ROTHENBURGER – The mayor’s complicated road to nomination

FILING NOMINATION PAPERS for civic office is a relatively simple procedure. Gather the requisite number of signatures from supporters in your jurisdiction, provide some financial information, and submit the form to City Hall.

When it comes to the incumbent mayor of Kamloops, though, nothing is simple.

“What are you doing?” Reid Hamer-Jackson asked when I called him this morning (Sept. 10, 2026) to check on his plans for filing his papers. The deadline, after all, is tomorrow, Friday at 4 p.m.

“Nothing much,” I said. “Just here at home getting some things done.”

Well, he said, he’s going to file his papers this morning and he wants some people there to witness it.

“What time?” I ask.

“Ten o’clock,” he says.

“It’s 9:30,” I say. “I can’t get there that fast.”

But I’m curious. OK, he says, he might be able to hold off a bit, so I quickly change out of my rough clothes, hop in the truck and head for town. On the way, the mayor calls to say he’s postponed his appointment with chief election officer Alisha Beday until 10:30.

As I drive, I reflect upon the fact that Hamer-Jackson haters might take my presence at his visit to City Hall this morning as some sort of endorsement, and as another indication I’m one of those RHJ club members, but I don’t much care. Given what’s been going on the past few days (more on that in a minute) I’m not about to turn down an opportunity to be eyes and ears on this event.

Anyway, I pull into the City Hall parking lot in plenty of time. Richard Wilbur, who writes the Kamloops Critic blog, is already there. We chat for a few minutes until the mayor shows up. Then a friend of the mayor’s arrives.

Inside, the mayor announces himself at the front counter. Momentarily, deputy chief election officer Graham Hrycan appears and Hamer-Jackson is invited into a side office. Hamer-Jackson says he wants the rest of us to be there too, since he’s not supposed to speak to staff alone.

At first he’s told that’s not allowed but Hrycan goes to confer with Beday, who emerges and says one witness can come in with him. Hamer-Jackson’s friend gets the nod, and a half hour later they emerge, with Hamer-Jackson now officially on the ballot.

I suggest the traditional photo of him on the front steps of City Hall with his nomination papers. He demurs for reasons I’m not clear on except it has something to do with his concern for getting into hot water with the powers that be. Instead, he suggests, let’s go down the street to his Tru Market Auto car lot.

Well, OK. When I pull into the car lot, the mayor is chatting with a street guy named Carson, whom he’s known for a long time. They joke about the time Carson threatened to spray paint the mayor’s car.

The mayor congratulates him on being clean, and explains he’s running for re-election. Carson has no objection to having his photo taken with the mayor. As they talk, a woman is sleeping on the steps to a side door of the Tru Market building. We’re assured she’s OK and, a few minutes later, she gets up and walks away.

The whole scene is appropriate to the reasons Hamer-Jackson wanted to be mayor in the first place — helping homeless folks and cleaning up street disorder. Of course, the degree of his success in that quest is a subject for debate that will, no doubt, factor large in the election campaign.

But let’s back up a bit to how things got to where they are as of today. For the past couple of weeks or so, the mayor has been flooding fellow councillors, especially the deputy mayor of the day — with copies to various media — with questions and requests for various documents.

One of his questions among the many has been how to go about filing his nomination papers given the sanctions against him speaking with certain members of staff. He wanted a copy of a “letter of engagement” that was supposed to be signed by him and the listed staff members when they meet face to face.

Deputy mayor Kelly Hall informed him that he’d looked into it and it was alright for Hamer-Jackson to make an appointment with Beday. (Just a quick aside: it’s not mandatory for a candidate to sit down with an elections officer when filing nomination papers, but it’s recommended in case there are any wrinkles that need to be worked out.)

But Hamer-Jackson kept insisting he needed a copy of that letter. “They (council) said there’s a letter, where’s the letter?”

“There is no letter and no non-contact protective measures in place regarding Elections Officer, Alisha Beday,” Hall pinged Hamer-Jackson a couple of days ago. “There are also none in place for the other election officers…”

But, apparently not wanting to take Hall’s word for it, Hamer-Jackson kept pushing, and back and forth it went. One might think the mayor was playing a bit of silly bugger, but he insists he just wanted to be sure he wasn’t walking into some sort of “trap” where something he might say in the presence of a staff member was misinterpreted.

But then, today, before filing his papers, the mayor found in his emails a letter sent yesterday by City lawyer Denise McCabe of Fulton Co. reinforcing that election officers aren’t covered in any restrictions against him communicating with staff.

“As you have been advised on several occasions, you may communicate directly with the City’s election staff, including Chief Election Officer Alisha Beday and Deputy Chief Election Officers Graham Hrycan and Rozina Ripa. None of these election staff are designated as Category 1, Category 2, or Category 3 Protected Staff.”

McCabe’s letter goes on to say, “We understand that you have also requested a template ‘engagement letter’ for staff to sign. No such letter exists.”

Which flummoxes the mayor, who insists he was told by councillors on previous occasions that there was such a letter.

As I said, nothing is ever simple with Mayor Reid Hamer-Jackson. But, as of today, he’s officially on the ballot.

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.