Kamloops city council calls out mayor over 'chaotic' behaviour

UPDATE: 2:52 p.m.

Kamloops city councillors have accused Mayor Reid Hamer-Jackson of lying and called him out for alleged “chaotic and unpredictable behaviour” at city hall.

In a prepared statement, the city's eight councillors said the mayor’s decision to hand-select citizens to serve on committees without consultation or an equitable application process is in "direct opposition” to transparent governance.

On Friday at noon, all eight councillors filed into city hall council chambers with a prepared response to sweeping changes Hamer-Jackson has made to council’s standing committees. The mayor was not present.

Coun. Katie Neustaeter read aloud a statement to reporters and a handful of others in the gallery, saying councillors want to be clear that their concerns “are not a reflection of our views of the individuals that the mayor has handpicked to serve on committees.”

“In addition to disrespecting council, our great unease is primarily with the lack of an equitable application process, indifference for due diligence and best practice, a disregard for the impact to sensitive community partner requests, an absence of reassurance around confidentiality, and the neglect of unbiased vetting,” Neustaeter said.

“This is all in direct opposition to the concept of a transparent, accountable and open governance, and gives unfair access to select members of the public that are not available to all. Therefore, this council cannot remain silent.”

A document obtained by Castanet Kamloops on Thursday showed Hamer-Jackson chose to remove several councillors from committee chair positions.

He added citizens to each committee — some of whom are Hamer-Jackson’s friends and election campaign supporters. Two failed election candidates have also been appointed to committees, one of whom has been given chair responsibilities.

When speaking with Castanet Kamloops on Thursday night, Hamer-Jackson denied he appointed the new committee members because they are his friends, pointing to the work accomplishments of individuals like Bud Smith, Sonny Leonard, Jim Budnaryk and Deb Newby.

“Business is business, and friends are friends. This isn't a friend thing, this is, let's get it done,” Hamer-Jackson said.

“Everybody should be positive about it. I mean, when you get more people involved and more heads together, especially when you get experienced people like this, I think it's great.”

He said he didn’t run his selections by councillors before releasing the document on Thursday afternoon.

“I can tell you one thing, I sure wasn't going to have a council meeting over it and let them vote about it. I mean, come on,” Hamer-Jackson said.

On Thursday, the mayor said he decided to add citizens to the standing committees in order to bring more knowledge to the table and to relieve some councillors of a heavy workload. He said committees are only scheduled to have a few meetings per year and he doesn’t “see a lot of change” happening.

(Standing committees have only just held their first meetings for this council term.)

Reading from the councillors’ statement on Friday, Neustaeter said Hamer-Jackson has been telling “blatant untruths.”

“No councillor you see before you today has ever expressed a desire to be ‘relieved of our workload.’ No councillor has ever expressed that they were 'kind of overwhelmed.’ No chair has shown any ‘lack of commitment or has any conflict.’ No committee has only 'two or three meetings booked for a whole year,’” she said.

Neustaeter said no councillors were consulted about the unilateral committee changes, and no meetings have taken place where the mayor raised concerns about chair performance.

“We must draw a line when this erratic behaviour directly obstructs our ability as your democratically elected representatives to do our job,” she said.

She said councillors are planning a special meeting for Tuesday, March 21 to discuss the matter, and they hope “to remedy yesterday’s troubling changes to the committee structure.”

The city’s legal counsel will determine if the meeting will be closed or open. More information about the meeting is expected on Monday morning.

“Your elected councillors stand as diverse individuals, united in purpose to unwaveringly serve you,” Neustaeter said.

“Despite the extraordinary challenge that we continue to face, we remain committed to you, Kamloops.”

Castanet Kamloops has reached out to Hamer-Jackson in the wake of the councillors' statement and has yet to receive a reply.

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UPDATE: 12:18 p.m.

Kamloops city councillors are firing back at Mayor Reid Hamer-Jackson over his “chaotic and unpredictable behaviour” at city hall, accusing him of lying about sweeping changes he made Thursday to city committees.

Reading a statement on behalf of each of the city’s eight councillors, Coun. Katie Neustaeter said councillors have been dealing with a hostile work environment at city hall.

“While we as councillors have been subjected to repeated disrespect, violations of personal and professional boundaries, belittling and constantly disruptive behaviour by the mayor, we’ve been willing to absorb the impact in service to our community and in an attempt to have city business compromised as little as possible,” she said.

“But we must draw a line when this erratic behaviour directly obstructs our ability as your democratically elected representatives to do our job.”

Neustaeter said councillors would prefer to be working on city business but they instead have to battle Hamer-Jackson’s “chaotic” behaviour.

Following Thursday’s unilateral committee shakeup, Hamer-Jackson said he made the moves to free up time for councillors, implying they were overworked.

In the statement, Neustaeter called that a “blatant untruth.” She said no councillors have expressed a desire to have a lessened workload.

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ORIGINAL STORY: 11:03 a.m.

Councillors are expected to respond Friday following Kamloops Mayor Reid Hamer-Jackson's radical and unilateral restructuring of the city's standing committee appointments.

On Thursday, a document obtained by Castanet Kamloops showed significant changes to the committees. Hamer-Jackson chose to remove several councillors from chair positions, including Coun. Kelly Hall, who raised pointed concern with a motion brought forward by the mayor in a recent council meeting.

Hamer-Jackson added citizens to each committee — some of whom are Hamer-Jackson’s friends and election campaign supporters. Two failed election candidates have also been appointed to committees, one of whom has been given chair responsibilities.

Speaking with Castanet Kamloops on Thursday night, Hamer-Jackson denied he appointed the new committee members because they are his friends, pointing to the work accomplishments of individuals like Bud Smith, Sonny Leonard, Jim Budnaryk and Deb Newby.

He said he didn’t run his selections by councillors before releasing the document on Thursday afternoon.

David Trawin, City of Kamloops CAO, said it's not unprecedented to have members of the public sit on committees but, in the past, citizens have been selected through a formal process involving council as a whole reviewing resumes and vetting candidates.

Trawin said the mayor has the authority to set membership of the committees, and the city’s current terms of reference say the mayor has the responsibility to select a chair. Council can, however, choose to change those terms of reference.

Trawin said council members can also choose to not accept their committee appointments.

“If council was opposed to this type of thing, in theory they could say they don’t want to agree with this type of committee format and they’re not going to sit on the committee,” Trawin said.

“Therefore there would be no committee since the majority of the persons have to be councillors.”

It’s not yet known how councillors will choose to respond to the mayor’s decision.

Castanet Kamloops will have reporters at city hall when the announcement is made. This story will be updated as more information becomes available.