ROTHENBURGER – Mayor’s latest gambit aims straight at the ballot box

TWO NOTICES of motion submitted by Mayor Reid Hamer-Jackson stand no chance of being approved, and he’ll be lucky to even get a seconder for discussion.

One is that paid meals for councillors on meeting days be terminated; the other is that the future hiring of close family members of council members be stopped.

Both will likely find some broad public support but councillors won’t be able to go along. Let’s talk about meal allowances first. There’s some history of abuse of spending on meals by local government members, particularly while they’re travelling on the taxpayers’ dime.

Meal allowances have to be tightly controlled. For example, the TNRD totally revamped its meal allowance policy in the wake of that financial audit a few years ago and has a rigorous policy on it.

On meeting days — when the board meets in the morning and carries through the lunch hour into the afternoons — directors used to go across the street to a restaurant, where they were expected to spend within specified limits. Nevertheless, the board began having sandwiches and coffee brought into the board room instead.

(I was on the board when the audit took place and explained in detail on my Area P Post website my own concerns and actions with respect to responsible spending. I’m happy to reprise it at any time.)

I don’t think our elected reps should be expected to bring their own brown bags every time they have long meetings, as long as there’s a close accounting with strict limits.

Kamloops councillors will find it hard to give up the meals. Hamer-Jackson tried the same thing two years ago, when he moved to ban paid meals on meeting days not just for council but for senior staff as well.

Of course, it went nowhere, just as it will on his second try, and just as his attempt at a policy on the hiring of close family will go nowhere. The fact that some of the councillors have close family members who work for the City has long bothered Hamer-Jackson. He believes it opens up the potential for nepotism, and points out that several other local governments have policies on it: Vancouver, Richmond, Sechelt, Central Coast Regional District, Port Alberni and Logan Lake.

Those places have policies touching on the hiring of relatives of councillors or administrators but generally deal with it through conflict of interest rules rather than bans. Richmond, for example, does not “unduly restrict or enhance employment opportunities within the City based on family relationships” but adds, “the City will not employ, appoint, transfer or promote a Relative of a current employee where the action will result in the risk of real or potential conflict of interest.”

That seems fair. Obviously, no council member should be in the room when decisions are being made that involve that person’s close family members employed by the City, but Hamer-Jackson’s motion goes further. He wants a policy “that prohibits the hiring or employment of immediate family members of Council members while that Council member is in office.”

So, if you are a close relative of somebody who’s on the council, forget any hopes you might have had of getting a job with the City, should Hamer-Jackson’s happen to be adopted. (His motion specifically excludes those already working for the City and applies only to future hiring.)

Nonetheless, the motion might prove embarrassing or even annoying to councillors.

Just as annoying to them is a third proposal from the mayor, that a thorough review of staff numbers and pay be done with a view to cutting several percentage points off this year’s budget increase. He claims the increase to administration numbers and pay in recent years has been disproportionate to what’s been happening with CUPE employees.

Needless to say, the idea of slashing administration has gone over like a fart in church. Cuts to the extent proposed by Hamer-Jackson have already been deemed impractical and unpalatable. In an email circulated among council members, Coun. Stephen Karpuk called it “irresponsible misguide fiscal engineering” and concluded, “Just resign please.”

Impractical and unlikely as Hamer-Jackson’s proposals are, if he’s crazy he’s crazy like a fox. By rejecting them, the councillors risk looking like they want to live high off the taxpayer’s dollar while the mayor looks like the guardian of responsible fiscal control.

The mayor knows he won’t win these battles; he has his eye on the war.

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.