Kamloops City Councillors are openly firing back following Mayor Reid Hamer-Jackson’s attempt to change the make-up of council standing committees.

In a Friday afternoon media availability at City Hall, councillor Katie Neustaeter spoke on behalf of her colleagues to say council is combatting the “chaotic and unpredictable behavior” of the Mayor, which she says leads to confusion and misinformation.

Neustaeter says no one on council was consulted about the changes nor were there any meetings held about their performance as chairs of the various committees.

“In fact, no member of this council has been invited by the mayor to participate in any meaningful, consultative team-building or respectful conversation in many months,” Neustaeter said, reading a prepared statement.

“While we as councillors have been subjected to repeated disrespect, violations of personal and professional boundaries, belittling and constantly disruptive behaviour by the mayor, we’ve been willing to absorb the impact in service to our community and in an attempt to have city business compromised as little as possible,” Neustaeter added.

“But we must draw a line when this erratic behaviour directly obstructs our ability as your democratically elected representatives to do our job.”

Friday’s news conference came one day after a document showing the proposed committee reshuffle – which included many councillors being removed as chair – was obtained by several media outlets, including Radio NL.

It showed Hamer-Jackson choosing to appoint members of the public – in some cases his friends or election campaign supporters – with three members of the public set to serve as committee chairs.

Councillors Bill Sarai, Kelly Hall, and Mike O’Reilly were removed as chairs of the Community Relations and Reconciliation, Community and Protective Services, and Development and Sustainability committees respectively, with Hamer-Jackson naming Deborah Newby, Bud Smith, and Randy Sunderman as their respective replacements.

While Sarai is still on the Community Relations and Reconciliation Committee, Hall has been removed from the Community and Protective Services Committee and added to the Development and Sustainability Committee.

O’Reilly meanwhile has been removed from the Development and Sustainability Committee.

Speaking on NL Newsday Thursday, Hamer-Jackson says the idea behind these changes is to relieve councillors of some of their workloads.

“We’ve got some good people on board and they’re willing to volunteer their time and I think its going to relieve some of the councillors,” Hamer-Jackson said.

“They’ve been pretty busy doing a lot of things. They’re on a lot of committees, and TNRD board, and things like that. You know hospital board, and airport authority I think they’re a little overwhelmed.”

He also noted that he didn’t feel that the committees were “effective” suggesting that some have just two or three meetings in a year.

The statement from city councillors disputed those claims.

“No councillor you see before you today has ever expressed a desire to be ‘relieved of our workload.’ No councillor has ever expressed that they were ‘kind of overwhelmed.’ No chair has shown any ‘lack of commitment or has any conflict.’ No committee has only ‘two or three meetings booked for a whole year,'” Neustaeter said.

Councillors did not take questions from media Friday but they did say there will be a special meeting of council on Tuesday, March 21, to discuss a resolution to what they called “an unfortunate disruption” of council’s work.

It is not clear yet if this meeting will be open to the public or what that resolution might entail. They could reject their committee appointments – rendering them obsolete as standing committees are required to be made up with a majority of elected councillors.

They could also change the terms of reference to require that elected councillors be appointed as chair, and that any members of the public on committees be selected through a more formal process.

“Your elected councillors stand as diverse individuals, united in purpose to unwaveringly serve you,” Neustaeter added. “Despite the extraordinary challenge that we continue to face, we remain committed to you, Kamloops.”