EDITORIAL – Ex-councillor’s proposal on City-speak is worth talking about

An editorial by Mel Rothenburger.

TWO AND A HALF MONTHS after Donovan Cavers lost his seat in the civic election, he remains a regular fixture at Kamloops City Council meetings.

As a parting gift before he left, Cavers tabled a host of notices of motion — 11 of them, actually — on a variety of subjects. Slowly, they’re coming up for debate.

So far, his notice of motion limiting the locations of campaign signs has been defeated, along with expansion of bus service to holiday season stats, and one on establishing a public engagement advisory committee has been postponed.

Another one will come up on Tuesday and this one is kind of interesting. It proposes a change of wording in the way City documents refer to the public.

Kamloops residents would be referred to as “residents” instead of “customers” and “clients” would be called “citizens” instead of the way it’s done now.

As well, the City’s official mission “Making Kamloops Shine” would be referred to as “our public service mission” rather than “our corporate mission.”

I like what Cavers is getting at. Words matter. City Hall is not the boss; it’s the servant.

I cringe every time I hear somebody say governments should be run like businesses. No, they shouldn’t. If they were run like businesses there would be user fees for everything and a lot of services simply wouldn’t exist.

I don’t know if this new motion has any better chance of being approved by council than his other ones but, never mind, he has a whole bunch more that haven’t come up for discussion yet — everything from growing berries and gourds in City flower beds to commercial tax rates to youth recreation and which chairs councillors sit in at their meetings.

I’m Mel Rothenburger, the Armchair Mayor.