part of my commitment to the leadership of this city is to remain at the table, extend the first hand, and create the healthy boundaries that will allow the work to move forward; because while we don’t have to like each other, we do need to work together in the interest of the calling and responsibility of this position, which is greater than any one individual at the table.
What do you think is the biggest issue facing the City of Kamloops and how would use your elected position to address it?
The intersection of a housing crisis and escalating social issues (mental health, addictions, homelessness, crime) is currently our most pressing issue.
Housing: we need to listen to the expertise of builders who have been telling us that arbitrary and blanket requirements, inefficient processes, and unnecessary bureaucracy are barriers to building the attainable, affordable homes our population needs.
In B.C., we are uniquely handcuffed by red tape, and we must implement creative ways to change arduous zoning and decrease permit processing time. Building co-operative housing, multi-family housing, and other entry-level housing is necessary. We need options for the Missing Middle and our next generation coming of age if we hope for them to stay for their higher education and raise their own families in Kamloops.
Also, with only three per cent of available land to build on in Kamloops, we must unlock it. The Chamber of Commerce has put forward a Land Trust policy document proposing a “robust mechanism for ecological land donations” – these are the kinds of solutions to seek.
Additional considerations include maintaining awareness that industrial land must be preserved for business development, and that social housing and its occupancy should be regularly inventoried.
Social issues: addressing housing effectively will begin alleviating some of the pressing issues facing our community, but others require an approach that interconnects/consolidates wrap-around services and/or removes the greatest impacts to the public.
Evidence shows we can’t warehouse people in buildings and expect change to occur; we need policy that regulates the disbursement of tenants of supportive housing, prioritizing units for those seeking recovery while considering carefully whether all funds available for social housing are beneficial for our larger community before accepting them.
Let’s also examine the execution of harm reduction (meant to be one of a four pillared approach: treatment, harm reduction, enforcement, and prevention) and rebuild strategies to improve the devastation of addiction and drug poisoning by working with qualified service providers and social service agencies.
Furthermore, city council should work with and advocate to other levels of government to aggressively discontinue “catch and release” and enforce consequences for prolific offenders. I would also like to see us to reinstate the Citizens on Patrol initiative with the leadership of the RCMP in order to activate invested community members and curb the temptation of vigilantism in the face of justifiable frustration and concern.
Finally, let’s find practical ways to build the connections that inspire individuals at the neighbourhood level to build community and feel less alone. Good neighbours make good neighbourhoods, and this is our very best and most readily available source of interconnected wellness.
How do you plan to involve Kamloops residents in your decision making?
Consultation is key to any successful change. While not everyone can have the outcome they desire all of the time, it is possible and important that all have a chance to be heard.
When we think about designing our plans for active transportation, are we consulting the groups that will make the most use of them? When we open cold weather or warming shelters, are we asking neighbouring businesses about the impacts they anticipate, or vulnerable populations if their needs are being met? When we make necessary changes to zoning and allow for different land use, are we inviting the Heritage Society to discuss how we can honour our history while building the future? When we implement new systems for payments or resourcing, are we thinking of and asking seniors if the new models are accessible for them and facilitating their participation effectively? When we build playgrounds, do we allow children with diverse abilities and their caregivers to test and contribute to their design? When we decide to introduce new regulations for building codes, have we listened to the practical advice of tradespeople? When we make decisions for our land and evaluate our overall strategic plan, have we invited our partners, like Tk’emlups te Secwepemc, to the table?
We do this best through engagement groups. These committed citizens are a paramount aspect of the decision-making process, affect cost savings by preventing foreseeable errors, and are our best path to the satisfaction of taxpayers when projects are executed.
We need to ask engagement group members whether the restructuring that took place in 2018 has resulted in their involvement becoming more or less effective, if their participation has become more meaningful, and if they’re better able to achieve their group’s defined goals.
The recommendations that come to council and inform decision making need to be thoroughly consultative and reflective of industry and life expertise if we want successful outcomes.
We need to remain curious, open, humble, and transparent when making decisions that impact the lives and livelihoods of our citizens so that our city can serve its people well.
What does a sustainable future for Kamloops and area look like to you and what does it need?
The topic of sustainability projects a very wide scope. Transportation, environmental impacts, recreation and vegetation, environmental services, city planning, water treatment, and much more factor into these considerations.
There are many things we can be proud of when we consider the strides our city has proactively made when it comes to sustainability: Xget’tem’ Trail, tree coupon program, sidewalk improvements, a new mountain bike path in Aberdeen, pollinator-friendly plants, stretch-goals for emissions reduction, waste reduction, etc. But I would now like to see Kamloops focus on some practical steps next: connecting walking paths, improving accessibility to public transit, incorporating bike lanes, and greater strides on food security, for example.
We have a tendency in Kamloops to invert our priorities for when we lead and when we follow the example of others. I believe that we could find even greater success in the area of sustainability in our next phase of evolution if we paused our enthusiasm for being leaders in some big-picture areas of sustainability and sought to catch up on the simple things that we’ve neglected and Kamloopsians are asking for.
