EDITORIAL – Council should have remembered Wealthy Barber’s advice
(Image: Transition Kamloops)
An editorial by Mel Rothenburger.
FORMER CITY COUNCILLOR Arjun Singh must have been sitting on the edge of his seat Tuesday as the current council considered ways to reduce an expected budget increase for this year.
The council decided to cut an annual levy for climate action measures in half, from .35 per cent to .175 per cent for 2024 and take another look at it next year.
The levy is designed to help mitigate against climate change, including reducing greenhouse gas emissions with appropriate technology in City buildings and vehicles.
Singh, when he was on council, fought long and hard for that levy. He led an effort to align City policies with the international goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees, and to adopt a community climate action plan. He was appointed to B.C.’s Climate Solutions Council.
Two years ago, City council approved the annual levy to support the community climate action plan. Everybody on the council voted for it except councillors Mike O’Reilly and Bill Sarai.
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 atmrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca.
ArmchairMayor.ca 
One quick and no-cost way for the city to boost local carbon reduction would be for council to use the Nuisances section of the BC Community Charter to require that the pulp mill update to best available technology to reduce its carbon emissions. Currently the mill and its waste-to-energy burner emit over 1 million tonnes of carbon equivalents per year. The small reductions Kamloops is considering (like buying electric Zambonis for rinks) are good too, but pale in significance to the mill’s extreme emissions.
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I understand and am sympathetic to the goals of reasonable climate activism. However, the fiefdom of Coun. Bill Sarai is but a small village, in a vast country that itself accounts for a minuscule amount of carbon emissions (less than 2% which is statistical error territory). Our magical incantations are already very clean in comparison to say, China.
Even the wizards that congregate at the back tables of the tavern say that air pollution doesn’t respect the boundaries of the village, and that a coal eating, fire breathing dragon in the next village or country can impact us, even if we get rid of our coal eating, fire breathing dragons. They have tried many times to cast a magic force field around our village, but the wind is impervious to their spells.
One wizard even told me that the peasants of our fiefdom will suffer needlessly, and so will our economy if the peasants of the Kingdom of China ignore the climate covenant. We have some of the cleanest magic in the world, yet the King refuses to develop these spells for the glory of the fiefdom.
It’s easy to be a claimant activist as a wealthy baron or king. It’s not easy when you’re a peasant.
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Facebook tells all.
On February 2nd, the announcement was made that Councillor O’Reilly is officially another councillor’s “desk buddy”.
So cute.
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After reading the various comments from the various council members on this and other local news sites on a plethora of topics, it is worth repeating that we are not in good hands. Instead of mustering the courage to challenge the Trawin/McCorkell duo about the various ways they mismanage public funds they picked on the easy “optical illusion” of doing something…something extraordinarily tiny monetarily speaking but illustrious from a philosophical standpoint.
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The city must make cuts and plenty of them because we are going to have to pay a $5 million plus bylaw judgement later this year, and money doesn’t grow on trees, except in the eyes of Trawin McCorkell.
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Plus the $7+ million for the Northbridge property fiasco, where the building still stands b/c someone in city hall didn’t check to see if there was an ongoing contract with telus for the cell towers on its roof.
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