‘Insulting” council the object of voter discontent

City Hall has a problem. Its name is the Kamloops Voters Society.

What began as a coffee klatch has emerged into a community force that has already set the agenda for this November’s civic election. The issue is accountability, and the incumbent council has been handed a vote of non-confidence.

It would be easy for Mayor Peter Milobar and his council to write off the KVS as a collection of the usual anti-everything tree-hugging ship-disturbing suspects, but that would be a serious mistake.

November is going to be about civic democracy. Though the KVS is officially non-partisan, at least three undeclared but likely candidates and two incumbents were at last Thursday night’s inaugural public meeting of the society.

The incumbents — Jim Harker and Denis Walsh — were there mainly to listen, and they got an earful.

The parkade at the park is the main bone of contention, but not the only one. It’s the poster project for the disaffected who are convinced council doesn’t care what the public thinks and makes up its mind long before they raise their hands at the council table.

Chris Ortner, who heads up the society and is, himself, a potential candidate (the other two are former councillor Arjun Singh, who’s a given, and entertainment manager Ray Nyuli, who will announce later in the spring), gave a sense of that in his opening remarks when he said, “The preconceived outcome (of council decision-making) is insulting.”

Another said, “Somewhere in here the process is wrong.”

City CAO Randy Diehl received a shot from another, who said, “He doesn’t seem to listen to the citizens of this town.”

When Ortner asked, “What City council would not be in favour of an informed electorate?” there were more than a few snickers around the room, the obvious translation of which was, “This one.”

Ortner stressed the new society will not run candidates. Any executive member who does run will have to resign from the board. The group’s focus will be on process more than outcome, but that’s a line that’s almost impossible to draw.

At the suggestion of Sandy Wiseman, a straw poll was called on whether the City should be asked to put off its May 3 decision-day deadline on the parkade. The 70 people in the room were virtually unanimous in support of the idea.

The reason, of course, is that they oppose the project. The society is thus on a collision course with council that has the potential for a political train wreck.

Walsh, who opposes the parkade, was in a friendly room, but Harker, who hasn’t yet decided, scores points for being there and explaining some of what’s going on within council.

While the parkade is the main irritation, it’s not the only one. They won the day at the recent public hearing but the folks up on Cowan Street aren’t feeling especially grateful — one resident called the process “a fiasco.”

Alarm over the Jacko Lake mine proposal is gaining some steam, and even the plan to enlarge meeting space in Interior Savings Centre is on the table for the KVS.

As is to be expected in an information vacuum, there are a few conspiracy theories and a good dose of misinformation among those joining this new experiment in public engagement.

Sticking to the avowed goal of working constructively with City Hall will be a challenge. But that’s a two-way street — one the mayor and council would be wise not to avoid.

NOT THE FIRST. Coun. Pat Wallace reminds me that Action Team ’88 wasn’t the first civic party here. In 1978, then-mayor Mike Latta led the Kamloops Voters Association, which elected him and councillors Lois Hollstedt and Diane Kerr.