EDITORIAL – Will Nelly Dever’s slate succeed where others have failed?

An editorial by Mel Rothenburger.

FORMER COUNCILLOR Nelly Dever will announce a slate of candidates this week, with herself running for mayor and a number of others going for councillor.

As I reported Friday, details are sketchy because she’s saving them for the big announcement the day after tomorrow (Wednesday, May 13, 2026). But the new group will be promoted as like-minded people with a new vision for the city.

Just who those like-minded people are is, at the moment, open to speculation because she hasn’t named them.

As I briefly mentioned Friday, maybe now is the time, given the state of things, that a slate can succeed. But Dever’s mystery slate, assuming it becomes registered as Team Kamloops, raises the possibility of not one, but two slates this year.

Although it’s been totally quiet, the Conservative Electors Association is registered as an “elector organization” with Elections B.C., with Kamloops listed as one of the jurisdictions in which it may run candidates.

It may be, of course, that the Dever slate will run for the Conservatives.

In the past, slates have been a total failure in Kamloops civic politics. Last election, I wrote an editorial about it when mayoral candidate Ray Dhaliwal announced Action 22 Kamloops, so named after Phil Gaglardi’s Action Team 88.

Originality isn’t a thing in naming slates, apparently. As I’ve mentioned, from what I understand, Dever is calling hers “Team Kamloops.”

Anyway, slates just haven’t worked. Action Team 88 succeeded in getting several of its candidates elected, including Gaglardi as mayor. After that, it was all down hill as its members refused to vote as one. The team turned out to be no team at all.

Gaglardi wasn’t the first to try it, though. A decade before his Action Team 88, the Kamloops Voters Association elected the mayor and two councillors but didn’t generate anything much in the way of policies.

Then there was PACE , CORE and the CCC. All of them failed at policy. What some succeeded at was helping candidates get their names out through party affiliation, saving money.

Civic political parties have proven to be an unpopular concept here, though, with most people of the mind that municipal candidates should run as individuals and think for themselves. Will the “No incumbents in 2026” cry raise slate politics to the front in Kamloops?

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 was 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.