PETERS – By launching phone-taping investigation, council is doing its job
(Image: CFJC Today, file photo)
IT HAS BEEN ANOTHER remarkable week at Kamloops city hall.
In a closed meeting, council launched an investigation into Mayor Reid Hamer-Jackson’s propensity to secretly record phone conversations with staff.
It came after Hamer-Jackson’s admission earlier this month that his wife recorded a call between him and CAO David Trawin without Trawin knowing, as the mayor tried to read a transcript into the official record of a council meeting.
For some, this will seem to be another instance of the eight councillors ganging up to make life miserable for the mayor.
That may be the optics, but it’s not the reality.
James Peters is the radio anchor at CFJC, coming to Kamloops in 2006. He anchors the afternoon news on B-100 and 98.3 CIFM, and contributes weekly editorials to the CFJC Evening News. He tweets regularly @Jamloops.
ArmchairMayor.ca 
One question: why is council so adamant about investigating the recordings, which are not illegal and were not against policy when done, but not at all interested in investigating the leaks of confidential information from closed council meetings, which are illegal?
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There was no “propensity” to begin with. There is propensity though from Peters and his boss Collins in writing “optics” versus reality op-pieces of little value.
Furthermore a “board of directors” where none of them could replace even a light bulb without a support system in place is of little reassurance in running a multi-million dollars enterprise. An enterprise that can be easily argued is inefficient unmotivated and wasteful.
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Actually, Doug Collins isn’t James Peters’ boss. Doug is no longer in the newsroom though he continues to write. James reports to Doug’s successor in the news director’s job.
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