By Plain Rhetoric

What to expect in the upcoming City of Kamloops election (Hint: not me)

Jul 24, 2018 | 5:00 AM

A QUESTION I’M OFTEN ASKED these days is whether or not I’m again running for mayor or perhaps city councillor. Well, if last year’s by-election taught me anything, it taught me that I’m not a natural politician. Admittedly, I enjoyed running for mayor, learned a lot, met many wonderful people and heard some great ideas. But along the way I discovered that the required ‘political persona’ of say anything to get elected was not part of my DNA.

This obvious genetic deficit is a political inadequacy of such consequence that I can’t even waffle or hedge my bets when it comes to telling you I won’t be tossing my hat into the ring this fall. Those who advise on these kinds of things say one should leave a door open, but no, that door is shut. I’m looking forward to writing about it in the months ahead but will not be a candidate.

But speaking of writing about it — an easy segue and setup if there ever was one — let’s have a look at what you might be hearing from those who will be running this fall.

Of course there will be talk about taxes. We will also get the expected social issues conversation that will include affordable housing, poverty, the homeless and addictions. Cannabis will be up there as a brand new topic with a health, licensing and business opportunity spin to it. And without an Ajax as a divisive issue, cannabis and/or harm reduction and needle exchange could be its polarizing replacement.

Speaking of polarizing issues, the pipeline, which I believe we officially all own as of today, may be back on the front pages this fall and therefore back on the minds of voters.

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Earnest promises will be made, but as jurisdiction and budget for many of these pressing issues rests elsewhere, plans and commitments on how to make it happen will lack measurable specifics.

I suspect we will also see a push for a performing arts centre that will be pretty much focused on happening on the North Shore.

There will be talk of change and fresh starts, more so from challengers than incumbents. We will hear concerns about how staff control and manage elected officials. Incumbents will deny they do and in the process defend staff while challengers will claim it’s time for city council to take back control.

Someone will discover that senior staff performance reviews are done internally and there will be demands that it be done by an independent third party agency. That will lead to a promise of a full 360 review of city operations followed by a debate on how much that will cost. Last year, it was the City of Nanaimo’s external review process that was the suggested model for Kamloops, so we’ll have to see what recommendations are put forth this year.

One city councillor quipped late last winter that no one wants to talk about snow removal during the summer. Windrows and slow response times were a hot topic back in January and we’ll see if those remarks come back to haunt him.

Two incumbents have been hitting the social media world hard during these dog days of summer. One in particular has been doing almost daily repostings of generic City of Kamloops announcements. Not sure why, other than an exercise in personal branding, as this information is readily available online and we pay a communications team big bucks to promote it.

Two challengers have been front and centre with the successful needle buy-back program they launched, but it will soon be time to see what other issues of substance they will be running on.

One incumbent who I have yet to hear speak at a council meeting has hinted at a run for the mayor’s chair and that could spice things up a bit while opening up a third available seat on council.

A sleeper issue that may pop up is mayor and councillor pay. With the removal of the income tax incentive from their pay pack, some councillors may think they need a raise to make up for the lost benefit.

“Don’t rock the boat and steady as she goes” will be the foundation upon which many incumbents will build their campaign. Change and a breath of fresh air will be the cornerstone of many a challenger.

It has been a while, nearly 20 years since a campaign founded on ‘a time for change’ has worked and I’ll be looking into that 1999 campaign in a later column. In the meantime, it will be interesting to see what the mood of the voter is this time around.