Armchair Mayor

ROTHENBURGER – Five hurdles the performing arts centre must cross

January 12, 2019 // 1 Comment

IT’S A PRETTY SAFE assumption that another referendum on a performing arts centre is in the cards. The challenge will be to get it over the 50 per cent threshold. Since the [Continue]

ROTHENBURGER – We lost some very good people in 2018

January 5, 2019 // 2 Comments

I ONCE ARM-WRESTLED Dr. Cynthia Ross-Friedman. In March 2014 I was interviewing her for a segment of Coffee With the Armchair Mayor, a feature I used to do for CBC Radio. I [Continue]

ROTHENBURGER – The Armchair Mayor Awards for news misses of 2018

December 29, 2018 // 0 Comments

THE YEAR HAS GONE BY quickly, hasn’t it? Hard to believe it’s time for the 2018 Armchair Mayor Awards for news and news makers that made headlines but not necessarily in [Continue]

ROTHENBURGER – Frootloops council tackles crisis of snowless Christmas

December 22, 2018 // 4 Comments

THERE IS NO JOY in Frootloops. With only a few days to go before Christmas, the council gathers to deal with a crisis — no snow. As the newbies mill around trying to find [Continue]

ROTHENBURGER – There will never be another like Angelo Iacobucci

December 15, 2018 // 0 Comments

ANGELO IACOBUCCI was good column fodder. I once wrote about watching in amazement as he sat in City council chambers during a meeting and ate French fries and clipped his toe [Continue]

ROTHENBURGER – When will healthcare system wake up to the sleep crisis?

December 8, 2018 // 0 Comments

“YOU HAVE INSOMNIA,” the doctor told me as she scrolled through screen after screen of charts, graphs, notations and squiggly lines, the results of my night at the sleep [Continue]

ROTHENBURGER – Charge for overnight parking downtown? What’s next?

December 1, 2018 // 1 Comment

Not all ideas amount to anything, but without them nothing ever gets done THERE ARE HOPEFUL SIGNS from City council chambers. Rookies are sometimes afflicted by a bad case of [Continue]

ROTHENBURGER – News media need a new business model, not handouts

November 24, 2018 // 0 Comments

THE NEWS MEDIA are about to get help from the taxpayer — it’s help they neither deserve nor need. Federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau this week announced $600 million [Continue]

ROTHENBURGER – Does Christianity need more atheist church ministers?

November 17, 2018 // 1 Comment

WHAT’S ORGANIZED RELIGION coming to? When a minister in the United Church not only is an atheist, but is supported in her atheism by her church, you know times they are [Continue]

ROTHENBURGER – Tongue-twister name for new trail could be a good thing

November 10, 2018 // 2 Comments

HAVE YOU TRIED OUT the new Xget’tem’ Trail? That’s the name of the multi-use paved path from Sahali to the bottom of Peterson Creek Park. It means Deep Valley in [Continue]

ROTHENBURGER – When politicians cry, it doesn’t mean they’re crybabies

November 3, 2018 // 0 Comments

POLITICIANS DON’T CRY, do they? Well, yes they do. It was quite the tear fest during the final meeting of the outgoing Kamloops City council this week. I don’t recall [Continue]

ROTHENBURGER – Maybe Kamloops should leave arts and culture to Vernon

October 27, 2018 // 6 Comments

VERNON HAS SHOWN Kamloops how it’s done. Again. Last Saturday, Vernon residents voted to build themselves a $40-million multi-purpose cultural facility downtown. Of that, [Continue]

ROTHENBURGER – There’s no law that says politicians have to listen

October 20, 2018 // 0 Comments

DOES FREEDOM OF SPEECH include the right not to listen? If we refuse to listen to someone, are we violating their right to be heard? And what if we want to speak, but don’t [Continue]

ROTHENBURGER – Announcing winners of the 2018 ‘Best Civic Election Signs’

October 13, 2018 // 0 Comments

WITH ALL THE ISSUES to talk about in the civic election — parking, businesses taxes, dirty needles, the performing arts centre, housing and so on and so on — we seem to [Continue]