There has been a lot of lost opportunity with this current city council. Despite some strong efforts and accomplishments, I lament at what more could have been accomplished if our mayor and our city councillors had a collaborative working relationship.

Finding our incredible community on the provincial and national news for all the wrong reasons is also very embarrassing for many Kamloopsians. Anytime I go anywhere else in the province, the dysfunction on council is the first thing anyone asks about. Actually, many days, even in town, it’s the first thing people talk about.

So, are you tired of the dysfunction? Do you want to bend the curve back down from the huge increase in legal bills paid for by our tax dollars? Would you like Kamloops’ long-time reputation as a very well governed community to be restored?

Mark Saturday, Oct. 17, 2026, on your calendar. This is the date of the next civic election in Kamloops and all around the province. If you answered yes to any of the questions above, we could only be a mere sixteen months from the end of our civic suffering.

Mayor Hamer-Jackson has already announced he intends to run again. If he changes his mind, someone else may take his place as the standard bearer for his supporters. I would assume city councillors who are considering running for mayor are discussing who among them might be best placed to be the single candidate for the mayor’s chair.

In 2022, three sitting city councillors who, in my humble, retrospective view, shared a lot in common, ran for Mayor and received more votes together than the two candidates who were not on council.

Full disclosure: I was one of the three candidates who was a sitting city councillor.

If we want to get past the splitting of the vote problems produced by our “first past the post” voting system, I would love to see only two well known candidates standing for Mayor. Perhaps each of the candidates would join a group of like-minded council candidates working closely or loosely together in the election campaign.

I’ve seen slates in some local elections in Kamloops and they have never been particularly successful or had any sustainability past an election. And I’m worried about candidates with similar opinions on specific issues aligning with each other.

Rather, a diverse group of candidates with a broad spectrum of views and experiences, without specific axes to grind, who are coming to the campaign with a positive, collaborative approach would be the best placed group to represent and lead the community in the next council term. This is the type of slate I could get behind.

Yes, Kamloopsians voted in this dysfunction, but many of us likely did not foresee how dysfunctional it would become. There are simply too many huge, important challenges and too many huge, important opportunities to spend another four years with our council mired in code of conduct issues and legal quagmires. We can do better next time we vote.

Councils always have challenging issues to deal with. That’s one of the reasons councils exist. But council members should be able to respect each other and work together for the good of the community.  They should be able to share a meal or drink together after a tough day in meetings and appreciate everyone’s contributions to the team.

However the candidate list shakes out in 2026, I know I will be looking to vote for people who are committed to creating a cohesive council.