
A member of the public being escorted from Kamloops council chambers by Community Services Officers/via YouTube
The first steps toward possibly ending the public inquiries at Kamloops City Hall have been suggested.
As part of an abbreviated Kamloops council session on Tuesday, councillor Bill Sarai has pitched the idea of shutting down the two points during the regular sessions where members of the public can ask questions of council related to the agenda of the day.
“I’ve been sitting in this horseshoe 6 years now. The decorum and civility that comes to us and the accusations and the finger-pointing and the laughing has just gotten to the point where it hinders us to do our job,” said Sarai.
“I think we are one of the few communities that allow public inquiries, actually in two spots on our agenda,” continued Sarai. “Both spots take up three-quarters of our time of doing the City’s work that the taxpayers of our city has elected us to do.”
While an official motion was not made, as the suggestion from Sarai came just as the council meeting was adjourned for the day, it was suggested by staff that a report will be coming back before council to allow it to review the requirements needed to pull the public inquiries portion of the agendas.
It’s expected this would require a change in bylaws.
More recently, Community Services Officers have been stationed at council chambers during open meetings, as some members of the public have failed to abide by the City’s rules around harassment of city employees during their time at the podium.
The suggestion by Sarai came on the heels of someone “Zoom-bombing” the session, using the online feed to project pornographic images to the council chambers and those observing online.
This eventually led to the City issuing a public apology, and cutting short Tuesday’s session.