ROTHENBURGER – Provincial advisor has made things worse, not better

‘THE PURPOSE of advisors appointed by the provincial government to review dysfunctional City councils is to offer ideas on how to make things better. Unfortunately, the report delivered by former Abbotsford mayor Henry Braun today (May 7, 2024) has made it even harder for the Kamloops council to get past the feud between Mayor Reid Hamer-Jackson and the eight councillors.

How? By handing the councillors a perfect opportunity to demand the mayor resign, and they took quick advantage.

Here’s how Braun did it.

Top to bottom, his report was an indictment of the mayor, without recognizing that every argument requires two parties to be in the fight. In this case, it’s the mayor and council.

Certainly, a lot of what Braun said was on the money. The mayor, he said, is reluctant to “change behaviour or admit error.”

Hamer-Jackson, said Braun, has trouble letting go of perceived slights from the past. The mayor was cooperative during his review but showed no inclination to accept responsibility for the problems that have beset the council, he said.

Braun also said the mayor has difficulty understanding official documents and the rules of confidentiality, lacks a clear understanding of his role, doesn’t communicate well with others in City Hall, and exhibits “contempt for authority structures.”

(While criticizing the mayor’s communications deficiencies, the report recommends keeping the restrictions on who he can communicate with at City Hall. How is he supposed to improve his communications if he’s not allowed to communicate?)

All of that is well-known in the city. Hamer-Jackson came to the role as a neophyte ignorant of the politics of City Hall and how it’s played. He has never quite understood that, while the mayor is the leader, the leader needs at least four other council members to agree before anything can get done.

Hamer-Jackson listens, but from what his friends have said, seldom takes the advice of others when it’s offered. He believes others need to change, not him. He firmly thinks he has nothing to apologize for.

It’s also true he belabours those perceived slights. When he feels he’s been wronged, he doesn’t forgive and forget.

But Braun is off-base in some of what he said, including his observation that Hamer-Jackson “has a tendency to shift the focus of discussion” when questioned. While that is true, the remark shows how little Braun got to know him over the past few months. Otherwise, he’d understand that it’s simply part of the way Hamer-Jackson’s brain works — he starts on one thought and quickly switches to other things he thinks are relevant but simply muddy his answers.

So Braun listed 16 challenges, plus 10 things for the mayor to work on and 13 for council as a whole — the mayor and councillors together. Note, no recommendations for the eight councillors to work on improving on their own.

In other words, no accountability from councillors — only a brief mention of “minor contributions” by councillors to the discord. No mention of the blatant disrespect and purposeful confrontation aimed at the mayor, so evident at council meetings. No concern about leaks that clearly have not come from the mayor. Nothing about investigations so readily called for to investigate the mayor, and the release of information when it conveniently puts the mayor in a bad light. Nor about what has become a standing joke that anything the mayor proposes is pretty much automatically doomed to fail by a 1-8 vote.

No suggestion that calling a press conference to blast the mayor, or excluding him from photo ops, might not be a good way to mend fences. Or the silliness of the attempt by senior administrators to keep the mayor out of his office after hours.

None of that. Instead, the councillors got exactly what they wanted to justify their own behaviour. As Coun. Mike O’Reilly tellingly commented, the report is “exactly what I was looking for.”

The public rudeness aimed at the mayor was evident even at this meeting, with the usual snarkiness from some councillors. When Hamer-Jackson tried — in a clear point of privilege — to explain an apparent discrepancy in dates relating to his receipt of the famous Integrity Group report, he was cut off.

In short, the Braun report lets councillors off the hook. It shows, according to Coun Katie Neustaeter, that the council itself is not dysfunctional — the only dysfunctional one, she declared, is sitting in the mayor’s chair. So, no owning of anything by councillors.

The crowning touch was when Coun. Margot Middleton presented a motion that the committee of the whole meeting “call on the mayor of Kamloops, Reid Hamer-Jackson, to resign his position immediately.”

The vote was, you guessed it, 8-1 in favour. The motion will have to come forward to a regular council meeting to become official. It has no force in law and Hamer-Jackson already says he has no intention of resigning.

So what does this motion accomplish? It ensures that there will be not even a glimmer of hope of a truce. How can a mayor and councillors ever work towards common ground when one side has publicly called for the resignation of the other? They can’t.

Middleton’s motion was made possible by the one-sided report written by Braun. He says he was surprised by the motion, a fact that reveals a serious misunderstanding of the dynamics of what’s going on at Kamloops City Hall.

To put it bluntly, his report is a failure. It points out much about the mayor that is worthy of criticism but ignores the councillors’ very substantial contribution to the dysfunction. If Hamer-Jackson doesn’t carefully think about what the report says, it’s on him. Sadly, though, the report provides no motivation for councillors to change anything about how they act.

One more note on this saga. Braun proposes that City council give itself a retroactive raise. Why? Increased workload. He includes in that broad assessment — deputy mayors.

As a former mayor, Braun should know that the deputy mayor position is supposed to be a fill-in for when the mayor isn’t available to sign documents or attend events, and already receives extra pay for time spent. This council has taken the position considerably beyond the normal scope, all on its own.

So now councillors not only have been validated in their behaviour, but have a perfect excuse to give themselves raises.

I’m certain Henry Braun meant well, that he didn’t foresee the effect of his report. What was needed was a blueprint for crisis management and intervention. What he delivered was more fuel for the flames.

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.