ROTHENBURGER: Say goodbye to any hope of peace between mayor, council
(Image: Mel Rothenburger)
AS THE NOON HOUR APPROACHED Friday, six Kamloops City councillors got up and left a Thompson-Nicola Regional District strategic planning meeting at the Delta Hotel.
The seventh City director, Mayor Reid Hamer-Jackson, stayed behind with the rest of the TNRD board.
A couple of minutes after 12, the six were joined at City Hall by the other two councillors and they all walked into chambers for a news conference. “I wasn’t invited,” Hamer-Jackson said later, adding he wouldn’t have left the TNRD meeting anyway because it was important.
By the time Coun. Katie Neustaeter read a brief statement on behalf of the group and they all filed back out a side door without taking questions (a few returned to the TNRD session), any chance of reconciliation between them and the mayor was pretty well gone.
Mel Rothenburger is a former mayor of Kamloops, alternate TNRD director and a retired newspaper editor. He is a regular contributor to CFJC Today, publishes the ArmchairMayor.ca opinion website, and is a recipient of the Jack Webster Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award. He can be reached at mrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca.
ArmchairMayor.ca 
Mel, I’m trying to get a handle on the time line for the actions of the folks who staged this show of force against the new Mayor.
Six of them were being paid to be in attendance at a TNRD strategic planning meeting at the Delta Hotel. The six of them got up and left the meeting; was there a request for being excused? Do they expect to be paid for being at this meeting?
OK. So they file down to City Hall, are joined by the other two councillors and stage a “media show” where a prepared statement about the Mayor who supposedly acts like an immature little baby and makes them all feel so bad. One puts on a display of talking with Councillor Bepple while the statement is being read then continues her display of sporting a sarcastic smirk as the trumped up charges are being read against Mayor Hamer-Jackson who is still doing his duty while being in attendance at the TNRD meeting.
I’m a little more than a bit confused, Mel. Who exactly showed immaturity through all of this? Who deserves the full weight of public opinion and perhaps retribution from the Ministry of Municipal Affairs?
It can’t be too soon that some of the smirks get wiped off the faces of this bunch who feel they are so entitled.
I don’t know the facts here (does anyone?) but what I do know is that there 8 people standing in the picture who are clearly not happy. So RHJ has not made any friends here. Here’s a dumb question: Is this a big problem?
I totally agree with you that it does not seem like the mayor and current counsellors have any desire to do the work of providing leadership and direction of what is important to making Kamloops a better and safer place for the businesses and citizens. From day one when the mayor was elected he has not been respected by the councillors and has been bullied. These counsellors should quit wasting taxpayers money and at least have the common curtsey to answer questions from the media and the public who elected them. I personally am uncomfortable supporting businesses and am afraid for my safety due to the number of individuals who make me feel harassed when I try to support local business. Its time for the eight bullies to face the public and tell them why they are ganging up on our elected mayor! I as a handicapped individual would like to make our councillors account for there bullying tactics.
This is so sad. It seems that city hall will stop at nothing to discredit the mayor they didn’t want. Who leaked the mayor’s notification? Why hold a media conference saying they’ll be holding another media conference once they decide on their reaction? Council must love these mayor-bashing photo ops (except maybe Bass, captured on camera blowing her nose, inspecting the contents of her hankie, rolling her eyes and shaking her head)
Perhaps her new procedure for sanitary Covid-19 rapid testing.