How to get the mayor’s goat

I know how to get the mayor’s goat.

If you want to get on his nerves some time, just ask Peter Milobar how his “task force on the economy” is going.

He insists it is not a task force. I’m not sure what it is, but if it looks, smells and sounds like a task force, to me it’s a task force.

Not to the mayor, though. It’s just a bunch of people sitting around talking about the economy, I guess, sort of a glorified coffee klatch.

A coffee klatch is defined as “a casual social gathering for coffee and conversation.”

A task force, on the other hand, is “a temporary grouping of individuals and resources for the accomplishment of a specific objective.”

If the mayor’s group is not a task force, we must assume that the group is not temporary, or that it doesn’t expect to accomplish anything, or, at least, it doesn’t have a specific objective.

Only four people showed up to the last meeting of the whatever-you-call-it, and there were no media there because the mayor sort of neglected to make sure anyone was told about it.

Mind you, it is summer, after all, and it’s tough getting things done in Kamloops in the summer. But I truly hope the mayor’s purpose for this group is more than sitting around having coffee and conversation. The economy remains of vital interest to our city, and the people the mayor has chosen for his whatever-it-is are all knowledgeable, capable folks.

Maybe he just needs to define more clearly what it is he wants to accomplish, and then decide what to call it. I hope it will be a task force.