One evening of niceties, then the blood-letting begins

Published in The Kamloops Daily News, Saturday, Nov. 29, 2008
With pomp and circumstance, the 2008-2011 Kamloops City council will be sworn in Monday evening. Many niceties will be exchanged, and there will be fine words about maintaining the momentum, challenges ahead, and working together for the betterment of Kamloops.
The blood-letting begins Tuesday.
Reserving one night for [...]

How left-right, man-woman will play out on new council

For publication in The Kamloops Daily News, Saturday, Nov. 22, 2008
So, we have a brand new City council. Well, “brand new” might be an exaggeration, since six of the nine have been around for awhile.
It certainly is a different council, though. For one thing, there are all those new lefties who got elected.
I’m kidding about [...]

Candidate bloggers – the good, the bad, the absent

If it’s true that you can tell the character of a person by his political blog (and who says it’s true), I’m not sure what to take from what’s going on in blogland in the wake of last Saturday’s civic election in Kamloops.
At this writing, I see nothing at all on the Milobar For Mayor [...]

Should Peter Sharp seek a judicial recount?

Peter Sharp was surprisingly serene after his near-miss in the Kamloops civic election Saturday night. He lost out for the eighth and final spot on City council to incumbent Jim Harker by 80 votes, so he has a right to be disappointed.
Sharp said after the results came in that, as much as he was hoping [...]

Rothenburger nails civic election predictions

Well, OK, not quite. But here’s the thing. When I submitted my predictions to the office pool, I wrote down actual vote counts for the mayoral election. Here’s what I forecast:
Peter Milobar, 13,100
Murphy Kennedy, 3,246
Brian Alexander, 621
And here’s what they received:
Peter Milobar, 13,147.
Murphy Kennedy, 3,667.
Brian Alexader, 921.
Unfortunately, it does me no good, since vote counts [...]

Mel’s foolish civic election predictions

Yesterday was election day. As I write this, it’s actually last Friday. I’m about to demonstrate why I should never try to predict the outcome of elections.
Below are my predictions. They are not based on who I think deserves to win, who I want to win, or who will do the best darn job ever. [...]

Read it and weep, but not until Sunday

I love elections. I love the forums, I love debates, I love trying to figure it all out.
And I love guessing who’s going to win. I don’t have a great track record on that score, but that doesn’t hold me back. As I say in today’s Armchair Mayor column in The Daily News, making predictions [...]

History shows Kamloops voters don’t like wholesale change

Armchair Mayor column published in The Daily News, Saturday, Nov. 15.
 
If you haven’t made up your mind who to vote for, you’d better think fast. Today is election day.
Due to the large numbers of candidates, Kamloops civic elections are a lot tougher for voters than federal or provincial elections where the party system limits the [...]

Behind Closed Doors — Life At City Hall, Chapter 7

This is the seventh in a series on my experiences as the mayor of Kamloops from 1999 to 2005. I offer it for the interest of anyone who cares about civic politics and our community, and who might be wondering — as we approach a civic election Nov. 15 — what really goes on in [...]

Media forum helped best candidates stand out

Having been involved in election forums for the past few decades, I’ve learned there is no format that is going to please everyone. However (and I’m admittedly biased on this point), I think last night’s forum was the best of the bunch during this civic election campaign.
Rather than written questions, we accepted verbal questions only. [...]