EDITORIAL – City Hall must do better in providing public access to its meetings

An editorial by Mel Rothenburger.

AN INTERESTING EXCHANGE has been going on between Kamloops Citizens United and City Hall this past week. KCU complained that a number of residents were denied access to a public hearing on a controversial proposal to develop a mixed industrial-commercial-residential neighbourhood next to the Kamloops Regional Correctional Centre.

The KCU’s argument was that the City should have foreseen public interest in the proposal and held the hearing in a venue larger than council chambers, or at least provided an overflow room in City Hall, both options having been employed in the past.

Coun. Kelly Hall, the deputy mayor du jour, more or less brushed off the KCU’s concern and replied that the chambers need renovation.

Corporate officer Maria Mazzotta provided a more detailed response, explaining that safety regulations are the issue. (Back in the day, standing-room crowds were allowed into chambers, but no more.) She also mentioned that council is investigating the possibility of obtaining a bigger facility for its meetings.

Interesting comment, since a golden opportunity to do just that and split the costs among the City, TNRD and Kamloops school board was missed a few years ago. It was 2020, and the three local governmental bodies were all struggling with what to do with their public meetings in the midst of COVID.

The TNRD had moved its meetings from its own building into the Delta Hotel and then the Valley First Lounge in Sandman Centre in order to gain enough space to accommodate social distancing. The City and school district were in a similar conundrum.

That raised the idea of all three establishing a central venue they could share. Why, after all, have three different places? They all meet on different days and at varying times, so scheduling wouldn’t have been a problem. But it made too much sense, and was soon forgotten.

So, the City is now trying to figure out what to do with chambers that have been too small almost since the day they were built, and to find a replacement, or to renovate. But that’s an answer for the future; the problem exists now.

Which brings us back to the solution of either moving large-crowd meetings to larger venues, or providing an overflow room. The latter isn’t a very good answer. Neither is the excuse that the meetings are live streamed (streaming is good, but not a full solution).

It has not been uncommon for meetings of broad interest to be taken outside City Hall to places like hotel ballrooms, the big lounge in the hockey arena, or even to the Grand Hall at Thompson Rivers University.

That can still be done. The City has to do better in assuring public access to its meetings.

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.