There’s growing concern among Kamloops City councillors due to the conspicuous absence of the Mayor since his return from the holidays.
This follows a move by Reid Hamer-Jackson to skip a long-planned ‘team building’ exercise among Kamloops City Council on Tuesday.
Radio NL has also learned that Hamer-Jackson will not be representing Kamloops at a ceremony in Victoria this week.
The 2021 and 2022 British Columbia Reconciliation Award recipients will be honoured in a ceremony at Government House on Thursday.
This will include Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc Kúkpi7 Rosanne Casimir and the City of Kamloops, which will be represented by Councillor Dale Bass, who is the rotating Deputy Mayor of Kamloops for the month of January.
Bass says the rest of council is somewhat dismayed by Hamer-Jackson’s absence from his role.
“We asked CAO [David] Trawin what was going on, and he says he was told by Reid [Hamer-Jackson] that he would be somewhere in the Interior going to meetings, but he didn’t want to discuss them with anyone,” said Bass on NL Newsday with Brett Mineer.
Bass suggests this is somewhat off-putting for her and others on council.
“I’ll tell you that concerns me to have the Mayor out there meeting with somebody about something,” she said. “Is he doing it as a sports fan or is he doing it as the Mayor.”
Bass does say the rest of council is hopeful this is part of an early “learning curve” for the rookie politican.
“This council has tried very hard to work with him… very, very hard to work with him,” said Bass. “Even yesterday [Tuesday] we were trying to figure out a way to support him if he is uncomfortable dealing with the public.”
Working as a team is one of the biggest parts of having a successful council.
Today we spent the better part of the morning building our team! #kamloops pic.twitter.com/g19zsTjUT0
— Mike O'Reilly – Kamloops City Councillor (@mikeoreilly2022) January 11, 2023