ARMCHAIR ARCHIVES – Strange strategies out at the ranch

The following column was first published in the Kamloops Daily News on Jan. 19, 2012:

THE SOUTH THOMPSON INN and Conference Centre out by Rivershore golf course will be a busy place for the next couple of days. A baker’s two dozen board members and a phalanx of support staff gather at the inn for coffee and muffins this morning, followed with some regular business and then the start of strategic planning sessions.

The South Thompson Inn is a nice guest ranch but it’s not luxurious — a good choice for the board to get out of the office.

There’s nothing wrong with City councils and regional boards leaving the familiar surroundings of their chambers or boardrooms to strategize elsewhere. To the contrary, it’s a smart thing to do.

Being in a different room sitting in different chairs, looking at different walls, raises attention and energy levels. Enthusiasm is more sustainable.

And if you’re going to sit in a meeting, with the same people, for two days, it helps to be comfortable.  No argument with that.

The bonus of getting away is that there are fewer interruptions from those back at work — turn off the cell phone and catch up on calls during the breaks, but nobody’s going to be knocking on the door with an “urgent” message that just has to be taken care of pronto.

The problem with many of these taxpayer-funded getaways in the past was that they got too far away. It’s not necessary to go outside the home community to a beach or hilltop resort — down the street or around the corner is far enough.

So, the extra $1,500 the TNRD will spend to strategize away from the downtown Civic Building this time is well worth it.

But here’s where I must pause to sort through my broken record collection and pull out an old classical tune labelled — “Please Let Me In.”

Civic politicians hate being asked why strategic planning meetings are always held behind closed doors. It’s perfectly legal to do so, but indefensible.

TNRD administrator Sukh Gill offers a very clear, logical-sounding, and ridiculous explanation of why the regional board will meet in secret.

Gill says board and staff want to discuss things without worry about violating the land-legal-labour rule — that’s the stuff they are bound by law to discuss in camera. “We end up discussing possible personality matters, land matters or new services,” he says.

Well, of course they wouldn’t want to talk about land purchases, legal advice, or labour contracts in the open. So, why not divide the strategic planning meetings into public and in-camera sessions, exactly the way boards and councils do with every regular business meeting?

The real reason these things aren’t open is that the politicians just don’t want them to be — the forthright explanation is their insistence that they want an opportunity to talk privately without the public present so they needn’t worry about sounding dumb.

When Kamloops council goes off to its own strategic planning session in another week, it will be by invitation-only just like the TNRD’s. Yet, several council members have proclaimed that “public engagement” is at the top of their priority list for the strategy meetings.

In other words, they want to talk, in secret, about how open they want to be. And they want to talk about their vision for Kamloops without anyone listening in.

A strange way to encourage “public engagement.”

Mel Rothenburger is a former mayor of Kamloops, former school board chair, former editor of The Kamloops Daily News, and a former director on the Thompson-Nicola Regional District board. He was awarded the Jack Webster Foundation’s lifetime achievement award in 2011 and was a 2019 Commentator of the Year finalist in the Webster Awards. Contact him at mrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca.