We asked for the Kamloops mayor’s emails — all we got is political theatre

An ongoing and contested records request landed the mayor of Kamloops in hot water this week, while iNFOnews.ca is still waiting for the results.

Councillors took Mayor Reid Hamer-Jackson to task over the Freedom of Information request, accusing him of breaking the law before flirting with whether to order him to shoulder the legal costs of the inquiry.

Coun. Margot Middleton was deputy mayor at the time the request was made, so she raised the issue five hours into a city council meeting on March 10. She told iNFOnews.ca it’s about the city’s due diligence and potential legal ramifications, while keeping the public informed of “what we are dealing with.”

“This is not political. This is how the city conducts business,” she said.

At issue is a set of Hamer-Jackson’s text messages and emails last summer. He argues he complied with the request and sent the emails to Middleton but Middleton said she received nothing, even after the city’s IT department double-checked her records.

“It’s amazing the lengths you will go to get me to resign, to get me charged with something, to get me to quit, to get me disqualified since day one,” Hamer-Jackson said.

Middleton pointed out just how unusual it is for an elected official to seemingly ignore a legal request for records.

“This has never happened before in the city. Elected officials have always complied with their legal duty to turn over records,” Middleton said at the meeting. “This marks a new low for the city.”

In November, Hamer-Jackson shared internal emails with iNFOnews.ca after we reported on the outstanding issue, apparently in an effort to share the records directly. They were immaterial to the request and outside the Freedom of Information process filed last August.

City staff and lawyers repeatedly asked him to comply, but we escalated it to the BC Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner after months of delays.

In the coming weeks, the provincial body will examine whether the mayor followed the law and searched for the records. We were unaware Middleton would raise the issue at the council meeting and regret the awkward position of covering an issue we play an unwitting part in.

To date, iNFOnews.ca has not received any of the emails and text messages we asked for.