Vision Kamloops’ election platform came into clearer focus yesterday (Oct. 16.)
The five-member alliance running for city council released a set of “core values and principles” at a press conference spelling
out their goals, if elected.
Members Denis Walsh, Dieter Dudy, Daphane Nelson, Jenny Green and Brad Harrison said they plan to focus their campaigns on managing spending, diversifying the city’s economy, improving community health and improving transparency at city hall.
Walsh said the latter point could mean overhauling the way citizens vote when Kamloops goes back to the polls in four years’ time, with the introduction of councillor term limits and a hybrid ward system.
“We’d have possibly two representatives dedicated to the North Shore, two on the South Shore and four at large,” Walsh said.
As well, the group said it would look at moving city-council meetings to the evenings to make them more accessible to the public.
The group also wants council to take a more activist role on economic development, bringing businesses and city institutions like Interior Health and Thompson Rivers University together.
Though Vision Kamloops’ platform identified a number of broad goals, members said they will use their own, individual campaigns to advance ideas on how those goals can be made reality.
“What we want to bring to the public is essentially we’re a team who is essentially in agreement on certain things,” Dudy said.
Members said they hope the platform can combat early assessments that the group is simply an anti-Ajax slate.
“You can’t run the city on one issue, especially Ajax, where there’s the big debate on whether we even have a say on it,” Walsh said.
“There’s more important issues like, say, the performing-arts centre.”
Walsh said Vision Kamloops has “concerns” about the way the city has approached a potential arts centre and believes the process so far has not been
transparent for residents.
The group plans to roll out a website this weekend at visionkamloops.ca and will host mixers for its five candidates, Dudy said.
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