EDITORIAL – Can Bepple and the mayor work together if both are re-elected?

An editorial by Mel Rothenburger.

WAKING UP to CBC Daybreak has been a part of my lifestyle for quite some time. The radio comes on at 5:45 a.m. and I listen to the marine forecast and whatever else is on until the 6 a.m. news and the start of the local Daybreak.

I catch some of the interviews and a bit of the local news report as I pry myself out of the sack and begin my day. This morning (March 5, 2026), I thought Marcella Bernardo must have wildly misread her own notes on one particular item. Either that, or I was hallucinating.

But no, it was real. In an interview after Nancy Bepple’s announcement Wednesday that she would seek another term on City council, the incumbent councillor was asked if she thought she could get along with Mayor Reid Hamer-Jackson if both of them are re-elected.

Excellent question. Bepple’s answer was that, yes, she certainly could. “It doesn’t actually matter who else is around the table,” she said.

Pardon? Because it certainly matters now. Nobody who’s been paying any attention at all could possibly say with conviction that the current council gets along. But then Bepple claimed she does get along with the mayor.

“I do a great job working with the mayor, actually,” she stated, presumably with a straight face, (although one doesn’t know for sure, it being radio and all).

Bepple, it’s safe to say, is one of the mayor’s biggest detractors, following behind, perhaps, the likes of Kelly Hall, Bill Sarai, Dale Bass and Katie Neustaeter. During council meetings, she and Hamer-Jackson frequently interrupt each other. Bepple’s tone in reacting to the mayor is often, shall we say, less than agreeable.

One of her favourite interjections is to call a point of order when she doesn’t like what the mayor is saying, whether it involves a point of order or not. So, okay, she’s free to proclaim that she will work well with the mayor if they’re both re-elected, but I see scant evidence it’s happening currently.

The entire council has made a point of not working with the mayor, and he hasn’t succeeded in working with them either. A better answer to the question might be something like this: “It’s been a challenge this term, but I’ll certainly do my very best to work with the mayor next term if we’re both re-elected.”

The same question — about working together — should be asked of every council incumbent who decides to run for re-election. It should be in every post-announcement interview and every questionnaire done by the various community groups that like to do questionnaires with the candidates.

Hopefully, they’ll all say they can work with the mayor during the next term, because they’ve been a flop at it this term. And the mayor should say the same about the councillors. But putting it into practice will take more effort than saying it.

Mel Rothenburger is a former regular contributor to CFJC-TV and CBC radio, publishes the ArmchairMayor.ca opinion website, writes for the Kamloops Chronicle 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.