Kamloops council meeting goes off the rails; mayor removed as chair again

The mayor of Kamloops was removed from running a council meeting for a second time as it quickly went off the rails. Council took his authority away after a rough, combative start between Mayor Reid Hamer-Jackson and the rest of council, along with staff. The meeting was made worse by heckling from the audience, escalating to the threatened ejection of two members of the public. "This is a safe space for our staff. We are required to make sure it is a safe space. People do not get to come in here and tell us they lied, they're giving falsehoods and things like that. That's not what we do in a business meeting here," Coun. Stephen Karpuk said. He had interjected when resident and failed council candidate Mac Gordon accused city manager Byron McCorkell of lying about a city project. Gordon's heated accusations continued until he was interrupted by councillors Katie Neustaeter and Bill Sarai until Coun. Mike O'Reilly asked for a five minute "cooling off period." Bylaw manager Will Beatty threatened to have police called to escort Gordon from city council if he remained standing at the podium. Another man was warned multiple times by Beatty and another bylaw officer in the room that he could be removed as he heckled council several times.  Gordon was nearly made to leave again later when council returned and Gordon tried asking council about an ongoing Alternative Approval Process. The discussion drew away from Gordon and became centred around Hamer-Jackson and city staff, resulting in the temporary removal of the mayor from leading the meeting. Kamloops city council meetings include a time for public inquiries as long as they're related to something on the day's agenda. Many BC cities don't have this time set aside at all and, in this case, nothing related to the Alternative Approval Process was on the agenda. There was a mention of the next Build Kamloops committee meeting, which is related to the projects subject to the Alternative Approval Process. "It's pretty obvious today it's on the agenda, but you can't speak on it," the mayor said to Gordon. Hamer-Jackson's continued disagreement resulted in council removing him from his role leading the meeting until they moved on from public inquiries. It took nearly an hour to get through the public inquiries portion of the meeting, but no one in the audience was ultimately ejected from council chambers. It's the second time Hamer-Jackson was removed as chair of a council meeting, but last time the authority wasn't returned to him until the next meeting. It happened in May when Hamer-Jackson attempted to read a prepared statement https://infotel.ca/newsitem/in-video-kamloops-councillors-prevent-mayor-from-chairing-council-meeting/it104745 in response to a provincially appointed advisor's report to city hall — a report that blamed the mayor for causing the sustained dysfunction. Coun. Karpuk made the motion that time, later telling iNFOnews.ca he didn't take it lightly. "I'm not really happy that I had to do it, but it is something that is there for simple civil governance," he said at the time. "It comes from the Community Charter. It is a tool. Unfortunately, we had to use it today." To contact a reporter for this story, email Levi Landry mailto:llandry@infonews.ca  or call 250-819-3723 or email the editor mailto:news@infonews.ca . You can also submit photos, videos or news tips to the newsroom mailto:tips@infonews.ca  and be entered to win a monthly prize draw. We welcome your comments and opinions on our stories but play nice. We won't censor or delete comments unless they contain off-topic statements or links, unnecessary vulgarity, false facts, spam or obviously fake profiles. If you have any concerns about what you see in comments, email the editor in the link above. SUBSCRIBE to our awesome newsletter here https://infotel.ca/newsletter .