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.
I was born and raised in Kamloops, attended Parkcrest Elementary School (soon to be back better than ever) and Brock Secondary School (in the days before it was a middle school). I come from a family with a long history of community involvement and have followed in that tradition. I work as a manager for a non-profit, the Kamloops Naturalist Club, running our education and conservation programming and overseeing our other employees. I also volunteer as co-president of the Kamloops Food Policy Council and as a director with Kamloops Pride.
What differentiates you from the other candidates?
I’m 36, so a bit younger than most other candidates. I’m a renter and looking to be a first-time home buyer so I’m very in touch with the challenges of housing affordability. If elected, I’d be the first out gay councillor, so that’s a great opportunity to add diversity and representation, while showing our community is progressing. Ultimately, we will have nine voices around the table so being a representative of different parts of the community is important.
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?
I think we need to work cooperatively with other jurisdictions and engage in constructive dialogue. This past term we’ve seen some on council air public disagreements with Tk’emlups te Secwepemc over a hospital tax on Sun Rivers residents, with the province over BC Housing operations, and with the federal government on a range of issues. This sort of posturing rarely leads to change. Instead, we need to really understand where people are coming from and try to meet them in the middle to create a solution that works for everyone.
The same goes for disputes within our city departments. The reorganization of the bylaws department led to a costly lawsuit by employees who were effectively fired. The attempted abrupt take over of St. Andrews on the Square from the volunteer group running it created lots of acrimony. Being heavy-handed is not a good approach! We need our civic government to operate with humility, understanding, and try whenever possible to be flexible.
What do you think is the biggest issue facing the City of Kamloops and how would use your elected position to address it?
I believe the number one issue in Kamloops is our lack of housing affordability, across the spectrum but especially for renters like myself and first-time home buyers. It is creating challenges for attracting businesses, doctors, and for addressing homelessness.
To address this challenge, we can increase the supply of affordable units by promoting density and in-fill, through planning moves such as pre-zoning areas for greater lot coverage and height along transit supportive corridors. We should ask the province to expand the Foreign Buyer Tax to Kamloops, as a TRU study indicated not having it is creating a 15 per cent premium in prices against jurisdictions with the tax.
We can lower the cost of services, and consequently property taxes, by better containing urban sprawl development on the outskirts of town. We can lower utility costs by embracing progress on the BC Energy Step Code and use of nature-based climate solutions like planting more trees to mitigate urban heat effects. Both property taxes and utility costs are key pieces for affordability.
Leadership on Council matters, to support the implementation of these moves and set the overall policy direction, so electing myself and like-minded people on Oct. 15 is another way we can make progress on this issue.
How do you plan to involve Kamloops residents in your decision-making?
I’ve been involved in collaborative decision making during my non-profit work and have been encouraging dialogue on civic issues on the Kamloops Dialogue Nexus Facebook group for many years now. My approach is to listen deeply, take onboard new perspectives and information, weigh my choices carefully after having consulted broadly, and then be willing to explain where I’m coming from to others.
I have strong views on the environment and social progress side of things, so I find it extremely helpful to consult other sectors like business, arts, sports, and hear what others in the community are thinking. Often, there’s good ideas everywhere that can improve our policies.
What does a sustainable future for Kamloops and area look like to you and what does it need from mayor and council?
Kamloops is one of the most spread-out cities in Canada (partially due to our history as an amalgamation of several communities). It makes services very expensive to provide and require people to spend a lot of time on the road going back and forth. I think if we’re going to move towards sustainability, we need to develop neighborhood nodes, where every area has its own downtown with all the services that are needed such as a doctor’s hub like Orchard’s Walk has, amenities like the Yew Street Food Hall, brew pubs, coffee shops, a grocery store, and a neighborhood school. With proper planning and densification, we create can create the customer base for these services and put them within a 10-minute walk or ride for most trips. This is just one policy direction that was contained in the Community Climate Action Plan our Council passed last term. If elected, I’ll be working to implement them all.
