Welcome to Your Kamloops!

The Early Education of Councillor Arjun Singh

(By the way Councillor Arjun Singh sounds way too stuffy for me. Just call me Arjun.)

I am still congratulated by people every day. And I am very thankful. It is fitting that my sense of responsibility to our community grows with every handshake, thumbs up and pat on the back. I am also starting to be approached. sometimes even confronted, by folks who have issue with some of the positions I stated in the election campaign and/or who have issues with positions of the current Council. I want to honour these concerns as well, by trying to calmly engage in productive and respectful discussions.

The new Council gets sworn in next week. But, I have already been working as much as I can.

I have got a small handful of open "files" where I have been contacted by people with different concerns and issues - the new solid waste (garbage) utility, rules for home based businesses. and the S.H.O.P. program for sex trade workers on the North Shore.

I was honoured to be invited to a presentation on "Seeing Our City Through the Eyes of A Child" . The speaker, Suzanne Crowhurst Lennard, spoke a lot about the general principles of making a city more liveable for everyone. Her suggestions centred a lot around shared public spaces, like public squares, that are friendly to all in a community.

And today was a relatively full day of Council related meetings. Typically, on Tuesday morning, members of Council are invited to a morning meeting of Senior City Staff where they review the Council meeting agenda and prepare themselves for questions and issues that may arise. I attended today and found it very informative. Because this is not a public meeting, members of Council are advised that we should ask substantive questions at the regular Council meeting.

At 1:30pm, I sat in the public gallery for the last time at the regular Council meeting. The issues included approval of the development that will turn Thompson Park Mall into Lansdowne Village (more on this to follow) and interim rates for the new solid waste utility for the first half of 2006.

This evening, at 7pm, the public hearing convened on the new City Centre Plan. A lot of people who spoke at the public hearing were happy and in support of the plan. And this speaks volumes to the great work of the the City planning department and of the consultants on this project, Urban Systems.

City Centre Proposed Plan on City Web Site

Thanks to John Popoff, planner at the City, who pointed me to a downloadable version of the City Centre Plan on the City web site. You will need the free Adobe Reader to view it. You may already have it on your computer. If not, you can download it here.

Even though I have got Adobe Reader, I still can't seem to get the plan to open on my computer. Would appreciate a heads up if anyone else is having the same issue.

New City Centre Plan - Final Public Hearing

Would like to invite you all to City Council chambers on Tuesday, November 29th at 7pm for the final Public Hearing for the new Kamloops City Centre Plan. The draft document is available from City Hall. I am going to ask them to make it available on the City web site. Or I will make it available here in the next few days. That's a committment you can hold me to.

If you happened to be at the public information meeting on the plan in early October, this summary talks about how city staff and the consultants dealt with all the questions raised.

John O'Fee on the Election Results

Got an interesting email from John O'Fee yesterday. John topped the polls yet again for Council. Most interesting finding, to me, is that it was voters on the North Shore who got Joe Leong elected and who defeated Peter Sharp.

Here is John's email and attached spreadsheet:

As some of you know, I sit down after the civic election and do a quick review of the polling results.  The attached documents may be of some interest to you in terms of rankings.

As the objective of the council candidate in any poll is to finish no worse than 8th,  any finish that is 8th or better can be considered a "win" at that poll.  Any finish 4th or better means that the candidate finished in the top half of the "winning" candidates at that poll.

The first table on the attachment provides each polling station and the rankings.  The far right column indicates how many top 4 or top 8 finishes a candidate had.

In the election 6 years ago, the public was very clear that it wanted 8 of 9 people to be on council.  Terry Lake was edged out by Sharon Frissell by a few hundred votes, but then the number of votes dropped steeply for the remaining candidates (of which there were 34).

Three years ago the voters were far more certain which 8 candidates (out of 27) they wanted.  While Peter Milobar filled the 8th seat, there was a drop of about 1500 votes before the next following candidate.

What was also interesting in the past was a complete consistency across Kamloops in their choices for council.  As the eighth place finisher in 1999, Sharon "won" 16 out of 21 polls.   Terry, while only 400 votes back "won" only 6.  After him, nobody placed 8th or better in more than two polls.

The pattern repeated itself in 2002.

This year's election was in some respects no different in that there was a clear dividing line as we have seen in elections past.  After Peter Sharp, no candidate "won" more than one polling station.  What is different is that Sharp, Singh and Leong all "won" about the same number of polling stations.  For the first time, there was some marked differences between the North and South Shores, at least for the final council candidates.   If only the North Shore voted, the final four successful council candidates would have been (in order)

Harker/Leong/Dicicco/Singh.  If only the South Shore had voted, the final four would have been Harker/Dicicco/Singh/Sharp.  In past elections you could have held the vote on either side of the river and the same eight people would have been elected in about the same order. 

In any event, I hope you find the enclosed of some interest.

Download 2005_rankings.short.pdf

Very Classy, Peter Sharp...

I like Peter Sharp. And I felt bad that he lost his seat on Saturday. Today, at the regular Council meeting, Peter came right up to me and warmly congratulated me and told me he was sure I would do a great job. In fact, he did the same with all 3 of us newbie Councillors. Later, when we all met at Sgt O'Flahertys for a drink, he bought everyone a round.

Very classy.

THANK YOU KAMLOOPS!

Oh my, I won a seat. I am so thankful for everyone of the 9091 people who voted for me. And, I hope to earn the support of the many people who did not vote for me by being a very approachable, dilligent, and innovative Councillor.  This web site now changes into a weblog to keep people informed about what is happening on your Council and to a place where input is warmly welcomed. I will start attending Council meetings this week as a Councillor-Elect. The new Council officially starts on December 5th. Congratulations to Mayor-Elect Terry Lake and to all the new Council.  Here is a snapshot from the City web site of all the local results. Click on the image for a better link:

This is the Last Day of the Campaign...

Wow - the last day of the campaign. I am a little busy right (and tired) now to say something really profound about it, I think. Let me just say that I am proud. Proud of my team. Proud of the students at TRU who just gave me a good grilling on issues dear to their hearts. We started planning back in June. Out of 4000 of my famous "hockey cards", I have about 22 left.

I will post more later.

Selected Photos from the Campaign Trail...

Someone who really doesn't want to me knock on the door. Check out the mat as well as the "no soliciting" sign.

Alice at Alice's Deli in Valleyview

School Trustee Gerald Watson participating in the Big Brother Sisters Flying Airplane contest at the Blazers Game...

Kamloops Daily News' Michelle Young turning away as I try to take her photo. I guess she likes being the reporter and not the reported. I think I am going to try and ask her for an interview.

How are the Candidates Holding Up?

I stumbled in the twilight while door knocking last night, skinning my knee. I have been more tired than ever. I am not asking for pity. I am having the time of my life. Still, I know now how hard campaigns can be on candidates.

This morning, yet another public figure came out criticizing Al McNair's contention the current City Council failed in getting enough government grants for the City. Kevin Krueger, himself called Al's remarks "irresponsible". It can't be easy on Al, but I saw him today, and he was actually pretty chipper.

Tina Lange's voice has become gravelly. Jim Harker has lost some of his signs (a lot of us have actually). And Doug Brown had to leave today's forum early, due to work committments.

It's a tough run but, you know something, it is totally worth it.

Next Arjun's Guide to City Hall after the Election

I have been trying to make time for a new Guide to City Hall. I haven't done it and won't until after the election. I commit to write the three guides I have planned after the election. Hold me to it!