ROTHENBURGER – Wait, what happened at that City council meeting?

LET’S SORT OUT what happened at the Kamloops City council meeting yesterday (May 14, 2024).

First of all, for those who are wondering, the removal of Mayor Reid Hamer-Jackson as chair of the meeting was legal, though done in a decidedly heavy-handed way.

Let’s start there. The mayor was in the middle of his mayor’s report when he brought up the question of whether he had threatened to fire CAO David Trawin. It’s a very important point with the mayor, as he says such a threat was never made. More on that in a minute.

As Hamer-Jackson started to talk about the threat allegation, he was interrupted by deputy CAO Byron McCorkell, and then by deputy corporate officer Amanda Passmore telling him it was confidential information and he wasn’t allowed to discuss it in open meeting.

The mayor attempted to carry on but Karpuk then issued his challenge to the chair. What he actually said was, “Point of order, I’d like to challenge the chair, I’d like to challenge the chair at this point.”

Technically, as I understand it, a point of order and a challenge to the chair are two different things. A point of order, often raised by councillors during their meetings, is used when they think a procedural rule of some kind has been broken. A challenge to the chair is used when the chair rules on something, and a councillor thinks the ruling was incorrect.

In this case, Hamer-Jackson hadn’t ruled on anything; he was attempting to make a statement. At any rate, Karpuk then asked for a vote on his challenge, and then that Hamer-Jackson be replaced as chair of the meeting with the deputy mayor for the month, Kelly Hall.

Karpuk quoted the Community Charter as the authority for his challenge and removal of the mayor as chair. But his interpretation is open to question. Section 132 of the Charter says a council member can appeal “a decision of the presiding member” and there must immediately be a vote on whether the presiding member, i.e. chair, is sustained. It goes on to say if the presiding member refuses to put the question to council, the council can replace him as chair.

Except, Hamer-Jackson didn’t refuse to put the question. He hesitated because he was confused, and asked for clarification on what rule he had broken, but Karpuk wasted no time calling for the vote and asking for the mayor to be removed as chair.

All the legal steps were used; it was just a bit of a bum’s rush. While Karpuk cites the Charter as saying the chair can be challenged in order to keep a meeting “on track,” those words don’t appear in the Charter, which says a challenge can be issued on a “point of order.”

Which brings us back to the definition of a “point of order.” Stretching the meaning from a matter of procedure to the issue of confidentiality might hold up under scrutiny but it seems to me it broadens the meaning past the norm and opens it up to future abuse.

It might have happened that way because the move almost certainly didn’t come out of nowhere. No doubt it was studied and put in the bank for use at some undetermined point.

(The removal of Hamer-Jackson as chair carries no force past the one meeting but he didn’t attend an in-camera meeting that followed.)

Then there was that ruckus towards the end of the meeting when a couple of folks from the public gallery tried to get in on the conversation and were escorted from chambers as all councillors vacated. I missed some of that because it didn’t show up on Zoom as microphones were quickly cut off.

The procedure was correct for that situation. When a meeting is disrupted, the chair of the meeting can decide that councillors should leave chambers while the situation is sorted out. The act of councillors leaving the meeting room removes the audience for the disruptors.

There was one more incident, when Hamer-Jackson asked if the in-camera meeting called to follow the regular meeting included anything about him. Once again, he was jumped on for trying to discuss a confidential matter in public.

What’s interesting about that is that councillors are very sensitive about confidentiality at certain times but not at others. A couple of times, councillors have let it be known when Hamer-Jackson was going to be the subject of in-camera discussions, and even told him why he wasn’t invited. And, there was the notable case in which they and staff issued a news release stating they would be reversing, in an in-camera meeting, Hamer-Jackson’s suspension of McCorkell.

That was shocking on two counts: that the agenda for an in-camera meeting was revealed in detail ahead of time, and that the result was determined before the meeting was even held.

Back to Mayor Hamer-Jackson’s recent focus on the issue with David Trawin. It’s important to him because he strongly believes that if the truth came out he would be vindicated on the allegation that he threatened to fire the CAO.

That allegation has been well-publicized in the media since a copy of the Integrity Group report was leaked several months ago but Hamer-Jackson has never been given an opportunity to refute it. While Trawin has never publicly acknowledged the mayor’s version of what happened, Hamer-Jackson wants to put on the public record a text from Trawin he says clears him.

He figured his mayor’s report was the place to do that but, of course, he was shut down on the basis of confidentiality. Hamer-Jackson says councillors are aware of the communication, so it’s hard to figure why they and staff are so determined not to let him answer the allegation.

However, he may have gone as far as he can go on that point. Pushing it further will only result in further troubles between him and council-staff.

Regardless, he certainly learned yesterday that council meetings aren’t available to him as the venue to talk about it.

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.