Will Denis Walsh run for mayor of Kamloops?

Will Denis Walsh, arguably the most popular politician in Kamloops at the moment, run for mayor in November?

No, he won’t.

There are two reasons for that, says Walsh. The first is that he needs a little more political experience before he’d think about it.

The second is his discomfort with public speaking. Walsh confesses that standing in front of a large group of people is not a happy place for him.

Mind you, the incumbent mayor is living evidence you don’t need to have a love affair with the microphone to do the top city job. Peter Milobar wasn’t crazy about public speaking before he ran for mayor in the last election, and he still isn’t.

He admits he gets the jitters every time he has to make a speech, especially his annual “State of the City” address to the annual meeting of the Kamloops Chamber of Commerce.

Milobar isn’t good at reading from prepared text, so instead he roughs out a few notes, tosses off a couple of one-liners at the start, and he’s good to go.

That’s not a bad thing — there’s a knack to reading out loud, and if you don’t have it, it’s far better to use notes as a guide for keeping your train of thought organized. Milobar, in fact, is a much better than average public speaker because he sounds natural, unforced, and seldom stumbles.

But back to Walsh. What he has going for him is sincerity. People hear it in his voice, the way he expresses himself. His instinct is an honest answer rather than the politically expedient quote.

Last week, for example, he admitted he sometimes doesn’t get all the homework read in time for Tuesday night’s council meetings. Well, really, the agenda and all its attachments shouldn’t take more than two hours on a weekend to digest, so acknowledging he has trouble fitting it in is being pretty candid.

The issue on which his popularity currently rides, of course, is the so-called “parkade at the park.” He opposes it, as do a lot of other people. So, since he’s not in the running for mayor, it’s a safe bet he’ll be up near the top of the heap of council candidates.

But speaking of the parkade, there’s more on that parkade listing in Kelowna-based Business Thompson Okanagan that appeared recently.

I finally made contact with Simone Sunderland in Port Moody, who produces the Green Sheet, a compilation of current and upcoming construction projects published in various B.C. trade journals and subscribed to by contractors.

Business Thompson Okanagan runs Green Sheet listings that pertain to the Interior of B.C. Sunderland explained that one of her researchers called City Hall about the parkade. She thought it might have been engineer David Trawin who provided the information, but Trawin says not.

“I apologize if it’s created controversy,” said Sunderland. “It (the listing) doesn’t mean there’s any approval.”

So we still don’t know the exact source of the information in the listing, but Sunderland, of course, didn’t have to create controversy — it was already there, and will undoubtedly play a role in the civic election.

Chris Ortner, heading up the new anti-parkade Kamloops Voters Society, confirms, “I’m interested in (running). I think I can make a contribution but I haven’t made up my mind at this point.”

He says it would depend, in part, on who else runs, and whether he thinks there would be a “good team” at City Hall.

Ray Nyuili and Arjun Singh will join most of the incumbents in the race, but realtor Peter Oswell, who had been rumoured to be interested, says definitely not — he’d have too many conflicts between his job and City business, he says.

As summer nears, a lot more names will be coming up.