Well Played, Councillor O’Reilly

The beginning of the June 23, 2026 council meeting instantly bothered me. Councillor Mike O'Reilly was the deputy mayor for June, and with Mayor Reid Hamer-Jackson absent, O'Reilly was going to chair the meeting. That's not unusual.

But O'Reilly seemed to be making a bit of a production out of it. He told the public that the Mayor hadn't reached out electronically. Staff were checking the parking lot because it was tax season and parking could be difficult. Then, after waiting a little longer, O'Reilly said he needed a ten-minute break so he could prepare to chair the meeting.

I remember thinking: "Seriously, who doesn't know the Mayor's wife is in the hospital?" Armchair Mayor Mel Rothenburger had already written a couple of articles about this matter, but now, we have another piece of the story.

Rothenburger wrote yesterday that it turns out O'Reilly had blocked the Mayor's texts.

Let's go back two weeks

On June 9, 2026, O'Reilly also chaired the meeting because the Mayor was absent. That time, the Mayor emailed him. O'Reilly received the email and told everyone what had happened:

“As you can see, I will be chairing the meeting today as Deputy Mayor. Mayor Hamer-Jackson emailed about an hour ago saying that he is busy and can’t attend this meeting. Nor can he attend the public hearing tonight at 7 o'clock. So I will be assuming the chair's position.”

That was it. The Mayor emailed him, he got the message, and he chaired the meeting. O'Reilly didn't seem to have any difficulty knowing what his role was or what he was expected to do.

There didn't appear to have been any great mystery about where the Mayor was. Nobody needed to check the parking lot. He received the message, knew what was happening and took the chair. It was pretty straightforward.

Two weeks later, it was a very different story.

June 23

At the beginning of the June 23, 2026 meeting, O'Reilly said:

“I understand we're now broadcasting live at this point. Mayor Hamer-Jackson has not reached out electronically. We're just having staff check the parking lot as it is tax season, and it can be difficult to find parking this time of year. So we just want to ensure he's not here before we proceed. Thank you.”

A little later he said:

“I have not received confirmation from Mayor Hamer-Jackson electronically that I will be needing to chair this meeting. So I will call for a 10-minute break. We will start the meeting at 1:40 as appropriate. I just need to prepare to chair this meeting.”

And then again, just before the adoption of the minutes, he explains again:

"And just for the record and for the public's awareness, we started late. Mayor Hamer-Jackson did not show up to the meeting today, nor did he give us notice that he was not going to be here today. So we're a little bit behind, but I think we'll be able to move through this agenda quite quickly."

So what happened?

On June 24, Rothenburger reported that Hamer-Jackson had told him he had sent O'Reilly several texts that day, including a request that O'Reilly or another deputy mayor chair the meeting. The Mayor was dealing with his wife's hospitalization. She was seriously ill with pneumonia.

That was obviously a problem. O'Reilly was telling the public the Mayor hadn't notified anyone. The Mayor was saying he had. Who are you gonna believe? Say what you will about the Mayor, but if someone were to ask me who the most honest member of Council is, I'd have to say he is.

Rothenburger tried to get an explanation from O'Reilly but didn't get one at the time. He followed up again on June 27, 2026, asking O'Reilly to clear up what had happened and pointing out that O'Reilly was not only the deputy mayor but was also running against Hamer-Jackson for mayor.

One of the possibilities Rothenburger raised was that the Mayor's texts had been blocked. At the time, nobody knew whether that was what had happened. Now we do.

According to Rothenburger's August 10, 2026 article, O'Reilly told him that he had blocked Hamer-Jackson's texts since October 27, 2024.

So when O'Reilly said the Mayor had not reached out electronically, there is something the public didn't know. The Mayor had apparently been trying to reach him. O'Reilly just wasn't receiving the texts.

That's the part I have trouble with

I can understand not wanting texts from somebody. If someone texts you all day and night and you don't want to deal with it, I can understand blocking the number.

No one should be forced to have their phone turned into a 24-hour City Hall help desk. But this wasn't just two people who happen to know each other. O'Reilly is a councillor. And for the month of June 2026, he was the deputy mayor.

If you're the person who is supposed to take over when the Mayor can't chair a meeting, shouldn't you have a reliable way of knowing when the Mayor needs you to do that?

That's what doesn't make sense to me. I don't think it's fair to say O'Reilly lied. If he had blocked the number, he hadn't received the messages.

But there's a difference between saying “I didn't receive a message” and leaving the public with the impression that the Mayor hadn't tried to contact you. That's where I think O'Reilly's judgment comes into question.

And then there was the parking lot

O'Reilly said staff were checking the parking lot because it was tax season and parking could be difficult.

Maybe that made sense to some. Maybe I'm missing something, but the Mayor has a designated parking space.

More importantly, O'Reilly was already the deputy mayor. If the Mayor wasn't there he was the person who was supposed to chair the meeting. So why was everyone waiting to find out whether the Mayor might be somewhere in the parking lot?

And why did O'Reilly then need ten minutes to prepare? Maybe he really did need the time. I've just never seen taking over the chair being an issue before. Councillors have several times taken over the chair if the Mayor recuses, or if they decide it's time to "challenge" the chair.

Was blocking the Mayor disrespectful?

To me, yes, it is. Blocking someone's number isn't always disrespectful. There are situations where people need to put boundaries around communication. But when the person you're blocking is the Mayor and you're the deputy mayor, I think the situation is different.

The City's Code of Conduct says councillors are expected to treat other members with respect and dignity. It also says members must not interfere with, hinder or obstruct another member in carrying out their duties. I don't know if blocking the Mayor's texts crosses that line. But I do think it's fair to ask whether it makes sense while serving as deputy mayor.

The provincial Oath of Office talks about integrity, accountability, respect, leadership and collaboration. I'm not going to claim that O'Reilly violated his oath, but as a voter deciding whether somebody has the judgment I want in a mayor, I do want to know why he thought blocking the Mayor was a good idea.

There is another complication

The Mayor has restrictions placed on him that prevent him from communicating with the Corporate Officer outside a council meeting.

I mention it because one of the solutions Rothenburger suggested in his June 24 article was copying communication between the Mayor and deputy mayor to Corporate Officer Maria Mazzotta so there would be a record and there couldn't be any argument about whether the message had been received.

That's a decent suggestion if the Mayor is allowed to do it, but he's not. So if he needs to tell the deputy mayor that he can't attend a council meeting, there needs to be a reliable way for him to do that. Email worked on June 9. Whatever happened on June 23 clearly didn't.

There's also the election

We shouldn't ignore that O'Reilly is running for mayor. He's not just another councillor who happened to get caught up in an awkward communication problem. He's asking voters to replace Hamer-Jackson with him.

Does that prove June 23 was some sort of political performance? No.

Maybe O'Reilly genuinely didn't know the Mayor had tried to contact him. Maybe he didn't think about what would happen if he needed to hear from the Mayor. Maybe he simply thought blocking the texts was the easiest way to deal with a difficult relationship.

But when you're running against somebody and you happen to be the deputy mayor who is standing in for that person, I think people are entitled to look at what happened a little more closely. I'm not saying that means O'Reilly deliberately created the situation, but it certainly doesn't make the meeting any less interesting.

Which brings me back to June 23

When I watched that meeting, I thought O'Reilly was making too much of the Mayor's absence. The parking lot comment seemed unnecessary, as did the repeated explanation that the Mayor hadn't contacted him. And the ten-minute break to prepare to chair the meeting seemed unnecessary too.

Now that we know what was happening behind the scenes, maybe there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for all of it. I'd be interested in hearing it. Until then, I have to say it looks pretty bad.

I've written before about what I've considered to be performances around the council table. My article “Well 'Play'ed Kamloops City Council” was about one of those occasions. Maybe I was onto something.

Kamloops has spent a lot of time talking about the need for a Centre for the Arts. I'm beginning to wonder whether we really need one. We already have the stage.

So I'll end with the question I think deserves an answer: Which councillors are currently blocking the Mayor?

Election 2026

The next election is October 17, 2026. If you were considering voting for Councillor Mike O'Reilly, I urge you to reconsider.

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Editorial Disclosure: Any opinions and/or conclusions presented in this article are my own, and I have no financial interest in the outcome of the 2026 municipal election.