COFFEE WITH THE MAYOR – ‘Keep budget increase to 2%, and cut councillors’ and managers’ pay’

A conversation with Mayor Reid Hamer-Jackson as Kamloops City council ponders the annual budget and tax rate increase for residents, which is now expected to be just over seven per cent instead of an earlier projection of about nine per cent. Parts of the following have been edited for brevity and clarity.

Armchair Mayor: So with the approval of the annual budget coming up, it’s looking like a 7.2 per cent increase for homeowners this year; is that pretty good in your books?

Hamer-Jackson: No, no I don’t think so. As you know, I’ve been taking pay cuts, I’m the mayor, and I think we’ve gotta start looking at the top and it looks like in the last five years we’ve hired an additional 30 managers, and there’s a whole bunch of salary increases I see and I think there’s areas where we could get three or four union employees for the price of one manager and from what I see we’ve got a lot of managers that aren’t managing a lot of people and I just think we can cut that down. And I think that we’ve got to really start to look at, you know, why when BC Housing buys a property and they turn it over to someone else, why not us? Why can’t that be our asset? There’s a lot of seniors getting taxed out of their homes right now, so some people that work at the top end for the City and possibly City councillors, you know, I think we all might want to look at taking a pay cut.

AM: Are there any particular members of management or management positions you think should be cut or are you talking about just a general review of management numbers versus union employees?

RHJ: I think we’ve gotta take a good look at it. We might be able to cut out a couple of million dollars in that alone. And, again, we’re losing tax revenue to BC Housing. I asked in council where we’re getting that back, I haven’t seen a clear vision where the Province is paying us for that. I also don’t believe at this point we need to hire more CSOs, I think we’re downloading, I really believe we’ve got to continue working with the Province and get outreach workers on the streets, paid for by the Province through the social agencies. If we had outreach workers to help the social agencies help people, help get them into a safer environment. There’s so many things we can do.

AM: Let me get back to that in a minute, but you mentioned that all members of council should think about taking a pay cut. Are you going to propose that?

RHJ: I might, yeah, I could put a motion forward, it might not be seconded, but I think they just have to take a look at it themselves, why don’t we take a 25 per cent pay cut, you know, and maybe we’ve got to start looking at top management cuts. We’re very top heavy. If we could cut two or three million dollars off the top when people are struggling to pay their taxes, having a hard time getting food to eat and things like that.

AM: So what you’re saying is both top management and City councillors should look at their salaries with a view to possible reductions?

RHJ: You bet. They’ve given me pay cuts and made allegations and innuendos, and that’ll all come out but if they think it’s OK to deduct somebody’s pay because some lawyer investigator in North Vancouver feels the mayor was misleading the public because he didn’t know the guy in a blue Ford truck driving by who yelled ‘pervert’ to him and they want to give pay cuts for that I think we should just do it for the sake of the community and, again, there’s people having a hard time paying their taxes and a hard time eating.

AM: When you’re talking about CSOs, and mention almost in the same breath outreach workers, it sounds as though you’re saying there should be fewer CSOs, or at least not more than we currently have, but hire more outreach workers.

RHJ: Well, not us, we could hire another 50 CSOs but that’s just going to move people from here to there to there, on the back of the taxpayers of Kamloops. I believe we need to get the Province working together with the social agencies and hiring outreach workers so we can have them 24/7, so it’s very little cost to the local taxpayers, it’s going to be a provincial cost but I could walk up to a bunch of people hanging out and as an outreach worker I could say ‘hey, come on inside and let’s see what we can do for you here.’ Different activities than sitting on every corner and behind every building.

AM: So get the Province to pay for more outreach workers.

RHJ: Oh, yeah, for sure.

AM: But that wouldn’t save on the City’s budget. That would just get you more outreach workers.

RHJ: Yeah, but then you wouldn’t need more CSOs, or more RCMP. I mean, c’mon, the RCMP are doing a great job, I mean, look at what’s happening, they’re overwhelmed. All they can do is move people along but an outreach worker can walk down onto a beach or into a group of people and, especially a lived experience outreach worker can do a lot of good things, and they have, and they do.

AM: You once proposed that the City hire more outreach workers and the council turned you down.

RHJ: No, that wasn’t it. I talked to other organizations, non-profits that felt they needed more outreach workers, so my idea was to advocate to the Province for more outreach workers through our social agencies. When you put 50 people struggling with addictions into a building and you hire two people to look after them, I mean, c’mon, let’s get serious.

AM: Do you have a target in mind of what you think a tax increase should be kept to?

RHJ: Yeah, I have a target of about two per cent.

AM: That sounds like the old days, the two-percent solution that councils for many years targeted.

RHJ: I don’t know about that because I’m new to politics but again, there’s so much we can do.

AM: Don’t you think you’re leaving it too late for these ideas, shouldn’t you have started advocating for them sooner?

RHJ: Never too late, but if I brought it up it’s gonna get quashed, right away. So, no, it’s not too late.

AM: Are you gonna bring these things up on Tuesday?

RHJ: I plan to, if they don’t shut me down. We’re gonna be talking about the budget, when you can get two or three union employees for the price of one manager…. There’s nowhere I’ve seen in the budget that starts at the top, and the CEO of the City, which is the mayor, has taken some pretty drastic pay cuts recently.

AM: The cuts to your pay came about through sanctions from the rest of council; are you thinking that you’d be willing to maintain that, because you’ve asked that your pay be restored.

RHJ: No, I wouldn’t, because I was taken off the TNRD, which was false allegations. If you give me all my pay back, I’ll take a pay cut too, but, I want my money back that the citizens of Kamloops voted for me to do the job. I want that back, not people taking my pay away that are on council that didn’t vote for me.

AM: Why weren’t you at the special committee of the whole meeting?

RHJ: I watched the whole meeting, and there were no final decisions being made there anyway, they just kind of rehashed everything.

AM: So why weren’t you there; if you could watch it, why didn’t you sit in the room?

RHJ: Like I said, I had personal and business things to take care of, so I watched it after. They call these special meetings without the proper process. And earlier in the day they had a CAO agenda review meeting and I believe those are council meetings, so they just keep doing things that aren’t going the proper way through the Community Charter and things like that.

AM: I won’t ask about your personal reasons for not being there but when you say professional reasons for not being there do you mean City Hall reasons or something else?

RHJ: Yeah, I think we’ve gotta start doing things properly and I think  we’ve got to abide by the Community Charter and whenever you get five councillors in a room and a bunch of staff and you have a CAO agenda review meeting, that’s a quorum and that’s a meeting, and there’s no documentation about it and I stopped going to them a long time ago.

AM: One more question, I believe you’ve referred to the need to save money on Code of Conduct investigations and that you feel that can be done. How do you think that would come about?

RHJ: I’ve actually talked to some  investigators around the province that are willing to do Code of Conduct complaints; they charge about a quarter of what high-priced lawyers (charge). A couple of these investigation companies they’re licenced with the B.C. Investigations Association and they’re ready and willing to do proper investigations. They’re not lawyers, but I’m gonna start my own Code of Conduct complaints, I’ve got some advice from some other people. I believe we can do it at a quarter of the price… and talk about the budget, maybe we don’t need another $300,000 for fictitious or frivolous complaints.

AM: Are there any specific Code of Conduct complaints that you’re planning to file that you can share right now?

RHJ: Well, I think there’s quite a few, there’s a fair bit, but I don’t want to get into it because once you file a Code of Conduct complaint you go into confidential and you can’t talk about it while there’s an investigation going on but I’ll be filing some based on advice from some experienced people.

AM: Anything else you want to add?

RHJ: I’ve got lots but it’s ongoing.