Mayor Reid Hamer-Jackson was told he could not use the series of photos he prepared for a speech at a business community dinner this week.

Image Credit: FACEBOOK/Kamloops and District Chamber of Commerce

Kamloops city staff and the deputy mayor stepped in to block Mayor Reid Hamer-Jackson from showing a slide presentation of graphic photos at a community dinner last week.

Hamer-Jackson says he wanted to show an unvarnished representation of the problems facing Kamloops and its business community at a Kamloops Chamber of Commerce dinner.

"I wanted to have (a slideshow) that showed positive things we've done in the community and actually show the reality of what's happening to people on the streets," he said. "I never got a chance to show my pictures because I was told they had to be professional."

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He and Tk'emlups te Secwepemc Kukpi7 (Chief) Rosanne Casimir spoke at the March 14 event.

"An Evening with Kukpi7 Rosanne Casimir and Mayor Reid Hamer-Jackson" was advertised for months, with tickets on sale between $110 and $175 each. Thompson Rivers University hosted the dinner where nearly 200 people from the business community and local leaders joined.

Hamer-Jackson sent a batch of graphic photos, which he says included graffiti and boarded windows but also included human feces and a sexual act. The chamber alerted the city to his plans which were quickly shut down by the city manager and deputy mayor.

They allowed him to use a City of Kamloops logo for his speech and nothing else.

Hamer-Jackson opened his speech by telling attendees he wasn't allowed to show the photos he had planned to. He then stuck to a script and praised work by other organizations and the City itself, but that veered into concerns around homelessness and the non-profits that work in the sector.

While preparing his speech in the days before, Hamer-Jackson sent the photos to the Chamber so they could be turned into a slideshow.

Most were not his photos, if any at all, which featured his own burning vehicle, graffiti scattered across the North Shore and the boarded up former Tim Horton's location on Tranquille Road.

Along with some "positive" photos like ongoing developments, a photo of a woman giving a man oral sex in a downtown Kamloops alleyway was included in Hamer-Jackson's photo submissions. It showed a man facing the camera and his back against a wall, with a woman on her knees in front.

"I didn't have a chance to edit them because councillor (Mike) O'Reilly took it upon himself, I guess, to enact himself as the mayor and call the chamber and tell them they couldn't do this and they couldn't do that," Hamer-Jackson said. O’Reilly is the deputy mayor for the month of March.

The most graphic photos, including the oral sex act, drug use and human feces, were sent to the mayor by the executive director of the downtown business association, Howie Reimer. They were photos he took to document the social and criminal issues in the downtown core, but he wasn't aware the mayor planned to use the photos for a presentation.

"It was never communicated to me by the mayor that the photos were for public presentation," he said. "I did not in any way assist, abet or approve presentation of the images. It was never my wish or intention."

Hamer-Jackson admitted he might not have told Reimer what he planned to do with the photos, but the mayor said he wanted to show an unpolished and graphic version of the city. He did not send the photos to iNFOnews.ca.

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The business community is "very well aware" of the city's social issues, Hamer-Jackson said.

He said the purpose of using them was to point out that "we have to get to the root cause of the issues."

According to Hamer-Jackson, it was O'Reilly who declared his authority as deputy mayor for the month, but he invoked the name of acting chief administrative officer Byron McCorkell, too.

O'Reilly did not respond to an inquiry from iNFOnews.ca, but McCorkell said the decision protected risks for both the City and the mayor.

"I think it was more of a personal presentation than it was representing the city and that's his purview to do, but we, as staff, did not intend to taint his presentation," McCorkell said. "We were simply acting as a corporation, and we have a process for those types of events, so we acted."

Although it was O'Reilly who delivered the message to Hamer-Jackson, it appears it was a staff decision to put a stop to the mayor's slideshow.

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McCorkell said the chamber notified City staff of what was in the photos. He said there were privacy concerns for the people depicted, questions of whether permission was given, and concerns over both the criminal and graphic nature of the photos. At least one was included in a police investigation.

The City's communications department could have helped the mayor prepare the presentation and staff could have vetted the photos he brought or supplied from a pre-approved library, McCorkell said. It's unlikely any of those supplied photos would have delivered the message Hamer-Jackson was crafting.

"We have no idea where the pictures came from, and if they were disturbing in nature or people could be seen in them and recognized — well, Holy Toledo, no, that can't happen," he said.

The mayor, however, stands by his choice and said neither other councillors nor staff should be dictating what he includes in a speech.

"Next thing they'll be telling me I can't even do a speech," Hamer-Jackson said. "They're telling me what I should say... Well, excuse me, this is a speech from the mayor. There's one thing I did take from (the municipal advisor's) conversations and that is, 'You are the mayor.' Some people don't seem to realize that yet."

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