A Kamloops councillor is looking forward to the debut of a monthly town hall meeting on Radio NL.
Dennis Walsh likes the idea of having a town hall on the radio especially since doing this in person is off the table as long as we’re in a pandemic.
“I think there’s been a lack of access to council, obviously we can’t have public meetings so the next best thing to a public meeting is to have a radio town hall,” he said. “People will call in (during the town hall 250 374-5345), they can email in (nlnews@radionl.com) and we’ll get a feel for what’s happening in the city. I think that what it’s all about, public engagement.”
He’s looking forward to hearing about some of the things that can slip through the cracks.
“As a city I think we do great on all the big stuff but sometimes we lack refining the details that are kind of gnawing at people every year and that’s snow removal, pot holes, you know the basic stuff. I think we can do a better job in some of those areas.”
There are also big issues as Walsh says homelessness is top of mind for many of us.
“The problem we have is we’ve made drug addiction and metal illness almost a criminal activity. You can’t criminalize those things, I mean addiction is addiction, it a mental illness in it’s own and there are people that have mental issues in the street and we just kind of dump them onto the street.”
“We had institutions, we had group homes and I believe most of those group homes are no longer active. We’ve never filled that void and we can’t criminalize those people because most of them have distorted thinking, they can’t make rational decisions whether to even go into a safe centre even when it’s cold so we need to look after people.”
The Town Hall will run on the last Wednesday of each month and debuts on February 24, on NL Newsday with Jeff Andreas. The first guest will be Kamloops councillor Mike O’Reilly.
Those looking to ask questions can call or text 250 374-5345 during the 4:00 hour, email nlnews@radionl.com, or send us a message on Facebook or Twitter.
