ROTHENBURGER – ‘You try to help people, and this is what you get’

 

Mayor Reid Hamer-Jackson’s auto dealership has been vandalized again, and this time it was totally ransacked

IT’S BEEN A BAD couple of weeks for Mayor Reid Hamer-Jackson.

Bad weeks are nothing new for the embattled mayor but mid-summer has been especially unkind. Nursing four cracked ribs from a mountain-biking accident several days ago, he stood on a floor of broken glass today (Monday, July 28, 2025) surveying his latest misfortune — his thoroughly trashed car-lot office on Victoria Street West.

It’s hard to visualize the extent of the damage without actually seeing it but, trust me, it’s terrible — the only thing worse would be if the entire building was leveled.

The car lot has been there for 30 years but it’s been closed for quite some time and is a tough spot to protect.

The criminals — we can’t call them thieves because robbery obviously wasn’t the motive — broke in sometime last Thursday night. They did it by busting through a door that opens to the back of Tru Market Auto, then kicked a hole in the wall of a locked kitchenette-washroom area to gain entrance to the main part of the building.

A toilet was smashed in the process — when Hamer-Jackson arrived at the scene, water was leaking in from the broken pipe.

It must have taken hours to wreck the place so thoroughly. A damage assessment hasn’t been done yet but the bill will surely amount to tens of thousands of dollars.

Nothing escaped their vengeance, if that’s what it was. Shattered glass litters the entire floor of the lobby, offices and store rooms. Computer screens, hard drives, audio visual equipment, a photo copier and a printer sit dented or in pieces. Doors have been ripped off cabinets. Cleaning supplies has been tipped over. A large one-way window that partitioned the reception area from the offices is in a thousand shards. Even the coffee maker has been smashed.

The frames of personal photos and memorabilia have been broken along with everything else. Ironically, a framed Code of Conduct certificate from an automotive association lies on the floor. Documents are strewn everywhere.

And yet, nothing seems to be missing. Expensive tools were untouched. “I can’t think of anything they took,” he says, but adds, “I get along well with the street population.”

He has no idea who, specifically, is responsible for the carnage but has no doubt — “100 per cent” — that it was someone from that growing street population. Tru Market is directly across Victoria Street from the Rosethorn House and Emerald House shelters.

“I don’t know what the motivation is. We need to get some help from the government, social service agencies, to support them,” he says of the homeless who congregate in the area.

“You spend years working hard for people, trying to help them, and this is what you get,” he says sadly.

Police have dusted the premises and taken samples of some blood smeared on a wall near a light switch.

We do a quick walk-around outside to look at where the culprits ripped out and stole the security cameras. Behind the back wall, between the building and railway tracks, a man who is obviously stoned stands — barely — doing nothing but passing time inside his own head.

Hamer-Jackson tries to talk to him, asking him where he lives, but the man is in such a zombie state he can’t respond with anything intelligible.

The Tru Market property is a common place for the homeless and drug addicted to hang out. The mayor talked with a group of them a few weeks ago and one claimed that homeless are being told to go there when Victoria Street West day spaces are closed or there’s no room at the shelters.

They complained about lack of resources and insisted support staff are sometimes under-qualified, and that they find themselves with nowhere to go.

 “You have to sit on the street or wander around,” said one. “Unless you die, there’s nowhere for you to go.”

So what’s the answer to all this? I ask the mayor.

“I plan to continue to work to get a safer community,” he says.

And what is that plan?

“A forensic audit of all harm reduction facilities — motels (used for temporary housing), supportive housing, shelters.”

But you’ve already tried to get that, and failed.

“I’ll do it as a business man,” the frustrated mayor replies. “My council won’t support it. They don’t give a shit.”

A proper audit, he says, “will show up the gaps. You can’t put people with mental health issues in a building with only two people looking after them. It’s (an audit) going to show you the metrics.”

As we’re speaking, I glance across the street and see a couple of people slumped on the sidewalk beside their shopping carts. This is the population of Victoria Street West these days. And the merchants are left to pick up the pieces.

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.