Welcome to Your Kamloops!

Listening to Randy Diehl

I had the good fortune to spend an hour this morning with Randy Diehl, Chief Administrative Officer, for the City of Kamloops. Randy is our head employee, leading all city employees in the day to day management of our city.

Randy has always struck me as a quiet person. He would probably make a lousy politician, but I think he is a very good manager. I could be wrong (about the politician part) as I am just getting to know Randy better.

I was especially interested to talk to Randy about City Hall's quest to became one of the 100 Top Organizations in Canada. This is a rigorous process, administered by the National Quality Institute of Canada, which requires going through City Hall processes and assessing their efficiency by international standards. The City has been through 2 of the 4 steps in the process. It is important that results in this process are measurable. Randy is of the same view.

Anything the City can do to be more efficient and not lose its humanity -  I am in favour of. Too often, organizations don't go that extra mile to become as efficient as possible.

Randy and I also talked about the importance of City Council having a strategic plan, the 360 reviews of city managers where there staff also get to anonymously review their manager's performance, and the issue of substandard infrastructure on the North Shore.

I firmly believe Randy has been a huge asset to the City.

Terry Lake's Youth Forum...

So far, two fine gentlemen. Terry Lake and Al McNair, have announced their desire and willingness to be the next Mayor of Kamloops. It will be a hard decision for the community to make, and many even say it is likely other good Mayoral candidates will emerge.

I plan to link to all other city council candidates' web sites and their various announcements and news throughout the next months.

In that spirit, want to let people know that Terry Lake is holding a Youth issue's forum tomorrow night, Wednesday, August 31st. It is closed event - only for youth between ages of 15 to 19. He sent the following email to the TRU faculty email list:

I will be hosting a youth issues forum this Wednesday at 8 PM at Ruth's
Cafe (348 Seymour). If you know anyone aged 15-19 that would like to
attend this session designed to find out what municipal issues are
important to youth, please reply via e-mail.
[email protected]

I totally believe youth input is critically important to our city. I hope I can work with Terry to organize a citywide Youth Kamtalk conference.

The First Day....

Its 10:36pm and I am having some pasta before I sleep. Action packed day today. I formally announced my candidacy. This morning, I did an interview with I-98 / B 100 Radio. I was not too articulate, I need to get better, but I think I still got my points across. Then, did a TV interview with CFJC - TV news. That went a little better I thought. Got to be concise and relaxed - tough for me still with a large camera feeling like its in my face.

Met with Byron McCorkell, Parks Rec and Culture director after. We talked about the delicate balancing act in deciding how much to charge, if anything, for City sponsored recreation activities. Byron's philosophy is that the City should pay 100% of building something ( an arena, a soccer field) and then subsidize usage fees at 50%. Seems fair to me.

I then had lunch with Pat Wallace, the longest serving member (18 years) of Kamloops City Council. Pat and I talked about the importance of keeping taxes reasonable and new Green technologies and practices that could be encouraged in the city.

Went to the Kamloops Daily News for an interview by Michelle Young. Michelle shared some of her opinions as well as asked me for mine.  She feels, for example, that there should be set timelimits for public presentations to City Council and these should only rarely be exceeded.

In the evening, we had a meeting of my growing campaign committee. Really spirited discussion on many issues. We are getting a brochure designed, a timeline developed, and a budget crafted.

Announcing my Candidacy

August 24th 2005

Today, I am publicly announcing that I hope to earn the support of my fellow Citizens of Kamloops as one of their representatives on the 2005-2008 Kamloops City Council

 

I was born and raised in Kamloops. I have travelled and lived all over the world and I  have found no other place that I could comfortably call home. We live in an incredible city. I have been greatly inspired by the many success stories in our community. And I have been deeply touched by the challenges we face.

 

I feel strongly about the well being of our entire community. I believe we must involve as many people as possible in the affairs of our city and do so in a respectful, transparent, and effective manner. I am honoured to have friends from all walks of life in Kamloops, hope to make many more, and am confident I will make decisions on Council that reflect a broad community consensus. I commit to do my best to effectively hear from and communicate with my fellow citizens about the issues that come before Council.

 

The best City Council works well as a team. I fully understand that , standing alone, the positions of one City Councillor will not have much impact. These are some more of the thoughts and ideas I will bring to that team:

 

1. Building Healthy Communities

• reach out to Youth and encourage their full involvement in the community. Lobby for funding for Youth Kamtalk conference.

• encourage the formation and supporting operations of comunity associations.

• address crime through a strategy that combines police resources, poverty reduction, and addiction treatment resources 

• support consensus building training for council, council committees, and local boards.

2. Innovative Economic Development

• encourage local investment in green technologies – eg.geothermal power, wind power, solar power.

• partner on a “new entrepreneur” strategy that helps people start new businesses.

 

3. Sustainable Development

• support curb side recycling initiative.

• lobby the province for more alternative energy transit buses.

I very much look forward to listening and responding to the ideas and concerns of the Citizens of Kamloops over the next few months. I invite everyone and anyone to contact me at 377 1797 or at [email protected].