Since the 2022 civic election, Kamloopsians have watched the dysfunction on our city council with understandable concern and anger. Most right-thinking people might look at what is currently happening and close the door on ever becoming a candidate.

Friends, this would be a mistake. The turmoil at city hall is likely an anomaly, a one term phenomenon. Most communities across BC that have had huge council conflicts in the past 20 years have had the voters steady the situation in the very next election.

And… if we don’t get a diversity of strong collaborative community builder type candidates here in the October election, voters will have a harder time bringing back stability and collaboration.

I will have no better job than serving on Kamloops City Council. I learnt so much, met amazing people, and had the incredible honour of representing my fellow citizens in good times and in bad times. While my days on city council are likely behind me, I look back on them with great fondness and gratitude.

Last month, I wrote about the essential characteristics of a good council member – a lot of “need to dos” and “must dos”. Today, let me tell you a few stories about the joys of serving on council:

• Helping people with issues: Citizens naturally look to their city councillors to help them with issues. Often, people can be quite emotional, even angry. To acknowledge emotion, to communicate you will work diligently to assist, if at all possible, and to help address issues successfully. This is a pretty great feeling. Council members can’t address every issue but, and this happens regularly enough, helping people successfully is very satisfying.

• Learning and contributing ideas on a wide range of topics: City councillors are paid to learn about such a diverse range of community activities and then are often tasked to make decisions about them. I derived a lot of joy from being so well informed and was humbled by the opportunity to help make decisions for the whole community.

• Make a positive mark with specific projects: Our current city council will always be the council that finally got a Performing Arts Centre started after many councils failed in the same effort. My dear council colleague Marg Spina started the work to get the junior city council going and asked me to continue for her after she was diagnosed with cancer. I often think of Marg’s legacy and this incredible gift she gave us before she passed away and which will hopefully last long after I am gone from this earth.

• Discovering the huge power of collaboration: In my professional and personal life, I make decisions with a relatively small group of people. On council, and on the regional district and with provincial and federal local government associations, I got to witness firsthand the positive power of collaboration with larger groups of people. I had the privilege of learning how to agree well, to disagree well, and to help move important initiatives forward in the best way on a community wide and sometimes even larger forum.