Even with Kamloops City Councillors Mike O’Reilly and Katie Neustaeter absent, the childish behaviour continued. Another councillor walkout, constant interruptions, a conflict of interest warning, and the Mayor fruitlessly trying to get some cooperation out of his colleagues.
Is this what they mean by a “Regular” Council meeting? On the bright side, I believe the public were very well behaved.
Councillor Dale Bass
Time For a Recess
While the Mayor is asking questions, Bass interrupts with “Corporate Officer, should we take a short recess while the Mayor can collect himself?”. Without waiting for a response, Bass gets up and leaves the room. She is quickly followed by several other councillors, leaving no quorum for the meeting.
Aside from this being very disrespectful behaviour, it is also not permitted according to Robert’s Rules of Order, which the councillors are expected to follow. There have been several instances over this term where councillors have abandoned the meeting in a similar fashion. To my knowledge, not one councillor has been held accountable for this.
Councillor Nancy Bepple
My Hand, My Hand, See My Hand
Bepple continued with her annoying habit of sticking her hand up while either a presenter or the Mayor is speaking. I can only assume she does this so people can think the Mayor ignores her. She needs to save the passive aggressive behaviour and wait until the Mayor calls for questions or discussion. I assure you, she’ll get her chance to speak.
Letter of Thanks
Bepple is probably the one who most often makes a motion to send a letter of thanks to a presenter or delegation. What a waste of time. Unless Council personally signs these letters, it’s as insincere as any other junk mail you might receive.
About Your Conflict of Interest
When the Consideration of Bylaws came up on the agenda, Bepple felt it necessary to butt in to mention the Mayor’s previous declaration of a conflict of interest on a matter that was related to local developer Joshua Knaak. She then asked the Corporate Officer to give clarification to some of the agenda items. When the Mayor objected, Bepple persisted, and repeated her request.
I Take Exception
The Mayor introduced a notice of motion regarding an audit of harm reduction/drug housing facilities. Bepple asked the Corporate Officer whether Council should accept a notice of motion with the term “drug housing” in it, “given that it’s often considered a very derogatory term”.
This felt to me like a poorly disguised stab at the Mayor and an attempt to cast him in a bad light. It would have been easy enough for her to simply suggest a friendly amendment to the wording before the motion is considered or voted on in the next council meeting. But then Bepple isn’t exactly on friendly terms with the Mayor.
UBCM Report
Bepple shared a summary that included the ministries they met with, general topics, and from what I heard, no significant results. This was a painful reminder that we funded another 4 day trip for Council, which should have been limited to 2 or 3 councillors.
I believe anything discussed could have been addressed just as easily via email. And it bothers me that there are no details because it’s “confidential”. As for the number of councillors who attended, Bepple’s response is “every councillor has a budget to go to conferences and can choose which ones to attend, typically 1 or 2 a year depending on their location”.
Several weeks ago, I asked Bepple, “I don’t recall seeing that line item during the budget meetings. I’m sure someone like me would have objected to that. Can you please advise what the total budget is for these excursions?”. I have yet to receive a reply.
Corporate Officer Maria Mazzotta
I’m Warning You
Mazzotta seemed to be laying the groundwork for yet another Code of Conduct complaint against the Mayor. She mentioned a previous complaint where the investigator found the Mayor to be in a conflict of interest, and asked if the Mayor’s legal advice took that into account.
I’d like to point out that I have thoroughly reviewed and discredited that investigation report. You can review my findings here: Shame On Bass. I should also note that my interpretation of paragraphs 44 through 47 of the report indicates that the Mayor’s previous declaration of a conflict of interest only applies to the particular matter that it applied to. As this is a different matter, it is up to the Mayor to determine whether he has a conflict on this particular matter.
Mayor Can File Complaints For the Public
In a back and forth between the Mayor and Mazzotta, Mazzotta told the Mayor that he is free to submit a complaint if he wishes. Mazzotta then went on to explain why the public can’t submit complaints themselves:
well, that’s the way the bylaw reads. Council all had the opportunity to vote on that amendment that removed the ability of members of the public to file Code of Conduct complaints, I believe after we had complaints totaling over $60,000 from members of the public. That’s a decision that Council made. That’s the bylaw. That’s a decision that can be revisited
Funny this was brought up, as my last article was on that very topic: Thou Shalt Not Complain. The TLDR on that is that 4 complaints were filed by a single citizen; former Councillor Denis Walsh. Former CAO David Trawin and Council took immediate steps to prevent further complaints. In the process, multiple councillors committed Code of Conduct breaches.
Councillor Stephen Karpuk
Clarity
After councillors returned from their walkout, Karpuk asks the Mayor if he is suing Joshua Knaak. Although Karpuk already knows the answer to this question, he claims he is “concerned about your future and our liabilities”. He also states
The conflict of interest is about a person. That’s why the director’s names are on all these developments. It’s why we’re made aware of who is bringing information before so we can declare if we have a conflict with the person in question
When the Mayor states that he is suing Knaak, Karpuk adds “who is a representative of ARPA Developments”.
The Mayor responds with
So are other people that I know and that are acquaintances of – that actually came up beside me in a restaurant. But again, I don’t know them well enough to declare a conflict of interest. Like several other people know Joshua Knack and are close to Joshua Knack. I guess if I was that close to Joshua Knack, I probably would recuse myself. But like you say, other directors that are on there, I’m not that close that I would declare a conflict.
Had Councillor Neustaeter been present, she likely would have interrupted with an outburst at this point. As noted in Shame On Bass, it has been pointed out that she may be in conflict as Knack (and his wife) financially contributed to Neustaeter’s campaign. You can listen to her outrageous response to Katherine Wunderlich of Kamloops Citizens United (KCU) in the video.
While Neustaeter side-steps the personal relationship with Knaak, I submit that a reasonable person would believe there is a close personal relationship with Knaak.
Councillor Sarai
We Talk About the Weather
At one point the Mayor asks whether the councillors had quorum in a private room at the Delta Hotel. Sarai interrupts with: “Corporate Officer can I just get some clarification in this? I think Mayor needs to hear it too. Council can meet more than 4 as long as no decisions are made. They can talk about a baseball game. They can talk about the weather. Is that correct?”.
Mazzotta: “It is. Another caveat is that the discussion can’t be about matters that might eventually lead to a decision. So I’d say baseball game and weather are pretty safe topics of conversation”.
Mayor: “But if there’s a discussion about city business, that can be construed as a council meeting. Is that correct?”
Mazzotta: “Potentially, could”
Mayor Hamer-Jackson
Mayor’s Report
There’s probably several members of the public who tune in just for the Mayor’s report. I wouldn’t be surprised if bookmakers are taking bets on whether the Council will stage another walkout or not.
This report was relatively tame and covered a few points, a couple of which I’ll mention here:
- asked that media take a look at past council meeting videos and observe the lack of decorum by councillors and specific staff, rather than just blaming the citizens and the Mayor for the chaos
- noted that he’s “asked for emails, texts, voicemails of any bullying, harassment that I did and I still have not today received one text or email about myself”.
- asked for a copy of the letter he is suppose to use in order to engage with members of the staff
Bullying and Harrassing
As far as we know, any details on that topic are hidden in the Honcharuk report which Council continues to refuse to release. I suspect it will be released at a point where it either fits with Council’s “communication strategy”, or when it may prove helpful to O’Reilly’s mayoral campaign.
In an effort to prevent the Mayor or anyone else from seeing that report, it was emailed to council members without adequate security to prevent it from being shared or reproduced. Despite the clear instructions not to share the report with the Mayor or anyone else, Sarai forwarded the report to his personal email address.
Sarai denied being the one who leaked the report, and claimed he has trouble reading PDFs on his city-provided device. I’m just not so sure I believe him. How about you? Sarai had suspicions as to who the leaker was, but wasn’t willing to disclose that. The investigation into the leak cost $63,008.01 and went nowhere.
Staff Engagement Letter
It seems like a real simple request, but the Mayor continues to be stonewalled on this one.
Mazzotta: “I don’t know what you’re referring to. I’m not familiar with a letter of engagement protocol, but you’re certainly free to follow up with any member of council”
Mayor: “I have, and I haven’t got any answers. I asked Councillor Hall to leave a hundred copies at the front desk with me, and he ignored me.”
Councillor Kelly Hall: “Okay, so if you’re talking about an engagement letter with respect to a code of conduct violation, you have copies of everything. Everything’s been provided to you. So go and do the work. I know you can’t find it. So you want somebody else to do the work. So go and do the work. If you need an answer to the question, you got the answers. You already got the copy of the letter”
Councillor Margot Middleton: “I think, Mayor, what you’re referring to or asking is, as a mayor, can you speak to city employees? Can city employees speak to you? And yes, they can, unless they are employees that are protected by the measures we have taken”
Mayor: “I’m just looking for the rule book”
Middleton: “So you’re asking for the rule book, to be able to speak to somebody here in staff, and you’re turning it around and saying you want hundreds of copies of letters of engagement that you can hand to someone who happens to work for the city because you want to say hello to them. That does not make much sense. …not to hand out to to every city employee and staff worker to say that you now have permission to talk to them”
Mayor: “Well, the letter should be able to be emailed then, Councillor Hall, so I will be expecting that today”
Hall: “No, it won’t happen”
About That Conflict
Although investigator Reece Harding noted the Mayor previously declared a conflict of interest on a particular matter related to Joshua Knaak, Harding also stated the Mayor is not required to withdraw that declaration for other matters. For other matters, ie: a permit application on a different property, it is up to the Mayor to determine whether or not he has a conflict.
Taking the previous declaration of a conflict of interest off the table, Harding decided that the Mayor had a non-pecuniary (non-financial) conflict of interest when he voted against the Pathways wet shelter. I dispute that finding as I stated in Shame On Bass.
The Ord Road housing project is also a different matter. Not surprisingly, the Mayor voted in favour along with the rest of Council. From what I’ve seen, the Mayor is very capable at isolating his personal feelings from his voting, and his votes are consistent with what’s in the best interest of the community.
Knaak and ARPA Investments have a lot of stuff going on in this community, so don’t be surprised to hear the Mayor being repeatedly harassed over this. If Neustaeter can keep her personal relationship with Knaak in check, I think the Mayor can do the same with his personal relationship. Besides, it wasn’t Knaak’s ass the Mayor was accused of grabbing. Knaak was merely the messenger.
Meeting Video Redacted
Supposedly there was another breach of privacy during the meeting. When there is a breach, the City removes the video from their archives and from YouTube. Eventually the video gets put back with annoying beeps and notices advising portions have been edited to obscure the so-called breach. On YouTube, if you are on a desktop computer, you then have to look for the video on the Videos tab rather than the Live tab.
I say so-called breaches because we already know about some of the things the City would like to hide from you:
- Former CAO David Trawin accused the Mayor of threatening to fire him, then later admitted the Mayor didn’t threaten him. Tell me, whose privacy was breached?
- Trawin told the Mayor he wanted to get someone other than current CAO Byron McCorkell to replace him when he retired. Again, whose privacy was breached?
In this case, the Mayor commented “Councillor Bass, who’s I don’t know, over 20 Code of Conduct complaints mostly dismissed and withdrawn”. As per Mazzotta, “unless proper process is followed to disclose the identity of a complainant, such information is protected under Section 22 of FIPPA”.
Sorry, but I think the cat’s out of the bag already on this one. So in the interest of protecting Bass’ privacy, lets just keep this to ourselves, ok?
Election 2026
The next election is October 17, 2026. If you were considering voting for Councillors Bass, Bepple, Hall, Karpuk, Middleton, or Sarai, I urge you to reconsider.
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