EDITORIAL – Mayor gets shot down again, but more politely than usual
(Image: CFJC)
An editorial by Mel Rothenburger.
‘SURPRISE, SURPRISE.” With those words from Mayor Reid Hamer-Jackson, yet another one of his motions succumbed to The Team by a vote of 8-1 at yesterday’s City council meeting.
The mayor wanted to set up a town hall forum for September on a variety of topics, rather than waiting for a newly ‘invented’ committee to ponder it over the coming months.
There’s a need, he said, to let citizens talk to council about seniors issues, crime, civic operations and improving communications by City departments.
Councillors, however, are determined to plan town hall engagement via a committee that was established at the last council meeting just a few minutes before Hamer-Jackson presented his notice of motion, which he says the councillors knew was coming.
So, the die was cast for yesterday’s debate on that motion but, overall, it was at least more civil than many have been in the past.
Mel Rothenburger 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 has served as mayor of Kamloops, school board chair and TNRD director, and is a retired daily newspaper editor. He can be reached at mrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca.
ArmchairMayor.ca 
I as a taxpayer am sick and tired of this childish behaviour by our city council. I don’t believe we can stand for 3 plus more years of this. Waste of our money and resources.
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“Octogang” uses some interesting tactics. There are also some turbulent days ahead for Octogang, in my opinion.
Could there be a running conflict between two differing disciplines of media personnel? Dale is from a ‘newspaper’ background while one of the others is from a platform that uses audio/visual techniques. Should Dale be given more of a leadership role in Octogang as far as representing them to the general public?
The adhesion holding Octogang together may weaken as time goes by.
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Town Hall meetings where many people may attend and not always be polite are not easy for folks to raise issues at as you get the blocks of folks on one topic and they can be quite intimidating to some.
And why do we have to wait to September to raise our concerns. If citizens have issues they may need to raise them now.
We used to be able to put things on council agenda by writing to request it – I believe. Can we still do that or is there some kind of motion that was passed to stop that from happening.
And if I think that we can only discuss items on the agenda. Get creative – I am sure many topics folks may have overlap or fit in with agenda topics. Find a way to raise your concern now.
Have concerns email council (all of them) and write to city staff – no answer there is always Social Media where you can raise a concern.
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