JOHNSON – Great, now we’re known as the city whose mayor sues a councillor

By DAVID JOHNSON
Contributor, ArmchairMayor.ca

I GOTTA ASK … just who is our mayor?

Is he a Kamloopian used car salesman, business owner and guy about town who one day woke up and thought to himself “you know … I can do this better,” or is he actually the latest and most local incarnation of donald trumpism in leadership?

That was a toss up, and dependant on who you asked… until that day he decided to sue Coun. Neustaeter.

Instead of working WITH council and providing sentient, sober leadership … he pulls the final trump fanboy card and drops a lawsuit on those he either doesn’t like, or when they react to his own poor behaviour.

He seems to be more concerned about how he will act out and react, than just letting go of whatever was said in the past, like an adult would … and doing what is needed to smooth over ruffled feathers and focus on the job at hand, in concert with the others hired by the people to do the job alongside him.

But no … it seems that his number one thing is retaliation for a bent ego. It appears that if he thinks it’s supposed to be his ball, and he has to share it … he is more likely to throw it at someone’s head. You know … THAT kid in the playground.

True schoolyard … trumpian … reactionary behaviour.

Even Mr. Mike O’Reilly … the most experienced person on council that tries hard to get along with everybody, has said that Mayor Reid Hamer-Jackson just “isn’t equipped to provide the needed leadership council needs.”

Definitely sobering words. One must consider them to be words of value.

Any argument from the crowd that originally supported Hamer-Jackson, that want him to ‘do the work we voted him in to do’… just went out the window. Any continued unabashed support of this mayor, will just reek of the unflinching type of blind support Trump still feeds off of, south of the border.

The next step in Kamloops?

Let’s say that we have ‘had enough’ … whatever that means. Let’s ponder the idea that enough people in Kamloops want a change regarding the person currently in the mayor’s chair. What happens next?

In British Columbia … recalling a mayor or council member is not so easy. Actually it doesn’t exist at all.

Unfortunately, the concept is a rotating door if the mayor or council person being targeted hasn’t literally been proven in a court of law to be guilty of a severe conflict of interest, unexcused absences from a certain amount of council meetings, unauthorized expenses or an oath of office failure.

An elected official would also be disqualified from office if they are convicted of a criminal offence … not just charged, but actually convicted.

There is no recall legislation in B.C. for municipal elected positions; the courts are relied on for this. Alberta has had such legislation on the books since April 2022, and it’s so far been used once.

The reality is that the courts don’t like to weigh in on the actions of an elected position in almost any situation, as it could become a tool for political opponents to use, to drive out sitting elected officials. A situation we don’t really want being exercised in court. Imagine if Poilievre could just do that to Trudeau.

The question here is if Hamer-Jackson has actually crossed the line, for a court to have no choice but to act? A schoolyard lawsuit, an accusation of bullying, poor group dynamics capabilities, and a decided lack of any real leadership skills just doesn’t raise the bar high enough, for courts to act.

Soo … the courts won’t get involved and there is no legal framework for recall … what do we do? We can lobby Victoria to enact recall legislation like Alberta, but that will likely take years. It’s hard not to imagine today that Victoria binoculars are trained on Kamloops with this in mind, but so far waiting to see how this all plays out.

Until then, we as the public can stand up and speak our minds. We can individually try to in our own realms of influence, pass the message on to Hamer-Jackson, our opinion as to what he is doing wrong and how he needs to improve.

Start at the top of the list:

What you don’t do is sue another member on a City council for words said. You just don’t. If you want to completely hamstring the good work of a council … you sure found a way.

What you do do, is act like an adult and work hard to find a way to get the job done, no matter how much you need to look beyond previous mud flinging. There is no other option. This is the real adult world. It’s hard, but it is the only way.

We did not hire you to run the show like a monarchy. We hired you to work effectively with council and staff to keep the train on the tracks and moving forward with the work of the day, the week, the month and the year.

Nothing more.

We didn’t ask you to reshuffle how committees are filled and chaired. We didn’t ask you to involve both electoral candidates that were NOT hired by voters to sit on committees, nor asked you to add your buddies to committees. We were relatively happy with how committees have been formed.

If you wanted to look at committee makeup, you could have worked with the rest of council to do so. Just because you dug into the rule book and found out that you are on paper allowed to do that … doesn’t mean you should have without consultation with your peers, and without staff on your side.

You didn’t even try.

Moving on:

We didn’t ask you to be difficult or belligerent during council meetings.

You don’t get to just blurt out ‘conflict of interest’ before walking out of council meetings … without explaining why.

You have to show up for ALL council team building meetings, especially since this is a skill that personally needs work.

We didn’t ask you to just show up at BC Housing shelters unannounced.

It’s not your job to announce an expansion to the Car 40 program.

Don’t just show up at schools. I can’t show up at a school, neither can you.

You need to slow down and realize that media and residents and City staff spending time and effort trying to figure out whether or not things you do are conflicts of interest or not … does not help your cause.

There’s a longer laundry list, but the gist is in there somewhere.

What you did do is manage to find a way for this guy to spend more time reading provincial, national and international news … as a way to avoid the nightmare of our local political scene … but even then, I couldn’t run away fast enough:

The day the lawsuit was announced, I came across it in a national news broadcast. It was an embarrassing moment.

Instead of Kamloops being the town with suspected kids buried at the Residential school that sent the Vatican reeling, the entire country now sees us as the town where the mayor is suing a council member.

Nice … thanks for that.

David Johnson is a Kamloops resident, community volunteer and self described maven of all things Canadian.