Candidate Profile: Reid Hamer-Jackson — A Second Term?

I’ll be honest. I’ve really struggled with writing a profile for our mayor, Reid Hamer-Jackson. It’s no secret, I still support him, cautiously.

My critics claim I ignore his transgressions and display unwarranted bias in his favour. I take that with a grain of salt as many of those critics are also found praising Councillor Katie Neustaeter’s social media posts and seemingly criticizing anyone who dares to speak against her. 

One new critic recently commented on one of my Facebook posts. They opened with “You have zero credibility as a journalist. You’re a marketing tool for the mayor and his followers. You have shown that you are incapable of unbiased reporting.”

Defending Myself

I’m Not a Journalist

Let’s start by clearing that up. I'm a Kamloops resident who started asking questions about the AAPs in June 2024 and eventually started publishing what I found. 

When I noticed the proposed Alternative Approval Processes for the Performing Arts Centre and arena multiplex started appearing in local media, I started questioning what I was actually being asked to approve — by doing absolutely nothing.

Maybe I was living under a rock, or just blindly trusting our City and Council. I honestly don’t recall being aware of what an AAP was, or that it had been used as often as it apparently had been in the past. All I knew was that I don’t recall voting on any infrastructure related things before. They just happened, and I was pretty much fine with that.

The more I looked into the AAP, the more things didn’t add up for me. I went out and met the folks who would later become Kamloops Citizens United. Then I started digging and writing emails to the City and Council. Unfortunately, I wasn’t getting the responses I expected. It didn’t take long to conclude that my concerns weren’t being acknowledged.

That led to even more digging. The more I dug, the more questions I had about how City Hall was making decisions, how information was being presented to the public and how disagreements between the Mayor, Council and administration were being handled.

Starting Kamloops Critic

By January 2025, I was convinced there was a lot that the public wasn’t aware of, and I felt they had a right to know. Local media wasn’t making some information available to us, but it seemed largely that we were missing part of the story.

Local media seemed consistently aligned with what was being shared by the City and Council. It was open season on the Mayor, but I wasn't seeing the same level of scrutiny applied to the City or Council. Another resident suggested that it may have something to do with low pay, deadlines, and fear of losing sources.

Having an extensive background in software development, I felt a blog website was a reasonable way for me to share my findings with the community. On February 1, 2025, I published my first article. And, it wasn’t about the Mayor. It was about CAO Byron McCorkell.

Although I have been a member of and have been supportive of KCU’s efforts, Kamloops Critic has always had its own agenda, which hasn’t changed. I want what is best for the community. 

That includes believing the community deserves the truth.

If I simply agreed with everything the City, Council and local media told us and accepted it as fact, there would be little reason for Kamloops Critic to exist. In most cases, there's more to the story.

Pig in the Middle

I've now reviewed four years of Council meetings, reports, minutes, investigations and other public records.

For some reason, Pig in the Middle is what comes to my mind when I consider what I’ve observed during council meetings.

I’ve watched a man sitting at the center of the council table who has been the subject of repeated instances of what I feel has bordered on the edge of bullying and harassment. The irony is that he is also the one publicly accused of bullying and harassing others.

I can accept healthy, and even sometimes heated debate. But I've watched interactions that I felt crossed the line from disagreement into public humiliation. Maybe some feel he deserves it. I don’t agree.

Hamer-Jackson is certainly capable of provoking a reaction. But I've also watched councillors interrupt him, talk over him and challenge rulings while he is trying to chair the meeting. I've watched "point of order" become the opening words of an interruption rather than a genuine attempt to enforce the rules of debate. I've watched him rule someone out of order and seen the conversation continue anyway.

Every councillor has participated in inappropriate behavior to some extent, some more so than others. That’s just one of the reasons I feel so strongly about my stance on no incumbent councillors. In my mind, their behavior speaks to their character, and I don’t believe character depends on who we elected as mayor.

Diving In

From there, one investigation led to another. I've looked at Code of Conduct investigations, privacy issues, public participation, municipal spending, major capital projects, Council meetings, City communications and many of the controversies that have surrounded Hamer-Jackson.

It may seem like it’s all about the Mayor. That makes sense. This term has been all about the Mayor. But that’s not all I’ve been writing about. As I’m now approaching 100 articles, there are quite a variety of topics. Many are about other councillors, administration, and Council decisions. I don’t think I’m a one-trick pony, but I’ll leave that to you to form your own opinion.

The Elephant in the Room

The Public Claims

If you've followed Kamloops politics for any length of time, you've probably heard many of the same things said about Hamer-Jackson over and over again.

Some of those statements are based on real events, and some are interpretations of real events. Some go further than the evidence I've been able to find. 

And some are claims I've seen repeated so many times that I think it's worth going back to the original source and asking a pretty simple question: What actually happened?

I won’t pretend these claims don't exist. They're part of the public conversation about Hamer-Jackson, and anyone considering his record is likely to encounter them. 

I don’t endorse these claims. They are simply the claims I've repeatedly encountered in local media coverage, public comments, online discussion and conversations surrounding City Hall.

When the same statement gets repeated often enough, it can start to sound like an established fact. A complicated event gets reduced to one sentence, the sentence gets repeated, and eventually the original source disappears from the conversation.

My point here is that I’m not oblivious to these claims. I can even see how people can draw these conclusions based on what we hear from the City, Council, and local media. I did a poll quite a while back to determine how people believing that the Mayor is the problem formed their opinion. Not surprisingly, for most, it was based on what they’d been told by those sources.

Rather than simply saying Hamer-Jackson's critics are wrong, I’ve gone to the effort to dig into them. In many cases, I've found that the version being repeated is an oversimplified summary of both the event and the person. I’d rather focus on the documented claims made by the City, Council, investigators, and courts.

When it comes to his property taxes, I’m not sure I see how this relates to his ability to do his job. There is also a separate question about how his personal information came to be disclosed publicly, and whether the City applied the same privacy concerns to the City staffer who disclosed it as it did to Hamer-Jackson. 

I can’t say whether the same person disclosed his personal information both before and after his taxes were paid. I can say this is something that should be investigated by the City.

Documented Evidence

If someone wants to make the case against Hamer-Jackson, there is enough material available to build one.

There are Code of Conduct complaints and findings, privacy breaches, disputes over confidential information, conflicts of interest, and lawsuits. And we can’t forget the most damning evidence of all, the Henry Braun report.

But a formal finding about a specific event doesn't automatically establish every broader allegation made about the Mayor. The evidence needs to be looked at for what it actually establishes. Sometimes it establishes a serious problem, sometimes the evidence is incomplete, and sometimes there are competing accounts.

And sometimes the available information doesn't allow me to reach a confident conclusion.

What I’ve Found

In almost every case, when I look into a claim against Hamer-Jackson, there is more to it than meets the eye. I’ve written about a lot of it, but there is also a lot I simply haven’t had time to get to.

There’s reasons for that. I suffer from a great deal of chronic pain, and I don’t get paid for this. I’d much rather be relaxing in the hot tub with my wife and trusting that the people we elected will look after the city with our best interests at heart. Unfortunately, that trust started evaporating back in June 2024.

Code of Conduct Complaints

Of the 29 documented complaints, 5 of them are considered to be substantiated against Hamer-Jackson.

2023-0001: This is one of 2 claims submitted by Councillor Katie Neustaeter. I came to a different conclusion than the investigator Sarah Chamberlain, and wrote about it in Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire!

2024-0019: Again, my conclusion was different from the investigator’s. You can read what I wrote about that in Bass Complains About Photo and also in The Photo Controversy: Was This Ever About a Slideshow – or About Control?

2024-0020: Hamer-Jackson distributed copies of an alleged copy of the infamous Honcharuk report. I haven’t gotten around to writing about this yet. Yes, it was a confidential report, but I also keep in mind that it was previously leaked to the media (see complaint 2023-0007), and as a result, widely discussed. 

2025-0024: This just made me sad, and I wrote Shame on Bass.

2025-0029: I’ll be honest, I have only scratched the surface on this one. From my understanding, this relates to emails to the Privacy Officer, Stephanie Nichols, who as far as I know, the Mayor isn’t permitted to email directly and must be forwarded through a deputy mayor. Again, there is more than meets the eye. While I may not agree with Hamer-Jackson completely, I believe I do understand the reasons behind his actions.

Privacy Breaches

As of today’s date, there are 34 of them listed on the City’s site. Let’s rip the bandaid off that one. 32 of them have been committed by Hamer-Jackson.

I’m not attempting to minimize the seriousness of a privacy breach, but some of the circumstances are worth considering. What I find most noticeable is how many of the breaches appear to be connected to Hamer-Jackson's attempts to defend himself against claims made against him.

I’ll attempt to summarize the bulk of them:

The last one, EO-34 is of particular interest to me, as it involves the article I wrote, Who Decides What the Public Hears? What interests me the most, is that it was no secret that the Mayor was not permitted to have direct communication with Corporate Officer Maria Mazzotta. If you’ve been following council meetings, you may have already figured that out as well.

Bullying and Harassment

I don’t take bullying and harassment lightly, nor should you. But, I do wonder at what point a series of emails asking essentially the same questions and not receiving answers constitutes bullying and harassment.

I think it fair to say we’ve already determined that two of the three individuals Hamer-Jackson is accused of bullying and harassing in the Honcharuk report are none other than former CAO David Trawin and current CAO Byron McCorkell. The third may be an employee who overheard the heated exchange between Councillor Bill Sarai and Hamer-Jackson.

I think the following exchange between Hamer-Jackson and Councillor Mike O’Reilly explains why I still have questions. 

It appears that Trawin agreed that Hamer-Jackson didn’t threaten to fire him. I can understand why the City seemed so intent on Hamer-Jackson deleting this, and also why he refused to.

What I can’t see is how O’Reilly considers receiving this text to be threatening and bullying. But I do take it into account when listening to some of O’Reilly’s other claims. 

The Braun Report

No, I haven’t forgotten about that one. I had planned to write more about this report, but to date, I’ve only written one article, Questioning the Braun Report. 

I don’t doubt that Braun meant well, and I won't be quick to discount his findings. However I note that he is not an investigator and he himself acknowledges that he didn’t conduct an investigation. 

That doesn't mean his observations are worthless. It means I think we need to be careful about treating the report as though it were the result of an independent investigation.

I’m looking forward to taking another look at that report and taking into account everything I’ve learned since writing my first article on it.

Lawsuits

We can’t forget about those, can we? 

Private Matters

Let’s first address the ones that really have nothing to do with Hamer-Jackson as a mayor. 

I’m not in favour of kicking the man while he’s already down. Former lawyers and creditors taking him to court and threats of foreclosure is what can happen when your pay has been cut substantially. It’s even harder when Council imposes sanctions that are in excess of what the investigator recommends.

Councillor Bill Sarai explained some of the reasoning behind this, as quoted by Castanet:

“None of the tools in our tool belt that we have at our disposal are working. And so it was, maybe, if we got a little bit more serious, maybe he would as well,” 

Things wouldn’t be so bad for Hamer-Jackson if he’d just sign those apology letters, written by someone else, and admit his guilt. Sarai had no problem doing that.

Katie Neustaeter 

Hamer-Jackson has filed two defamation suits against Neustaeter. I’ve written extensively about these:

The first case is being appealed by Hamer-Jackson, and the second remains before the courts.

Joshua Knaak

Hamer-Jackson filed a defamation suit against Knaak after comments were made suggesting the Mayor touched Knaak’s wife. You can find some of my thoughts on that in Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire! Nothing has been proven in court yet.

Balancing the Scale

Hopefully, all that above makes it clear that I’m not ignoring the mountain of evidence against Hamer-Jackson. But, as I’ve mentioned before, there is more than meets the eye, and I can’t ignore that either.

So let’s get on with some of the things I have also found that start to balance the scale a little, and maybe even tip it a little in his favour. You don’t have to agree with me, and you might already be exhausted if you’ve followed along this far. But, I hope you’ll humour me and stick around for the other side of the story.

Four Years Changed His Priorities

There is one thing on which I think Hamer-Jackson deserves to be taken seriously: he says the experience changed him.

His campaign website says the goals themselves haven't changed since 2022, but the order has. In 2022, community safety was his first priority, followed by accountability and prosperity. In 2026, accountability and transparency have moved into first place, with safety second.

His explanation is straightforward: four years at the council table taught him that he doesn't think you can get a safer community without accountability first.

His campaign also points out that the mayor is only one of nine votes and that five votes are needed to pass a motion. He says he doesn't want a council that agrees with him about everything because bad ideas, including his own, need to be challenged.

I think it's fair to say that Hamer-Jackson has learned that lesson the hard way. The question is whether he has learned how to work within that reality.

Some of the Questions Were Worth Asking

Hamer-Jackson has a willingness to question assumptions. He's not always right, but there is value in having someone ask: Why are we doing it this way?

Sometimes the answer is perfectly reasonable, but other times, it’s not. And sometimes asking the question exposes a problem that would otherwise have gone unnoticed.

Public Inquiries

The RCMP Building

Hamer-Jackson has repeatedly questioned the decision to demolish the existing RCMP building and build the new one on the same site. His campaign argues that the existing building is still a valuable City asset and that alternative locations should have been properly considered before committing to the current approach.

For a long time, that idea appeared to have little support around the council table. Then something changed.

On September 22, 2026, Council considered Councillor Margot Middleton's motion concerning alternate locations for the RCMP building and directed staff to explore potential alternative sites.

We might not know whether Hamer-Jackson's preferred site is better, whether the current plan is wrong, or whether his argument caused the change. But we do know that an issue he had been raising eventually became an issue Council was prepared to investigate.

Shelters

Hamer-Jackson's approach to homelessness and shelter services has probably produced more criticism of him than almost anything else. Those that have been listening to him closely likely realize it’s a much more complicated story than simply saying the Mayor is or was against shelters.

His campaign website makes it clear that he does not believe shelter and support services should disappear. Instead, he argues for greater accountability, different approaches to recovery and treatment, and a closer look at how publicly funded programs are performing.

During both temporary use permit meetings for the Pathways shelter, I heard a mayor who was persistent in his attempts to understand what shelter residents were dealing with and whether they wanted recovery options rather than a place that supports the continued use of harmful substances.

One of these days, I’ll write more about the public spectacle that occurred during the application for an extension of the permit. Spoiler alert: I think anyone coming away from that meeting believing the Mayor was being abusive to residents of the shelter, saw exactly what they were intended to see.

Ironically, now it seems that demand for recovery focused solutions is all the rage. Maybe Hamer-Jackson was onto something?

The Human Side of Hamer-Jackson

There is another side of Hamer-Jackson that might not be apparent in council minutes or investigation reports.

Compassion

I've watched him interact with people who are among the most vulnerable residents of this city. I've seen conversations that were respectful on both sides and that appeared to come from genuine relationships.

He might not earn many votes from this, but that doesn't appear to be his goal.

I've heard the argument that Hamer-Jackson's calls for audits and greater accountability are harmful to some of the people using those services. My own observations don't lead me to that conclusion.

What I've personally observed is someone who can show compassion, empathy and kindness even when dealing with people who have caused him or his business real harm.

Hamer-Jackson has experienced street disorder directly. His business has experienced fires, break-ins and vandalism, giving him firsthand experience with some of the problems facing local businesses.

That doesn't make his policy views automatically correct, but it does give me some context for understanding where his concerns come from.

Hamer-Jackson has also dealt with people who have caused problems in the community without simply writing them off as bad people. In one case, through a restorative-justice process, he eventually met a person who had poured beer over his head and resolved the situation face to face.

Not knowing the individual, Hamer-Jackson told me he wanted to understand why they did that. It turned out they had a perception of Hamer-Jackson due to things they had heard about him.

Honesty

Here’s something that is personal. I’ve found Hamer-Jackson to be extremely honest.

I can’t prove that to you, but it's my judgment based on what I've seen.

When Hamer-Jackson makes a public claim, I try to check it against documents, minutes, video and other available records. He's not always right. There have been times when his interpretation has been wrong or incomplete.

But more often than not, when I've gone looking for the underlying record, I've found that his explanation is at least consistent with the evidence I can see. That consistency matters to me.

If someone asked me to name a politician whose public statements I have generally found to hold up when I check them against the underlying record, Hamer-Jackson would be one of the people I'd point to.

He can change his mind

Hamer-Jackson supported the borrowing recommendations in 2024 and later changed his position after hearing feedback from the public and examining the details. 

His motion in March 2026 for a postponement of the arts centre and arena multiplex was defeated by Council. In September 2026, he brought the issue back in a more specific form. Nobody seconded the motion, so it wasn’t even discussed.

You can disagree with Hamer-Jackson about Build Kamloops, but I consider the process that got him there. He supported something, looked more closely at it, changed his mind and then kept asking questions after Council rejected his position.

That's the sort of independence we say we want from elected officials.

Resilience

One of the things that has influenced my view is simply how much Hamer-Jackson has continued to deal with.

He's faced investigations, sanctions, public criticism, legal disputes, opposition from Council and an extraordinarily difficult relationship with City administration.

I don't know many people who could go through that for several years and continue showing up.

I’m aware that stubbornness and resilience can look very similar from the outside. The difference is whether someone can eventually listen, reconsider and change course when the evidence tells them they should. I’ve seen that he can.

Weighing the Evidence

There’s a lot for me to consider when it comes to Hamer-Jackson. You might think this article is extremely long, but to me it’s very short when I take into account everything I know about this man and the environment he works in.

The Privacy Problem

I get that Hamer-Jackson seems to believe that getting information into public view is more important than the restrictions surrounding that information. Sometimes there may be a legitimate public-interest question underneath what he is trying to disclose.

But elected officials don't get to ignore privacy law simply because they believe the public deserves to know something. If he is re-elected, I would expect him to become much more disciplined about what he receives, what he repeats, what he emails and what belongs in a public meeting.

Transparency isn't the same thing as releasing everything you have. In fact, the ability to keep something confidential when the law requires it is part of being trustworthy.

What if the Rule Itself Deserves to be Questioned?

There's another part of this that I think gets lost whenever Hamer-Jackson breaks a rule. Sometimes the answer really is that he needs to follow the rule. But sometimes it may be worth asking whether the rule is being interpreted or used in a way that serves the public interest.

Take closed meetings for example. The Community Charter lists matters that may be considered in a closed meeting and a smaller list of matters that must be closed.

That doesn't mean everything that may be discussed publicly must be. There are legitimate reasons for confidentiality, and councillors have obligations to protect information that is properly confidential. But there is a real difference between "may" and "must."

Hamer-Jackson has repeatedly challenged the use of closed meetings and pushed for greater transparency. Something to keep in mind is that his call for transparency can potentially expose things that make him look bad. 

That suggests to me that at least some of his transparency argument is about principle rather than simply political advantage.

Public Participation

Hamer-Jackson has also repeatedly called for more public participation, including involvement in standing and select committees.

Sure, there may be reasons to be careful. Committees sometimes need to deal with confidential information. They sometimes need to be able to have candid discussions. There may also be circumstances where public participation could create practical or legal problems. But does that mean we should automatically keep residents outside the room?

Hamer-Jackson has pointed out cases where more specialized knowledge could be a benefit. He's also suggested to some groups that have presented to Council that they may want to have a seat at a current or new committee table.

Councillor Kelly Hall has made clear that he has concerns about public participation on committees, particularly where confidentiality and closed meetings are involved. That might be a legitimate concern to debate. It shouldn't end the debate though.

If Kamloops wants residents to trust City Hall, residents need some meaningful way to see how decisions are developed before they arrive at the final Council vote.

That isn't just a Hamer-Jackson issue. It's a governance issue.

Public Inquiries

Public Inquiries have become another issue where the explanation seems to depend on who is telling the story.

Hamer-Jackson has called for the return of Public Inquiries. Yet the loss of Public Inquiries has repeatedly been explained in terms of the Mayor's ability to chair them effectively.

On September 26, 2026, Councillor Stephen Karpuk told voters that having 14 City staff sitting in the room during Public Inquiries means the public is effectively paying those employees to wait until Council gets to the City's business.

What I wondered was why there are 14 staff in the room in the first place.

If staffing is one of the reasons Public Inquiries are considered inefficient, perhaps the City should look at whether all 14 people need to be there rather than simply concluding that the public forum itself is the problem.

Councillor Katie Neustaeter offered a different view at the same candidate event. She said that, provided Public Inquiries are chaired and run properly, she sees no reason they cannot exist.

On the surface, that sounds reasonable. But I think it's also fair to ask whether councillors who regularly interrupt the Mayor, challenge his rulings or continue talking after being called out of order are contributing to the very problem they say the Mayor needs to solve.

Hamer-Jackson hasn’t chaired every meeting perfectly. But I would argue that the responsibility for making a Council meeting function effectively belongs to everyone sitting at the table, not just the person in the chair.

The Question I Ask About Every Candidate

You may be familiar with this question. I’ve asked it several times about other candidates.

Do I trust this person to make decisions that affect my family and my community?

I don't expect any candidate to get everything right. What I'm trying to judge is their integrity, their values, their judgment and whether I believe they will make decisions in good faith when the answer isn't obvious.

In Hamer-Jackson's case, my answer is yes. After everything I've investigated, I have not found evidence that causes me to question Hamer-Jackson's underlying integrity or values.

That may sound surprising after everything I've written about his privacy breaches, poor judgment and political conflicts. But I think there's an important distinction between believing someone has made serious mistakes and believing they are acting dishonestly or without concern for the community.

I've seen enough of Hamer-Jackson since I began paying close attention, both at City Hall and away from the Council table, to believe that he genuinely wants to make Kamloops better.

I don't always agree with how he goes about it, and I don't think his judgment is always good. But I don't question what is driving him.

To be very clear, that doesn't mean I think he's always right. I don't think he's handled every situation properly, and I don't think another four years should be a continuation of the last four.

But when I look at the person rather than the political fights surrounding him, I believe he genuinely wants to improve this city and that he cares about the people who live here.

What Would a Second Term Look Like

Hamer-Jackson only has one vote out of nine. We might forget that when talking about what a mayor should be able to accomplish. A mayor can't pass a motion on his own. He can't order councillors to agree with him.

On the other side, the mayor is the chair. He has responsibilities that extend beyond those of a councillor. He sets the tone, controls the flow of meetings and represents the City publicly.

As a mayor, Hamer-Jackson needs to know when to push and when to stop pushing. Being outnumbered doesn't remove those responsibilities.

I don't believe that everything wrong at City Hall is Hamer-Jackson's fault. I also don't believe that every problem is caused by eight councillors who simply refuse to listen to him.

The reality, from my observations, is that both sides have contributed to the mess.

What I Would Want From Hamer-Jackson

If Hamer-Jackson gets another four years, Kamloops needs an improved version of the mayor we've already had. It needs a more disciplined one.

I'd like to see him keep asking uncomfortable questions about spending, accountability, infrastructure, public participation and the performance of publicly funded programs. Those questions are part of the job, particularly when large amounts of public money are involved.

On the other hand, I'd also like to see him become much more selective about the battles he chooses.

Not every disagreement needs an email. Not every unanswered question needs to become a public fight. Not every perceived slight needs to be revisited. And confidential information needs to stay confidential, even when Hamer-Jackson believes the public would benefit from seeing it.

The strongest version of Reid Hamer-Jackson won't be the one who fights everybody. It will be the one who knows when a fight is necessary.

What I Would Want From Council

We of course need to look at the other side of the equation. If Hamer-Jackson is re-elected, we need councillors who are prepared to work with him without becoming afraid to challenge him.

That's especially important because some of the people who have spent the last four years in repeated conflict with him may be back around the table.

Take Councillor Stephen Karpuk as an example. In a situation where he concluded that he had wrongly accused Hamer-Jackson of making an inappropriate comment, Karpuk chose to correct the record and apologize rather than simply waiting for a formal process or forcing the dispute into another political fight.

That’s significant to me, and raises an important question: What do elected officials do when they discover that they may have been wrong?

Do they correct the record? Acknowledge that their words were understood differently than they intended? Try to repair the relationship? Or do they stay the course because doing otherwise would be politically uncomfortable?

Those questions apply to Hamer-Jackson too. They also apply to everyone who wants a seat around that Council table.

My Recommendation

I've deliberately acknowledged the evidence that contradicts my own conclusion. There is plenty in Hamer-Jackson's record that deserves criticism. I think the evidence shows that Hamer-Jackson's first term was neither the success his campaign would like voters to see nor the complete failure his strongest critics sometimes describe.

He made serious mistakes. Some involved judgment, confidentiality and relationships, and some resulted in formal findings and sanctions. But after going through the available evidence, I haven't found enough to change my assessment.

I support Reid Hamer-Jackson because I think the record is more complicated than the simple story that has developed around his first term.

I think some of the questions he has raised deserve attention. I think his resilience matters. And, ultimately, I trust his intentions and his willingness to question things that deserve to be questioned.

And perhaps most importantly, I think I've seen some evidence that he has changed. He's more patient than he was. He's better at chairing meetings than he was. He seems more willing to let some things go.

His campaign itself acknowledges that four years at City Hall changed the way he sees the relationship between accountability and safety.

That doesn't mean he gets a free pass. It doesn't mean I won't criticize him if I think he's wrong. In fact, I expect I’ll do even more of that.

Having looked at the big picture, my recommendation is Cautiously Recommended.

Here's what "cautiously" means in Hamer-Jackson’s case.

I'm not recommending him because I think he's always right, or because I think his critics are always wrong. And I'm not recommending another four years of the same political warfare we've watched since 2022.

I'm recommending him because I believe there are legitimate questions he has continued to ask that Kamloops shouldn't stop asking simply because he is the person asking them. I also believe I've seen enough change in him over the past four years to think a second term could look different from the first.

But that second term would need something from Hamer-Jackson that the first one often lacked: Restraint.

And it would need something from the eight people sitting around him that they haven't always demonstrated either: A willingness to disagree without making the disagreement personal.

I don't think rebuilding public respect for Kamloops City Council is going to be easy. But I also don't think it will happen by pretending the Mayor is the only reason that respect has been damaged.

So what did four years teach Reid Hamer-Jackson?

I think it taught him that asking difficult questions isn't enough. A mayor also has to know when to compromise, when to let something go, when confidentiality matters and when persistence becomes counterproductive.

I don't think he's mastered all of that yet. But I do think he's learned some of it.

And after years of watching him, reading the reports, following the disputes and questioning some of the conclusions I've encountered along the way, I trust him to make decisions that affect my family and my community.

That's why my recommendation is Cautiously Recommended.

If Reid Hamer-Jackson is elected again, he will have to do his part. So will everyone else at that table.

That may be the real lesson of the last four years.

More candidate profiles

Editorial Disclosure: The assessment expressed here is my editorial assessment based on the information available to me at this point. It may change if further information changes my understanding.

The following recommendation reflects Kamloops Critic's editorial opinion.

Kamloops Critic Recommendation: Cautiously Recommended

I've reviewed four years of Council meetings, reports, minutes, investigations and other public records. My investigative work into municipal affairs began in June 2024. Since then, I've written about Hamer-Jackson, individual councillors, Council as a whole and City administration.

I've also spoken with Hamer-Jackson and observed him outside formal Council meetings. Those experiences are part of my personal assessment, but they aren't proof of character or evidence of policy competence.

Throughout this article, I've tried to distinguish formal findings and documented records from allegations, interpretations and my own conclusions.

Candidate Response: Kamloops Critic welcomes factual corrections from candidates and will promptly correct any verified errors. Candidates who wish to respond to this profile are invited to submit a response of up to 750 words. Responses may be edited only for length, formatting, or legal considerations.