File photo (Image credit: CFJC Today).

By Mel Rothenburger

ARMCHAIR MAYOR

ROTHENBURGER: How Coun. Karpuk blew it on the Fartgate file

Jun 29, 2023 | 4:37 AM

DID YOU HEAR THE ONE about the City councillor who accused the mayor of telling a fart joke at a dinner event? Turns out the councillor blew it.

We may as well laugh about Coun. Stephen Karpuk’s humiliating faux pas. If we don’t, we just might cry over the City Hall gong show.

During the Councillors’ Reports section of Tuesday’s meeting agenda — that’s where councillors get a chance to toot their own horns — Karpuk said he was “embarrassed” and “disgusted” when Mayor Reid Hamer-Jackson made a fart joke at a Kamloops Homebuilders Association function.

During a discussion of green energy, Karpuk insisted, the mayor had asked, “So you’d like us to fart more to produce more green energy?”

Didn’t happen, replied the mayor.

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But Karpuk gave the mayor’s denial the bum’s rush.

The heated exchange, immediately dubbed Fartgate, brought new meaning to the term F-bomb, and resulted in a round of fart puns in the media and online — predictable stuff about clearing the air, a smelly situation and all that. Some wondered why Karpuk didn’t take it up with the mayor privately. Others questioned why he mentioned it at all.

Then, yesterday morning, the councillor was making the rounds of radio stations apologizing to the mayor, staff, council and the entire city for wrongly accusing the mayor.

The fart line that everyone in the room had supposedly heard wasn’t the mayor’s at all. It came from a table behind Karpuk.

It was, by no means, a perfect apology. While claiming to “own” his mistake, Karpuk blamed it on stress and emotion brought on by pressures and by other comments the mayor had made on other topics.

That’s not “owning it.” “Owning it” means you don’t make excuses. You just apologize.

But, hey, at least he did offer an apology. So, fortunately, this latest City Hall controversy has run out of gas.

That, at least, is how this old fart sees it.

I’m Mel Rothenburger, the Armchair Mayor.

Mel Rothenburger is a regular contributor to CFJC Today, publishes the ArmchairMayor.ca opinion website, and is a recipient of the Jack Webster Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award. He has served as mayor of Kamloops, school board chair and TNRD director, and is a retired daily newspaper editor. He can be reached at mrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca.

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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 Pattison Media.