Bepple – ArmchairMayor.ca

BEPPLE – City’s housing strategy needs to consider shrinking families

January 19, 2022 // 2 Comments

WHEN PEOPLE SAY they want housing for families, it’s important to think of what that means. In the 2016 census by Stats Canada, there were just under 37,000 households in [Continue]

BEPPLE – Previous political experience a prerequisite for running for mayor

January 12, 2022 // 4 Comments

IF YOU WANT to be mayor of Kamloops, you’d better already be a politician. Or that’s what one would think looking at the past. In 1986, John Dormer, a local [Continue]

BEPPLE – There’s a downside to the increase in our property assessments

January 5, 2022 // 2 Comments

I’M RICH. Or, more correctly, I’m richer. Like every property owner in Kamloops, I’ve seen a significant increase in the assessed value of my home. From last year [Continue]

BEPPLE – Here’s to those who got us through 2021, and will again in 2022

December 29, 2021 // 0 Comments

JANUARY IS NAMED after the Roman God Janus, who had two faces. One looked ahead, the other behind. So Jan. 1, which most of the of the world celebrates as New Year’s Day, [Continue]

BEPPLE – We live in a time of rules, but we don’t need them for everything

December 22, 2021 // 3 Comments

RULES, RULES, RULES. We’re told when to wear a mask. How many people we can celebrate with. How fast we can drive. Where we can buy alcohol and cannabis. How long we [Continue]

BEPPLE – Shuffling homeless out of town won’t solve the housing problem

December 15, 2021 // 3 Comments

PETTY CRIME and public drug use are on the rise. Residents and businesses alike are more and more frustrated and unsettled by anti-social behaviour in Kamloops. Something [Continue]

BEPPLE – Beating COVID is a little like shovelling snow from our sidewalks

December 8, 2021 // 3 Comments

ALL I CAN SAY IS that I’m glad I live on a city block where people shovel their sidewalks. When I look up and down the street, from one end of the block to the other, the [Continue]

BEPPLE – The dedicated people who saved St. Andrew’s on the Square

December 1, 2021 // 1 Comment

ST. ANDREW’S ON THE SQUARE at the corner of 2nd Avenue and Seymour Street is such an iconic building in Kamloops that we could easily forget that its fate could have [Continue]

BEPPLE – Small-town leaders deserve full-time pay in times like these

November 24, 2021 // 2 Comments

IT IS AMAZING AND INSPIRING to see how people have supported the recent disasters caused by climate change. People are rescuing livestock stranded by floods. Heavy [Continue]

BEPPLE – Milobar has been missing in action on the climate-change file

November 17, 2021 // 0 Comments

WE ARE PAST the point of debating whether climate change is real. International panels of scientists have established again and again that our climate is heating on a [Continue]

BEPPLE – Gathering to remember others strengthens our spirits

November 10, 2021 // 0 Comments

THIS REMEMBRANCE DAY, I should be thinking of all the lives lost in years gone by because of wars. Some wars which ended before my birth, some more recent, some that have [Continue]

BEPPLE – The many positives of living in the city outweigh the negatives

November 3, 2021 // 0 Comments

AS MUCH AS WE THINK of ourselves as a land of trees, lakes and wilderness, more and more Canadians are an urban people. According to Statistics Canada, in 2001, 81.0 per cent [Continue]

BEPPLE – Real change on climate change begins right here at home

October 27, 2021 // 1 Comment

FROM OCT. 31 TO NOV. 12, the most important meetings of our times will happen in Glasgow, Scotland. There, COP26, which means 26th Conference of the Parties, will occur. [Continue]

BEPPLE – Our civic politicians are starting to reflect diverse backgrounds

October 20, 2021 // 1 Comment

WHEN TERRY LAKE was elected as mayor in Kamloops in 2005, I don’t recall the lead in the news stories calling him British. This despite the fact that he was born in [Continue]