How do you prevent people from criticizing or complaining about you? If you’re part of Kamloops City administration or Council, it’s actually pretty easy.
During the Aug 15, 2023 Regular Council Meeting, former CAO David Trawin presented a recommendation to plug the hole that allowed the public to file a complaint under the City’s Code of Conduct (Code) by-law.
The Meeting
I get that it’s long and boring, but it is such an eye-opener, especially for those that still believe the City’s, Council’s, and media’s claims that it’s the Mayor that’s the problem. Buried in the discussions in that meeting is a classic example of your Mayor arguing for your rights as a citizen.
I’ll be highlighting what I feel are some of the important parts below, but you can listen to the whole meeting or portions of here: Regular Council Meeting. Public Inquiries starts at the 00:23:55 mark, and the presentation of the recommendation starts at 06:12:42.
Public Inquiries
Former councillor Denis Walsh says he lodged 4 complaints. Those complaints were #2023-0003, 2023-0004, 2023-0005, and 2023-0006, which are listed on the City’s website.
Walsh asks Trawin if there have been any other complaints than his. Trawin replies: “I can’t comment on the number of complaints, can’t comment on who made the complaints because of privacy issues”.
Mayor Reid Hamer-Jackson challenges Trawin: “The numbers aren’t going to be anything private. Like how many numbers do we have?”. Trawin replies: “Right now I believe we are going through 6 complaints I believe”.
Walsh asks what recourse the public has. Trawin states: “complaints can still be made, from what I understand, through a Council member who can bring it forward on that or they can be made through the Ombudsperson”.
Councillor Mike O’Reilly reminds the Mayor about the 5 minute limit for the speaker. Councillor Kelly Hall states “to me, it’s a small amendment, you know, to a Code of Conduct that is a document that ebbs and flows with Council”.
Trawin noted there was a concern that every complaint had to be sent out to an investigator. One astute citizen asked “Wouldn’t it be cheaper just for council to follow its own Code of Conduct?”.
The Recommendation
Trawin presents his recommendation:
not allow the public to make complaints through the Code of Conduct by-law, but they can still make complaints as we said, through the Ombudsperson or councillor and that any potential frivolous complaints that I may see as frivolous then be provided to Council to determine whether they need to follow through with an investigation or not
Councillor Katie Neustaeter says “This to me on its face just seems like an oversight in the initial draft of the bylaw”. The Mayor says “I feel that we’re trying to exclude the public from making complaints”
Neustaeter:
as we write bylaws, we learn about them. And sometimes they need to be living and amended. And this is all this is, is that, you know, in a brand-new bylaw of this significant proportion, sometimes there needs to be changes. It is certainly not eliminating the public’s access. It is eliminating the dollar amount that’s attached to that. Because, again, as you said. So we’ve had 6 so far. I think people just became aware, again, because it is unusual to be able to grieve through the code of conduct for the public. We’ve had 6 so far. We estimate at 5 grand a pop. So if we continue that in escalating numbers, which is what the trend looks like, we are asking the taxpayer as a whole to bear that cost burden. And so what we’re eliminating is unnecessary spending that is burdensome to the taxpayer. That’s all that this is. They still have avenues. They still have paths. There are 9 of us that they can go through directly or they can go to the office of the word that I have a hard time saying, which would be the Ombudsperson. But no matter what, we’re eliminating a cost. We’re not eliminating access. And we’re correcting a gap that was in the code of conduct. That’s all.
Mayor:
they’re citizens of the community. And we are limiting them. And to feel that all their complaints are frivolous or it’s going to cost $5,000, it could be one email code of conduct break with one email. It doesn’t cost $5,000 every time you do an investigation. And, again, I really think that we’re limiting. I really think that we’re making a big mistake at this point, and limiting the public from giving them more avenues to put complaints forward. And we looked at it very carefully. Just months ago we looked at it very carefully and to me it’s shocking that we would try to eliminate them.
Corporate Officer Maria Mazzotta delivers a lengthy dialogue indicating that she “can only at this point see it as an oversight of the time we were drafting it”.
Councillor Nancy Bepple, not so respectfully repeatedly interrupts the Mayor while he is speaking with:
Point of order. Point of order. Point of order. Just being cognizant of the time, and having only heard one person opposed to the recommendation, I would respectfully ask the chair to call the vote on the recommendation
Councillor Bill Sarai shares his wisdom:
Councillor Walsh, who I worked with for a term, was at the podium. And I heard through CAO Trawin that 6 complaints have been received, Councillor Walsh said today that he had submitted 4 of them. So when I’m looking at, is this the best money spent by lawyers, by initiating investigations on anybody’s complaint? But Councillor Walsh should know best of all of us that if he has a concern with any of us, just send us an email. And if we don’t follow up on it, I’m sure he’s one past councillor that will not take a silent remark lightly. He’ll take it to the next level, which was the Ombudsman or whatever you call them. So, I don’t think it’s a tool that should be available just for anybody to put in a complaint. There are avenues to do it. And for 6 complaints to come in in the last 3 months, 4 months, and 4 from one individual tells me that it’s not something that is required seriously. It is someone that is just asking a question, but basically we have to spend a ton of money to get him the answer. If he has a concern about anybody’s conduct, he can bring that up to Council in so many different avenues of communication.
The Vote
And there you have it, the vote is carried with only the Mayor opposing it.
The Problem
During the lengthy discussion, Trawin indicated there are several options the council could consider, however he only presented and recommended one to Council.
The primary concern, emphasised by Trawin and Mazzotta, seemed to be the potential costs to the taxpayers of frivolous complaints made by the public. Their secondary point is that other cities our size don’t allow public complaints.
Let’s break Trawin’s recommendation into the 2 parts it consisted of:
- not allow the public to make complaints through the Code of Conduct by-law
- any complaints Trawin may see as frivolous be provided to Council to determine whether they need to follow through with an investigation or not
It appears to me that it wasn’t really necessary to prevent the public from making complaints, as Trawin could have simply recommended that he be permitted to direct any frivolous complaints to Council for a decision on whether they should be permitted to proceed.
Without further evidence that it was indeed a problem, correcting the so-called “oversight” of the public being able to make complaints, seems to have been entirely without merit.
Cost Concerns
It seems to me that Trawin wasn’t really that concerned about costs. The City paid investigator Reece Harding $66,411.46 to investigate Walsh’s complaints. 3 of those complaints were dismissed, 2 of them without a public explanation.
Considering the City paid investigator Sarah Chamberlain $8,904 to investigate 2 complaints, I’d think a fiscally responsible CAO would have shopped around after that. But no, Trawin, and later CAO Byron McCorkell, would continue using Harding for every Code complaint that followed.
Singing the Same Tune
Back in those days, City admin and Council held what was referred to as “Agenda Review” meetings. As the Mayor doesn’t attend their closed meetings, it’s no surprise he wasn’t privy to, or on the same page as the rest of them.
The Good Part
Sarai
This was one of the earlier instances where Sarai has demonstrated his desire to silence the public. One can only imagine how Sarai must have made Walsh feel while he sat there making condescending remarks about him.
At that point in time, Sarai was well aware that one of Walsh’s complaints, #2023-0005, was in fact about him. Harding had already been engaged, and had notified Sarai of the complaint Aug 4, 2023. The public would not learn until now that Sarai was in a blatant conflict of interest by participating in the discussion and voting on the matter.
Neustaeter
While suggesting the change was just correcting an “oversight”, Neustaeter was also in a blatant conflict of interest by participating in the discussion and voting on the matter. She was also well aware that one of Walsh’s complaints, #2023-0004, was about her. She had also been notified of the complaint Aug 4, 2023.
Trawin
Trawin sat there and allowed these breaches to occur. I’m sure he could claim he was protecting privacy, but I’m not buying that, and I don’t think you should either.
It would have been easy enough to delay the recommendation until after the investigation, or to just limit the recommendation to allowing him to gatekeep frivolous complaints. But no, Walsh files a complaint Aug 1st and on the 15th, Trawin and Council are acting to prevent Walsh and any other member of the public from filing further complaints.
If Trawin wasn’t already gone, claiming the Mayor bullied and harassed him and threatened to fire him, I’d be requesting he be fired.
Code Complaints
Above I have clearly identified that both Sarai and Neustaeter breached the Code by allowing themselves to be in a conflict of interest. I also think it goes to misleading the public on the part of whoever was in the know.
So now it comes down to who is going to file the Code of Conduct complaints? Will it be Councillor Dale Bass? Maybe Sarai and Neustaeter can file complaints against each other. Better yet, how about they both resign?
Election 2026
The next election is October 17, 2026. If you were considering voting for Bill Sarai, Katie Neustaeter, Kelly Hall, Mike O’Reilly, or Nancy Bepple, I urge you to reconsider.
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