Kamloops council candidates learning the ropes

It looks as though candidates for mayor and council in the Kamloops civic election are fast learners.

Last night’s Chamber of Commerce-sponsored all-candidates’ forum was like night and day compared to the earlier fumble-fest on the North Shore. Candidates, by and large, avoided making dumb promises they can’t possibly keep, and clearly have been doing some homework.

They still got caught off-guard once in awhile, but the forum gave the audience a much better idea of what to expect from them. Their answers were, in the main, thoughtful and informed. There was the odd oversight, such as when Marg Spina was asked what she would do about the shortage of medical practitioners. Instead of pointing out that City council has no control over that, and can only co-operate with other levels of authority, she suggested council should act as ambassadors.

A better answer would have been to point out the restrictions on what council can do in that regard, but pledge to support an initiative by which mayor and council work closely with the IHA on the issue.

But that’s just nitpicky me. A week ago, any one of the newbies might have responded that he or she would make sure the doctor shortage was fixed, period.

Barb Garrett flubbed her answer to a softball question about getting public input on issues. She said something about her phone being available because all her kids have left home, and being open to ideas. Good heavens, is that it? How about town hall meetings, between-elections doorknocking, open office hours, improvements to the public-hearing process, putting an additional question period back on council agendas, and on and on.

But, again, most of the candidates did well on most of the questions. Even when mayoral candidate Brian Alexander was challenged on the profanities on his website, he went on the attack, offering no apologies, criticizing politicians at all levels for “letting us down” and saying his website is his way of “standing up for your rights.”

Former City clerk Wayne Vollrath, questioned about public consultation on bylaws, noted that he wrote about 15,000 bylaws during his career and, depending on the issue, the degree of consultation varies, from seeking advice from community agencies to full-blown public meetings. “You can’t legislate in a vacuum,” he said, acknowledging that governments tend to over-regulate.

Incumbent Jim Harker, though he doesn’t have a lot he can point to for personal accomplishments on council, looked comfortable pointing to his involvement in the homeless count and his work on the police committee and parks and recreation as examples.

Ken McClelland might have been tempted to say the official community plan must be adhered to, but instead he gave a more thoughtful answer, saying the OCP should be a strong guideline but shouldn’t be inflexible, and should be open to compromise.

And on it went. And since Arjun Singh seems concerned about me asking questions at forums, yes, I did submit four business-oriented questions, as all members of the chamber’s board were asked to do. I didn’t direct them to any particular candidate, leaving that to the person in charge of making sure all candidates received two questions. My offerings were:

“Could you please explain the Election Reform Act as it pertains to the business vote in municipal elections, and what you think should be done about it?” Joe Leong answered that the Act was changed years ago to remove the business vote and he would support bringing it back.

“Neville Log Homes was quoted in today’s Kamloops Daily News as saying one of the reasons it went bankrupt was high property taxes ($100,000 per year). Would you have lowered their taxes? If not, what would you have done to save them?” Joyce Blair responded that she would not have supported lowering the taxes, and that businesses must be on an equal footing.

“Which is more important to the economy of Kamloops: tourism or Domtar? And don’t simply say we can have both.” Abdul Rasheed got that one, saying that while tourism is an important contributor to our economy, the forest industry is fundamental to our economy and he would put Domtar first.

All pretty good answers, I thought. My fourth question was, “Should Kamloops renew plans to build a convention centre? If so, what should the City’s share of capital and maintenance costs be, in comparison to the private sector share?” I don’t believe that question made it onto the floor.

So is any of this helping us decide who should represent us on the next council? I’ll offer a few clues in tomorrow’s Armchair Mayor column in The Daily News.

See you at the media all-candidates forum Wednesday at 7 p.m., TRU Grand Hall.