Coun. Pat Wallace has a simple dream: a hot dog, served from a truck, in downtown Kamloops.
As the city’s food truck owners gathered at 7 West Victoria St. for a public hearing in late April, that dream once again came to the fore, with Wallace wondering why none of the city’s trucks are offering the traditional ballpark treat.
While the city’s food truck bylaw — the subject of the evening’s debate — doesn’t have a hot dog requirement, Wallace’s wish became the recurring theme of the evening meeting, with truck owners taking time out of their arguments about the number of on-street spaces the city is suppling (not enough, in their opinions) to explain their dedication to pasta, pork and other foods that don’t necessarily come in tube form.
For good measure, a few questions were raised about whether a hearty German sausage would do the trick.
Eventually, Viva Bridal owner and food truck supporter Anthony Salituro came up with a solution to Wallace’s issue.
“If Councillor Wallace wants a hot dog, she can get one at 2 a.m. outside of [Cactus Jack’s Night Club],” he told council.
By necessity, there’s a lot that gets left on the cutting room floor whenever this paper reports on the goings-on at Kamloops city council.
With council meetings usually lasting at least three hours — and very little of that time given over to silent contemplation — this is a group that generates a heck of a lot of words.
Since KTW editor Christopher Foulds informs me the paper has to cover things besides city council for some reason, the rambling asides, bad jokes, quips that take too much time to explain and other little weirdnesses produced almost weekly by the nine men and women chosen to lead our city rarely make the cut.
Until now.
It’s Kamloops City Hall: Director’s Cut.
If you’re not following Kamloops’ various media outlets on Twitter, it may be news to you Coun. Ken Christian likes to declare himself a fan of various municipal operations with the same fervour another man might save for The Beatles or other pleasures not related to sewer pipes.
“Most people think I’m a water and sewer guy, but I actually have a big passion for roofs,” Christian told council at a budget meeting earlier this year, while encouraging the rest of the group to agree to spend money on an audit of city buildings.
And, at another meeting on the city’s plans to clean up last summer’s big storm: “Needless to say, I’m over the moon about stormwater sewer projects,” he said.
Addressing mayor and council at city hall has its own risks.
Last term, former councillor Nelly Dever received her share of name butcherings, most memorably “Nelly Devil.”
Planning and development manager Randy Lambright might have set a new high bar at the council’s most recent meeting, however, by addressing Mayor Peter Milobar as “Mr. Member.”
Sometimes, there’s nothing to do but go back to your seat in the gallery, sit down until council finishes with the hysterical laughter, and try the whole process over again.
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