EDITORIAL – Councillors, staff seem to think we don’t need a full-time mayor
(Image: Mel Rothenburger)
An editorial by Mel Rothenburger.
OBVIOUSLY CITY COUNCILLORS don’t think Kamloops deserves a full-time mayor any more than City administrators do.
At today’s council meeting, (Tuesday, April 23, 2024) the councillors sat mute as Mayor Reid Hamer-Jackson tried to make his case for allowing him into his City Hall office after regular office hours.
Senior staff didn’t budge. In fact, they more or less told the mayor to take a hike.
Operations director Jen Fretz told him the ban on members of council accessing City Hall after hours is to protect staff and “we don’t have any intention of changing them (hours of access) in the near future.”
Acting CAO Byron McCorkell took the same attitude, saying staff needs to be protected and “that’s the way we’re going to move forward.”
There was never any explanation of what the threat to staff might be if the mayor goes into his office in the evenings or weekends but it clearly goes back to accusations against him going back to last year.
How those allegations play into the mayor’s access into his own office is hard to fathom. He could be accommodated if the requirements of his job were considered instead of the multiple grudges floating around.
It shouldn’t be all that hard to set it up so Hamer-Jackson could enter through the side door that’s a few steps from his office, pause the alarm system and go to work without ever entering the rest of City Hall. If need be, a separate lock could be put on that door to get around any key-fob issues.
Councillors are part-time but they should recognize that it’s been quite a few years since the mayoralty became a full-time job and they should have backed up Hamer-Jackson on this one. Instead, they were silent, except when Coun. Mike O’Reilly asked that the meeting move on to the next item on the agenda.
The next time someone wants to know why the mayor isn’t in his office, just ask Fretz, McCorkell or any member of council.
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 
Maybe we can help RHJ a gazebo outside on the front lawn for his office (I’m sure the crowd out front won’t mind sharing that space with the mayor) – so he can get his work done. Who needs an office in that type of negative environment anyhow?
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Regardless of what folks may think of Mayor Hamer-Jackson, regardless of the conflict between City staff/City Council/Mayor, regardless of the need for staff safety, the Mayor needs access to his office both within regular office hours and outside office hours. This is just petty. Surely a simple solution of changing the lock on the Mayor’s office, having a different fob, being able to disarm the alarm system – surely this can’t be difficult to solve. Why are City staff and councillors so intransigent?
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Kamloops has a lot to be proud of. Our current City Hall situation is not one of them. Obviously Council is playing a waiting game to try and force the resignation of the Mayor out of pure frustration. It might work, but I hope it doesn’t. To not support a simple request to have office access after hours is inexcusable, and puts the lie to any protestations about working collaboratively. I guess in the current iteration, collaboratively is defined as 8-1 on pretty much everything. This has to be the biggest and longest temper tantrum in history, and most of the Councilors are likely old enough to know what the usual result of a temper tantrum was when they were kids. I know what it was at my house. Henry Braun’s report can’t come soon enough, but in the Kamloops version of transparency, it will likely be kept in secrecy anyways, so the public will never see anything more than the front cover.
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Correct on your POV, Ken.
For the rank and file employees at the City, it must be a game of walking on eggshells to have it discovered that a particular employee backs the Mayor. If that information got back to Byron or Jen, would there be repercussions?
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I agree. It seems the councillors and city administrators are playing a game of constructive dismissal, hoping to make working conditions so bad for the mayor that he will resign. It’s been a common tactic for years, but not so much recently, as it’s illegal.
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Well at least it’s all out in the open now. The tail is wagging the dog and the trained seals are are on their benches clapping. Trouble is, this joke has no punch line.
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I’m just wondering what staff are in city hall after working hours besides the cleaners. Do city administrators and councillors think the mayor is a threat to cleaning staff?
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Petulance and vindictiveness in full display. And the narrowness of sanctioned thinking continues. That McCorkell “best before” date has long past is confirmed.
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Who needs a Mayor? All the important work is still getting done. Nancy Bepple is still working behind the scenes for the Gaza motion, and the administrators are still in charge and collecting those high 6 figure salaries.
Democracy!
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For a City Hall PowerPoint presentation in the near future, might I suggest using “The Boxer” from Simon & Garfunkel’s album “Bridge Over Troubled Water” ?
It fits well.
Then weep for democracy.
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