If you ran and lost in last year’s civic election, but have ideas on how to improve the City of Kamloops, the mayor wants to hear from you.

Speaking on NL Newsday, Reid Hamer-Jackson says he feels it is a good idea as those candidates would likely have suggestions that could improve Kamloops.

“They’ve invested in the community, I mean they all had campaign managers and teams,” he said. “I’ve had meetings with guys like Randy Sunderman. He’s a pretty sharp cookie that guy and a lot of others, a lot smarter than I am, so why wouldn’t we get input?”

Hamer-Jackson says he came up with the idea shortly after he was inaugurated as mayor, as the new council began discussing strategic planning.

“I thought about it because I listened to a lot of the candidates that ran for council and mayor,” he said. “[So I wanted to reach out to them and] ask for their input on maybe their top one, two, three, whether we use them or not, their ideas. I think it would be awesome.”

He’s hoping that people who want to provide feedback on strategic planning reach out to mayor and council by email.

“Some people might be done with it and they don’t have to participate. It is nothing that I’m going to take to council and ask for their approval, it is going to help the council, they should be really happy about it,” Hamer-Jackson added.

“I mean there are a lot of sharp people, people with a lot of interest. Like I said, they were dedicated to the community, so again, why wouldn’t we?”

The strategic planning sessions take place this Thursday and Friday, Jan. 26 and 27, with councillors meeting with a facilitator to come up with a vision and areas of focus for the rest of their term in office.