Occupy Kamloops biffy issue nothing but a tempest in a pee pot

Being a member of City council is never easy, but it seldom gets dull.

Today, at its weekly meeting, council will deal with a road closure, a liquor licence application, development variance permits — the usual drill.

Occupy Kamloops protester asked politicians to "Listen" at Saturday election forum.

Then it gets more interesting. A solution must be found to that messy business of the Occupy Kamloops porta potty.

It may seem like a tempest in a pee pot to you and me, but to those who are camping out it’s a matter of some urgency, if you get my drift.

The campers began assembling across from Spirit Square on the North Shore a couple of weeks ago in support of the North America-wide protest against the banks, corporate greed, lousy weather and who knows what else.

When people camp out, illegally or not, they must find ways to answer the call of Nature. So, who do you call but a porta-potty contractor?

This did not escape the notice of the City bylaws department, which showed up at the campsite last Friday to order removal of the mobile commode, which had been placed without a proper permit.

The Occupy campers asked if Bylaws would mind leaving the WC on the QT until the matter could be worked out with the folks at City Hall. The answer was sorry, no — the camp itself is not legal, so the comfort station had to go.

The supplier was called to come and retrieve his portable outhouse, leaving the camp without a pot to pee in. Now, instead of being an illegal camp with a nonconforming outdoor biffy, it’s now just an illegal camp.

It’s expected the matter will be raised at today’s meeting under public inquiries, and a request made to let the potty go.

There are several options. Council has the power to exempt the camp and/or let the campers have their transportable latrine back. They can choose to not enforce their bylaws, or they could put a deadline on the campers for vacating the property.

They could approve the movable outhouse but decline to condone the camping and wait for winter to bring an end to the whole situation.

Or, of course, they could insist the bylaws be enforced and ask police to remove the offenders. That seems an unlikely choice.

As unhappy a political situation as this is, it’s not nearly as contentious as it is In Vancouver, where the Occupy camp is right downtown, and nobody knows what to do about it. Indeed, it has become the major issue in the Vancouver civic election, with mayoral candidates hammering each other over when to send in the cops and throw out the protesters.

But one thing they haven’t done is taken away their porta potties. They understand that when people gotta go, they’re gonna go somewhere, either in any restaurant or store they can find, or somewhere less pleasant.

The Canadian Auto Workers union as well as others have brought in porta potties to relieve the situation.

In Vancouver, they’ll probably be there as long as City Hall lets them stay. Here, winter’s coming, and even if they do get their wayward water closet back, anyone using it is going to feel the bite of Jack Frost.

Farmers’ Market forum questions better than the answers

Saturday’s election forum at the Kamloops Farmers’ Market was more interesting for its questions than for the answers.

Most but not all of the candidates in the Nov. 19 civic election were there. Kudos to all the mayoral candidates — Gordon Chow, Dieter Dudy, Peter Milobar and Brian Alexander — for showing up on a chilly Saturday morning. Council candidates Pat Wallace and Peter Sharp didn’t attend.

A candidate can’t say much in the 30 seconds the Council of Canadians allowed for answers, so it wasn’t all that enlightening. However, many of the written questions were entertaining if nothing else.

Incumbent Marg Spina was asked why the City took away the port-a-potty from the Occupy Kamloops camp, and commented that she’d rather see the protesters using a portable toilet “than in the street,” but declined to say whether the City bylaws cops were right or wrong to remove it.

Ray Nyuli fielded a question on the parkade, John DeCicco was handed one on councillors’ pay, Nancy Bepple took one on Domtar, and Arjun Singh was asked whether he supported recall legislation for mayor and council.

Singh missed a bet on that one — instead of endorsing it, he evaded it by saying he’d be interested in discussing the idea.

There were questions about the arts, about gays, composting and food sustainability.

Donovan Cavers gave one of the few direct answers when he was asked whether he favoured Ajax mine. The answer was no.

One questioner, tongue no doubt planted in cheek, suggested there is way too much consultation at City Hall and asked how things could be speeded up.

Another resident wanted to know why the business community had so much control over City Hall.

Gordon Chow was asked about smart meters and talked about water meters instead.

Ken Christian was among the candidates who attended, and showed his “Elect Ken Christian Councillor” signs, the point being that in my last blog I panned his old “Elect Ken Christian” signs, which don’t say what he’s running for. No doubt he’ll be getting the new ones up next week.

The best and the worse of Kamloops election signs

There should be a law against bad election signs.

Not all of them — just bad ones, which would eliminate most of the clutter of the current civic-election campaign.

Election signs are there to tell people you are in the race. The silent message is, “Please remember my name when you go into the voting booth.”

Most candidates forget people are speeding past at 60 kmh. Drivers have no time to read your platform. They barely have time to read your name (if you are cursed with a name like Acacia Schmietenknop, which takes up half the alphabet, you have a special challenge).

The best election signs are limited to the candidate’s name and which office he or she is seeking. Forget the catchy slogans, never mind your picture — commuting drivers don’t care about that.

With these fundamentals in mind, let’s look at the best and worst of the current crop.

VERY WORST ELECTION SIGNAGE: Without peer, this award goes to Team Messmer. Ayren Messmer is running for city council; Mitchell Messmer is running for school board. You wouldn’t know this from their signage, which is a train wreck of confusion.

I don’t know whether they’re trying to be cute, or think they’ll get double the bang for their buck, but they have taken simple signage and made a mess of it. The result of their identical designs, and their side-by-side placement, is an unreadable pudding.

RUNNERS UP FOR WORST OF THE WORST: A three-way tie among Chris Ortner, Nancy Bepple and Ken Christian.

I had to park my car and read Ortner’s sign up close just to be able to report to you that it ‘s telling us he is a candidate “Balancing priorities for better solutions.”

Bepple’s say she is “Connected Committed Caring.” Ortner’s slogan is meaningless, Bepple’s sounds as though she’s bragging about who she knows. Keep it simple, folks.

Ken Christian has gone in the opposite direction, to no avail — a sign that says “Elect Ken Christian” is a mistaken assumption that voters know what he’s running for.

HONORABLE WORST MENTION: This goes to Arjun Singh, another recycler. Evidently, his circular signs are supposed to draw our attention, but they are crowded with hard-to-read type.

NICE TRY BUT NO PRIZE: Raymond Nyuli has nice looking signs with great colours that simply don’t work because you can’t read what they say, not even his name. Nelly Dever’s signs are interesting but the words get lost in the splash of colour.

Surely, you say, there must be some good signs out there. I’ve seen three.

THE ENVELOPE PLEASE: Marg Spina follows all the rules. She sticks to her name, which is tilted corner to corner, in heavy readable type, and what she’s running for. In second place are school board candidate Joan Cowden and council candidate Peter Sharp.

I can’t say I like Spina’s washed-out blue colour, nor Cowden’s whimpy green, nor Sharp’s maroon, but they do the job the way it should be done.

Brendan Shaw would have won with his crisp, easy-to-read red font but loses points for including his web address, which is unnecessary information and unnecessary wordage.

Next week, with Halloween out of the way, more signs will be sprouting like daisies. Maybe we’ll see some improvement.

Learning how to be humble part of being mayor

You have to be humble to be mayor. Peter Milobar has been humbled twice in the past couple of weeks, on both occasions because he forgot that, sometimes, leadership means you have to follow.

Milobar promised “A Balanced Approach” in his first term as mayor. As the economy was tanking, he resisted setting up a community committee to see what could be done about it on a local level.

He finally acquiesced, and got together a group that met a couple of times and then was never heard from again.

That was at the start of his term. He ends his three years in office with two major policy stumbles. One, of course, was the Lorne Street parkade, which he personally endorsed and pushed through despite obvious public opposition.

For the first time in history, a counter petition succeeded against Kamloops City Hall, and the parkade was killed. Putting on a happy face, Milobar and council then decided not to take the issue to a referendum.

The second looks equally bad on him. Milobar voted against a federal review of the Ajax mine project but, this time, he was in the minority. Council voted against him and for the review.

What to do now? How about coming onside as if you like the idea of a federal review? Thursday, the Thompson Nicola Regional District board of directors voted for a federal review in support of the City council position Milobar had opposed.

And Milobar announced he will now travel to Ottawa to lobby for that review, along with MP Cathy McLeod. Not a bad move, since the review is now all but assured with or without Milobar’s approval.

If you’re going to be humbled, you may as well make the most of it.

Lloyd, Rafe and Jim vs. ‘every nut with a keyboard’

(Above, Syd, Lloyd Roberston and Mel at 25th Webster Awards, Oct. 24, 1011.)

Lloyd Robertson, Rafe Mair and Jim Taylor are among our nation’s best-known journalists, and I got to meet and talk with all of them — and others, like Tony Parsons, Vicki Gabereau, Jack Knox and Bill Good — at this week’s 25^th annual Jack Webster Awards in Vancouver’s Hyatt Regency Hotel.

 Robertson, Mair and Taylor are alumni of what Taylor calls the unofficial Old Farts Club of journalists. In their 70s, they have no intentions of retiring any time soon.

 You won’t find them down at the seniors center playing bridge. They may have slowed by a step or two, but they’re still on the job, writing stories and dispensing advice to a new generation of journalists.

 “Would it kill them to laugh once in awhile?” the delightful Taylor complained of the youngsters emerging from J-school intense, humourless and determined to change the world.

 We were talking about changes in the industry, lamenting, in a sense, the loss of the old way of doing things, and conceding that the day is probably not far off when newspapers won’t be produced on newsprint at all any more, and will show up only on one of those new-fangled electronic tablets.

 Taylor is a legend in B.C. sports writing after decades at the Victoria Times Colonist, Vancouver Province and Vancouver Sun. He could be taking it easy now; instead, he’s busy on a promotional tour with a new book he’s co-authored with soccer star Bob Lenarduzzi.

 Mair, on the other hand, has made the transition from radio to print, churning out columns for several B.C. publications including The Daily News, gleefully shredding what he calls “this appalling provincial government.”

 Older but not a bit less opinionated than when I knew him as a lawyer and MLA here in Kamloops in the 1970s before he got into talk radio at the Coast, he’s as funny and salty as ever. Rafe doesn’t string very many words together without interjecting an expletive or two. 

Robertson is, without challenge, the very dean of Canadian journalism. He “retired” in September at the age of 77, leaving the CTV National News but carrying on as co-host of W5.

 Robertson provided the keynote address to a thousand people in the Regency Ballroom, drawing comparisons between traditional mainstream journalism and the blogosphere.

 Acknowledging the importance of technological change and trends in the news business, he nevertheless pointed out that network television provides a connection with the audience — via recognizable professional journalists — that online pretenders can’t match. 

His bottom-line message came in the reprise of a comment from another 70-something journalist, Morley Safer of CBS’ 60 Minutes, who compared citizen journalists to citizen surgeons.

 Safer’s full quote was actually this: “The blogosphere is no alternative, crammed as it is with ravings and manipulations of every nut with a keyboard. Good journalism is structured and structure means responsibility. I would trust citizen journalism as much as I would trust citizen surgery.”

 I’m with Safer and Robertson on that one. The way news is delivered may change, but I will trust proven journalists like Robertson, Mair and Taylor, and all the young professionals who will replace them, long before I’ll ever trust the gossips, innuendo artists and rumour mongers of the blogosphere.

What do the council candidates actually stand for?

In the second full week of the election campaign, there are few clues as to what Kamloops City council candidates might do if elected.

The hot-button issues of the Ajax mine and the Lorne Street parkade are the only ones that offer clear trends.

They’re all avoiding like the plague anything in the way of a position on the mine. We must wait for more information, they say. Chad Moats comes closest to actually taking a stand, proposing that city boundaries be extended to include the mine if it gets the green light.

That’s hardly revolutionary but at least he’s thinking ahead.

As for the parkade, as the writing on the wall became clear, first-time candidates became less cautious, and a clear “build it somewhere else” thread became evident.
Ken Christian stands out, almost alone among newcomers, in having supported construction of the parkade at the Lorne Street site.

That’s a pretty gutsy thing given the math. He put at risk close to 10,000 votes, which is the number of people who signed the counter petition. When people take the trouble to sign a petition, you can count them as committed voters.

That is a whopping constituency in an election that could generate one of the lowest turnouts in history. In 2008, a miserable 28 per cent of the electorate voted in what was characterized by media as a “lacklustre” campaign.

Yet, that campaign had three candidates running for an open mayor’s seat. With five candidates but no real competition this time, will the turnout be any better?

If not, and the turnout is only around 15,000 to 18,000, those 10,000 voters with an agenda will loom pretty large should they decide to take revenge.

But there will be other good issues to chew on in this election. City spending and the local economy, though not particularly sexy, are likely to rank high on voters’ lists of concerns.

Brendan Shaw identifies job creation as the big issue and says Kamloops needs more businesses. So, candidate Shaw, what are your ideas on what to do about it?

Incumbent John DeCicco wants “economic growth and orderly development for our city.”

Can’t argue with that — I doubt any candidates will be advocating for a stagnant economy and chaotic development.

Ayren Messmer would like a better working relationship with the Tk’emloops Indian Band, and Raymond Nyuli wants to “develop a more cohesively working council.”

So, please explain what’s not working with the status quo.

Marg Spina? The one-term councillor wants to hold the line on taxes. That’s an attractive position, but how do we deal with inflation?

Campaigns are for putting flesh on the bones of promises. Just as importantly, they’re for judging credentials. Christian, for example, has years of work on the school board. Moats led the anti-HST campaign. DeCicco and Spina have resumes that include years of both community and political experience.

What the candidates say they will do is only one yardstick in judging who’s worthy of support, and they’ll have plenty of opportunity to enlarge on their ideas.

We’re heading into forum season, and they face a heavy round of speaking engagements morning, noon and night, including the media-sponsored forum at TRU on Nov. 8.

Why boss of Royal Inland Hospital still lives in Kelowna

Last spring, not long after being sworn in as the minister of health for the new Christy Clark government, Mike de Jong went for a fly-about visiting B.C. hospitals.

His first stop was Kamloops. In a private meeting facilitated by former MLA Claude Richmond, de Jong sat down with some local physicians, including Dr. Sean Gorman, who heads up the RIH medical advisory committee, Dr. Keith Hutchison, chair of the IHA’s medical advisory committee, Dr. David Sanden, the chief of staff at RIH, and Dr. Steve Rollheiser, president of the RIH medical staff.

With Richmond and de Jong was Kamloops South MLA Kevin Krueger. They came bearing good news.

RIH will continue to be administered from Kelowna, but it might have been different.

They could see to it, they said, that the next Interior Health Authority vice president of tertiary services — to which RIH administration reports — would live in Kamloops.

A backdrop to the offer was Joanne Konnert’s impending retirement from that position, and Mayor Peter Milobar’s very public disagreement with health authority CEO Dr. Robert Halpenny over where the job should be located.

Milobar’s battle with the IHA had begun a year earlier when he uttered his memorable “bullshit” expletive to describe the shift in administration from Kamloops to Kelowna.

The mayor demanded that Konnert’s position be moved to Kamloops. “If IHA wants me on board, that’s how they do it,” he declared in April of 2010.

Now, with Konnert leaving the post, that wish could be granted.

The reaction wasn’t what the political visitors were hoping for.

Actually, said the doctors, things were working out pretty well with Konnert handling things from Kelowna. They had a couple of reasons for that opinion.

For one, Konnert was doing a first-rate job. For another, having the position in Kelowna, the headquarters for the IHA, assured that the person in charge of RIH was in the know.

In other words, thanks but no thanks. Just get us someone as good as Konnert.

The politicians, rebuffed in their offer to go to the mat with IHA for the change, felt they’d had the rug pulled out from under them, if you’ll excuse the somewhat mixed metaphor.

They’d been hammered for the past 12 months by the public, the mayor and regional politicians over the issue of local control over the Kamloops hospital, figured they’d come up with a solution that would please everybody, and the doctors were sitting there telling them never mind.

They went away and the idea died on the vine.

But from the other side of the table, it was a question of putting the best interests of health care at RIH ahead of political considerations.

“The group said we needed a capable candidate, not a political appointment,” Gorman told me this week. The system was starting to work “and we just didn’t want to lose that momentum.”

Hutchison concurs. “Headquarters (of IHA), like it or not, is based in Kelowna.”

If all of IHA’s administration shifted to Kamloops, that would be a different matter. “I’d be all for that.”

The one thing they asked for was that Konnert’s successor not be from within the existing Kelowna gene pool. In June, IHA announced the hiring of Susan Brown from the Fraser Health Authority.

And that’s the previously unknown story of why Konnert’s replacement lives in Kelowna instead of Kamloops.

With four candidates left, will mayors’ race get tighter?

Frank Stewart announces in front of city hall today that he's withdrawing from the mayors' race. (Daily News photo)

The withdrawal of Frank Stewart from the Kamloops mayors’ race today (Friday) adds yet another interesting wrinkle to the local civic election. Stewart said he withdrew because he wants to see Mayor Peter Milobar ousted.

“This type of rough-shod civic management has to stop,” he said. “We can’t afford a mayor like Milobar any more.”

Will it make any difference? Well, in The Daily News online survey, at this writing, Milobar is leading with 41 per cent. Dieter Dudy is second at 35 per cent. Frank Stewart, Gordon Chow and Brian Alexander are tied at a distant third with 8 per cent.

Stewart is urging his supporters to swing over to Dudy. For the sake of argument, let’s assume his 8 per cent did his bidding. That would put Dudy ahead with 43 per cent and heading for election as the surprise next mayor of Kamloops.

A full 8 per cent swing, of course, won’t happen. But what if some of the Chow and Alexander supporters saw a chance to unseat the incumbent and moved to Dudy? Or Chow and Alexander pulled a Stewart and threw their support to Dudy? The latter can’t technically happen because today was the deadline for getting your name off the ballot, but they could refuse to campaign.

You get the point — if Milobar is truly in a minority position, ie. he has less than 50 per cent support, this race could actually get quite interesting. And if Dudy were to pull off the upset, it would be stunning — a last-minute candidate with a last-minute campaign unseating an incumbent.

Numbers quoted above are taken from The Daily News online poll, which is meant for general information only and is not based on recognized statistical methods.

Behind Closed Doors — Life at City Hall Chapter 10

CHAPTER 10 — BEING MAYOR

This is Chapter 10 in a series of articles — which I started in 2008 — written for this blog about my years as the mayor of Kamloops. It’s intended for anyone who has an interest in how civic government works.

“Do you live in a palace?”
- Favourite question from primary school class about being mayor.

“I need your advice,” said the man in my office.

His name was Reg (I won’t use his last name as there’s no way I’d want to embarrass him) and he had a problem. Usually, when people ask the mayor for advice, it’s their way of saying, “I need your help.”

Reg came to see me at one of my open houses in that first year in City Hall, the year 2000.  I held them once a week, and advertised them as a no-appointments-necessary opportunity for anyone to talk to the mayor. I was a little surprised but pleased by the enthusiastic uptake, as I wanted to be accessible. I answered my own phone, went out and door-knocked every once in awhile (seeing a politician on their doorstep between elections tended to blow people away); one day I even stood out at an intersection with a “Have a Great Day!” sign. But that’s a story for another time.

Reg wanted a dog. More accurately, he wanted to save a dog, and he needed help to do it. He was in his 40s, still in his working prime, but had been unemployed for some time due to an injury suffered in the logging industry. He showed me how the scarred arm was slowly healing, but he had little use of his wrist, and he still had little strength in his hand.

As editor of the paper I was used to all kinds of people coming through the front door with many a story that turned out not to be true, but I believed Reg. He’d been to the animal pound and fallen in love with a big Husky cross. Trouble was, he couldn’t come up with the $75 the City of Kamloops wanted as an adoption fee. No $75, no dog.

“What kind of sense does that make?” he asked me. “I can give this dog a good home, yet if I don’t pay the fee they’ll put him down. How does that help anybody?”

I asked Reg to leave it with me. I went straight to the office next to mine, inhabited by Wayne Vollrath, the City’s corporate services administrator. Animal Control and Bylaws reported to Wayne, a friendly, low-key guy who was a true student of municipal government. At the end of a day, we’d often sit in his office or mine and turn seemingly mundane topics like civic finance and policy setting into philosophical discussions.

The "First Fam" as some people liked to call us — me, Syd, and Jacob — with friend Coun. Dave Gracy. Finding downtime for friends and family isn't always easy for a mayor.

Wayne was sympathetic, but he couldn’t support releasing a dog without payment of the fee.  It would set a precedent of inequity in application of City policy.

I got that and didn’t push it — I never once asked for favouritism for anyone, whether it was a parking ticket or a bylaw or policy of any kind. Instead, I pulled out my chequebook  and wrote a personal check to the City of Kamloops for $75, with the notation “Re: Dog — Reg.”

“Give him the dog,” I told Wayne as I handed him the cheque.

I came across that cheque not long ago. On the back is stamped, “Deposit to the City of Kamloops Animal Control. . . Animal 1/CWHITE.” It reminded me that the satisfaction of being mayor isn’t always about big announcements or public laurels. Nobody ever knew about Reg and his dog except him, me and Wayne. And when Reg showed up at the mayor’s open house day not long after with a big, beautiful, well-behaved — and very much alive — Husky cross, it was more than enough thanks.

The job description for a mayor can be divided into two parallel streams, roughly equal in load but clearly and separately defined. One is the administration of political office, the other is being the public face of the city.

I enjoyed them equally, but I was surprised how much I enjoyed the public duties of being mayor. I’m shy by nature, and being the centre of attention doesn’t come easily to me. I’m probably the worst schmoozer in the world. As a youngster,  I had friends but I was definitely not Mr. Popular. In my teens, I was one of those guys who had to write out a script and worry for days before screwing up the courage to phone a girl for a date.

The one thing that saved me is that I’m not a bad actor on stage. I could sing a solo in a Christmas concert or play Cassius in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar a lot easier than I could strike up a conversation with a stranger.

As a newspaper editor, I sat on many a panel and made quite a few speeches and was comfortable in front of a microphone. As mayor, public speaking wasn’t a problem. In fact, I love crafting a good speech and making a good delivery.

But the other parts were easier than expected. I soon discovered that when the mayor is invited to something, steps are taken to ensure he’s not left on his own. He’s met at the door, properly introduced, and made comfortable. You don’t have to walk in and take over the room; the work is done for you.

Over time, I became less and less apprehensive. I no longer felt edgy as I entered a reception, a wine and cheese, or a rubber chicken luncheon that are the staple of business and public life in any city. If I found myself alone, I could even interject into a circle of strangers without worrying that I might be butting in to some private conversation.

Walking down the sidewalk, I had to leave extra time to get from A to B because of the number of people who would cheerfully greet me as “Mayor Mel!” or stop to chat or bring up an issue. Even the street people called me by name, and some enjoyed a politically discussion as much as anyone.

I found that the mayor is the one people want at their important events. Councillors are welcome, but the presence of the mayor is what makes it. I worked hard to be there. My predecessor sometimes sent his secretary to represent him at sod turnings or ribbon cuttings and I didn’t want to be a sender of messages. One councillor complained that I wasn’t letting other members of council fill in for me often enough — how could I explain that if someone is opening a new store or announcing a new program or holding a fundraiser, having a councillor as the City’s representative is considered second best?

This was a good thing, because there was nothing I could have done about it anyway. Barrie Ogden, my administrative assistant, kept track of my appointments in a big book that sat on her desk (the age of electronic calendars hadn’t quite taken hold), and that book was full every day. I went from committee meeting to staff meeting to luncheon to ribbon cutting to wine and cheese to dinner and the day rushed by. Being a newspaper editor is a great career but in some ways it’s a desk job. As mayor, the constant change of scenery was invigorating.

Some mayors profess to be uncomfortable with being treated like a mayor. They act embarrassed when they have to don the mayoral gown and chain of office, and they eschew the “Your Worship” honorific as if it’s too pretentious. I didn’t. It’s not the person who’s being feted, it’s the office of being mayor, and it’s one that we should respect.

I had the names of every mayor of Kamloops, with the years they served, engraved on the backs of the links in the chain of office (there are two, a smaller one that’s been around for many years, and a bigger, more ostentatious one presented by then-Municipal Affairs Minister Dan Campbell when the City was amalgamated with surrounding towns in 1972. It’s a bit tinny, and I liked the older one better. The two mayors who succeeded me have both used the older one as well). When I put on the gown and placed that chain of office around my neck for some formal occasion, I felt proud to be representing the people of Kamloops. Maybe that sounds corny, but the feeling was genuine.

I dressed for the job, too. Casual is okay on Fridays but when you’re mayor it doesn’t cut it the rest of the week. I bought several new suits and wore a tie every day. A mayor should look like a leader. Staff would often notice that my car was still in its spot as they left work for the day, and I think they respected the fact that I made it a full-time job and then some.

So many things happen in a mayor’s day that are new and exciting and that just make life so damned interesting. For example, who holds a 100th birthday party for a centenarian without asking the mayor to bring happy birthday wishes on behalf of the citizens of Kamloops? And when the mayor does come, everyone is so pleased. What they don’t know is that the mayor is the one who’s honoured to be there, to talk with someone who so richly deserves recognition, to learn just a little bit about a life well-lived.

How about being piped into a banquet with the head table? Or riding in a convertible in a parade? Or being referred to as “Our beloved mayor” at an event held by one of our multi-cultural associations, or cutting the official Canada Day cake, or doing an Elvis impersonation in front of an exhibition hall full of seniors, or speaking to new Canadians as they take their oath of allegiance?

If that doesn’t do it for you, how about meeting mayors, governors, cabinet ministers, premiers, prime ministers, and spending a day with our governor-general? No? Then how about signing an international agreement at a ceremony at the Great Wall of China, or in a remote Sri Lankan village?

You think being mayor isn’t fun? It’s a perpetual joy.

NEXT: A busy first year.

An explanation of that last-minute parkade referendum option

On the last day of the parkade debate, there was a final oddity in an epic that has had its share.

An explanation is in order as to the curious revelation at Tuesday’s City council meeting that a referendum in conjunction with the Nov. 19 civic election was, indeed, an option.

Even on that very day, council could have authorized a referendum for the 19^th of next month.

By then, of course, it was pretty much a moot point — there was no appetite in council chambers to continue fighting for a project that could make no headway against the tide of public opinion.

But it did raise the point that a council, and an administration, which had said it would be impossible to hold a referendum by civic-election day had it all wrong.

Indeed, at any point before or since Aug. 30, when council set Oct. 11 as the deadline for receiving counter petition forms, council could have gotten out from under the whole thing by calling for a referendum on Nov. 19.

With no fanfare or explanation, community and corporate affairs director Len Hrycan submitted a report to council Tuesday that simply gave a Nov. 19 referendum as an option in light of the successful counter petition. “The last date for this authorization (of a referendum) from Council is Oct. 18, 2011,” he stated in his report.

Was City Hall keeping River City residents in the dark the whole time?

The explanation I got from City Hall yesterday was that, no, it was simply a lack of due diligence.

The normal process for holding a referendum requires permission from the provincial government and quite a rigmarole that eats up a lot of time.

City staff assumed the rules and timeline are the same in the case of a successful counter petition but they are not. After the counter petition was underway, they figured they’d better check in with Victoria and discovered no ministry approval is required.

At no point, to my knowledge, was there any discussion of this in an open council meeting. Maybe council was informed in camera and didn’t want to muddy the waters.

It’s all of no consequence now except that one wonders why the rules for holding referenda were the subject of assumptions instead of careful homework.

Nevertheless, the parkade has now been removed from the public agenda and we can, thankfully, talk about other things.

Such as, for example, the new CBC radio studio that will open up here next spring. Former TV7 news anchor Rob Polson was in town yesterday gathering ideas for the content of the new Kamloops-based CBC morning radio show tentatively scheduled for launch early next April.

Polson now works for the Mother Corp in Vancouver and is doing some planning for the morning show. Word is the studio will be located in the downtown area — and there will be no remarks here about whether staff will find a place to park.

CBC is searching for a host, a producer, an associate producer and a reporter to work on the show. I, for one, will welcome a program based on our own city instead of one from Kelowna that pays occasional lip service.

Here’s hoping corporate cuts don’t kill the whole plan.