A Kamloops Councillor is hoping to revive a province-wide approach to urban advocacy with a different twist.

Councillor Dale Bass has a motion before the next Kamloops council meeting, asking to build on the “urban mayors” concept created during the pandemic.

“Rather than restricting it to mayors, and I understand several of the new mayors do not want to do it, I thought let’s find out if maybe councillors want to do it.”

Calling it an “urban councillors” caucus, Bass says it doesn’t appear to be of interest right now in this municipal term.

“When I wrote the motion, our CAO called me to tell me that he had tried to revive it or someone within our staff tried to revive it and had heard from mayors they were not interested, that may never have gone to the council. Mayors are mayors, but there are councillors; maybe they want to do it.”

If her motion passes, Bass says she will then put out feelers to councils across the 13 different communities that made up the original Urban Mayor’s caucus.

“It is a way of sharing information, speaking together, speaking as one voice, and making it clear that you cannot silo us off into different municipalities on these common issues.”

The urban mayor’s caucus included former Kamloops Mayor Ken Christian, as well as a dozen other mayors from the Lower Mainland and other large communities in the province who would come together to advocate and press the provincial government on various issues of common concern.

They would meet semi-regularly to discuss issues of mutual concern, then take those concerns to provincial officials.