City council held a special meeting related to the standing committees on Tuesday (Image Credit: CFJC Today)

By Chad Klassen

COMMITTEE CONTROVERSY

Council suspends standing committees, challenges mayor at special meeting

Mar 21, 2023 | 8:00 PM

The City of Kamloops’ standing committees, which have been the centre of controversy for the last week with Kamloops Mayor Reid Hamer-Jackson appointing his own people to those committees, are being suspended for the time being.

The decision was one of three motions passed at a special council meeting on Tuesday morning (Mar. 21) at city hall to talk about the mayor’s decisions.

“Given this mayor has decided, or at least put forward — depending which way you look at it — adding residents to the committees, the terms of reference would need to be adjusted,” noted city CAO David Trawin at the meeting.

Trawin is referring to how the standing committees in question will operate — everything from code of conduct and confidentiality, by which members of the public aren’t currently policed, as well as who appoints the chairs of these committees — a duty currently in the hands of the mayor.

Council grants

Vernon to distribute over $50k in Council Discretionary Grants, $20K to the food bank

19m ago

Possible firearm involved

One person apprehended in connection with suspicious activity in Coldstream

Dec 13, 2025

Fatal Collision, Highway Closed

One person dead in crash near Revelstoke

Dec 13, 2025

Councillor Dale Bass put forward a motion to update the terms of reference, which was eventually passed 8-1 with Mayor Reid Hamer-Jackson, dialed on Zoom from Vancouver Island, the only one opposed.

The committees were also suspended by council through another motion.

“I think there was some good governance today,” Deputy Mayor of Kamloops Kelly Hall told the media. “The council before you decided to pause the standing committees. Give us an opportunity to do some deep diving into the terms of reference, which I think is good governance for all of us and all of the City of Kamloops.”

The city’s Corporate Officer Maria Mazzotta noted the terms of reference needed to be changed after mayor added Kamloops residents to the standing committees.

“The biggest issue and the reason why the terms of reference needed to be reviewed is they are designed for a committee with three members, all of whom are members of council,” she said. “The mayor’s committee appointments that he announced last week are a different structure and a different make-up. So in essence, the terms of reference and the mayor’s announcement from last week don’t match, they don’t mesh. We need new terms of reference.”

In between all the votes on Tuesday were frustrations from the councillors —who felt blindsided by the committee decisions.

The councillors made it clear they don’t have an issue with the public being on the standing committees. For them, it comes down to how they were hand-picked by Hamer-Jackson

“I’ve had no consultation as to why this was going forward,” noted Kamloops councillor Stephen Karpuk. “I have no issues with the people you’ve appointed. I’m just curious what is the actual rationale that we needed public members in a voting position when we have engagement groups.”

It took Karpuk asking five times to get a semblance of an answer from the mayor.

“The way I look at it. A guy like Bud Smith. Just look him up. He was Attorney General. Deb Newby [part of Hamer-Jackson’s campaign team] worked for the provincial government in many levels and has a lot of experience,” replied Hamer-Jackson.

Contrary to his initial email to council last week, which councillors felt were a done deal, Hamer-Jackson noted over Zoom changes can be made.

“We can change these standing committees. It’s not the end of the world,” he said.

Kamloops councillor Bill Sarai responded, “Worship, with all due respect, I get where you want to change things around now that we’re in this meeting…What you sent out last week, there was no avenue for any input from council or staff to change anything, so let’s get something clear, very clear. You’re saying it now that there’s opportunities for engagement after we called you out on it.”

A committee of three councillors will be chosen by Deputy Mayor Kelly Hall to discuss and update the terms of references for the standing committees.