EDITORIAL – Are council chambers the best place to air dirty laundry?

An editorial by Mel Rothenburger.

THE FREQUENT INTERJECTIONS by Mayor Reid Hamer-Jackson during the public submissions section of yesterday’s (Nov. 26, 2024) City council meeting were disruptive enough but worse was yet to come.

The public submissions (not to be confused with public inquiries) were people’s opportunity for a say on the access hub for the homeless slated for the former Butler Auto property at 142 Tranquille Road. The mayor, who focuses heavily on increasing the 24-7 presence of outreach workers as well as treatment-focused facilities for the homeless, doesn’t like the fact the new hub will be “wet.”

He has a bad habit of talking too much when others are having their turn at debating issues. Coun. Katie Neustaeter summed it up when she told him, “We’re here to listen. This is not a council inquisition.”

At that point, Coun. Kelly Hall joined in, suggesting that if the mayor had already formed his opinion on the hub, he should remove himself from the discussion. Hamer-Jackson, however, said he hadn’t made up his mind yet.

Coun. Bill Sarai pointed out Hamer-Jackson was quoted in a CHNL story the day before expressing concerns about the hub plan, with the headline on the story stating, “Kamloops Mayor slams north shore shelter plans ahead of Permit decision.”

“That’s their headline,” Hamer-Jackson said, refusing to yield the floor.

Eventually, council voted 7-1 to limit a temporary use permit for the facility to 20 months.

The meeting then moved on to an excruciatingly long report from Coun. Kelly Hall on committee appointments for next year, with constant questions from the mayor about why members of the public weren’t appointed to committees. (The answer was that they’re appointed to working groups instead.)

But all that was just business as usual for the council. It was during the Mayor’s Report section of the agenda that everything fell apart. Hamer-Jackson asked councillors to remove the sanctions that have been placed on him, reinstate his full paycheque retroactively, and put him back on committees.

The reason, he explained, was an email councillors had received from a member of the public that might change their minds, though he didn’t elaborate on its contents.

There was a bit of confusion when Coun. Dale Bass said she wasn’t aware of such an email but then found that it had been received after all. The mayor carried on about who had sent the email, naming a family member of a councillor, resulting in some outbursts about his comments being “a horrifying way to treat people” and “gross manipulation.”

I don’t intend to get into further details of who said what about whom to whom because the entire scene was a little too tawdry for words. Presumably it will be in the video of the meeting, and that’s where it should stay.

Maybe there will be further enlightenment down the road that will deserve more attention, but for now it’s just yet another disturbing moment in the litany of disturbing moments that keep coming up at council meetings.

Surely there’s a better place to hang out so much dirty laundry than the council chambers.

Oh, and the mayor’s motion to rescind the sanctions died for lack of a seconder.

Mel Rothenburger is a former regular contributor to CFJC-TV and CBC radio, publishes the ArmchairMayor.ca opinion website, and is a recipient of the Jack Webster Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award, and a Webster Foundation Commentator of the Year finalist. 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.