FILE PHOTO - Bill Sarai is sworn in as a Kamloops city councillor for his second term on Nov. 1, 2022.

(LEVI LANDRY / iNFOnews.ca)

OPINION

He’s a bully. He’s a hothead. He’s deceitful, vengeful, spiteful, petty. He’s proven to be a repeat liar no one should trust.

Censure him, take away his committees, dock his pay and voters need to ensure Bill Sarai never finds a seat in office again.

Oh, my apologies. You thought I was talking about Mayor Reid Hamer-Jackson? He’s the bad boy. He’s the embarrassment to the city!

Marshall Jones, managing editor

How could I forget. 

But Bill Sarai is a whole other creature. Reid’s word for him is “snake”. You decide.

Though he later apologized, this is the guy who once said non-profits who don't fully support the city should have their grants taken away.

Sarai is well aware the perception of conflict exists because his son works for the City of Kamloops, yet that fact has several times coloured his judgment. Here’s the example I know most about: He has a personal beef with this newsroom because we reported a story on a bizarre newsworthy accident a bylaw officer had while on the job. It turned out it was Bill’s son, and Bill’s ego told him it was politically motivated.

It wasn’t.

As an aside, this is actually a bigger issue than we’d like to admit. Reporter Levi Landry got a tip about a bylaw officer on duty in a City of Kamloops car who crossed the centre line, a bike lane and a curb, striking and injuring a woman walking her dogs and got a ticket for driving without due care and attention. Landry had to wait weeks for freedom of information requests. They weren’t released until September 2022, one month before the election. At that point, Sarai and Hamer-Jackson were friends, had been for years. Landry witnessed Sarai accuse Hamer-Jackson of tipping Landry. We have tried on many occasions to explain to Sarai that Hamer-Jackson had nothing to do with it. Each time was met with his trademark explosive anger and abusive language. All this is to say — all this drama between council and the mayor really started with Bill and His Temper™.

Fast forward four months to January 20, 2023. Bill goes into the mayor’s office to confront him about Reid being rude to him, etc. Except he sticks a recorder in his pocket. According to that recording, Reid largely remains calm before Bill raises his voice and swears five times, interrupting Reid before Reid finally fires back and swears himself. But then it’s all Bill, yelling, swearing through City Hall all the way to his car where he keeps it up all by himself.

Listen for yourself.

Taxpayers of Kamloops paid for an internal Human Resources report on the incident, then it made it to an independent investigation of that incident — the notorious Integrity Group report — which helped establish that Reid was the aggressor, guilty of bullying and intimidation. Sarai's little halo was never dimmed.

Sarai knew about all these investigations. The incident was slowly teased out over dozens of local news stories over the last two years.

And Bill kept his little recording to himself.

No one would have known at all if Bill wasn’t so impressed with himself. He sent a short clip — the one time Reid swore and yelled back — to Reid himself. Bill lied again and said someone sent it to him.

Were he a half-watt brighter, Reid would have figured it out. Instead, bless him, he thought his office was bugged.

Bill’s buddies at Castanet did him another solid by reporting the mayor’s thoughts, complete with Sarai coming off the top rope.

“He's asked me a few times if it's bugged. I have no idea, nor should I know — and I highly unlikely think it's bugged. I think he's just paranoid and delusional lately,” Sarai told Castanet.

“I don't know what to say. I'm not wasting any more time trying to figure out what he's thinking or what he's saying.”

The mayor filed a police complaint. Bill didn’t lie to the police, but he kept lying to the public for another six weeks.

He would have kept lying if Landry hadn’t filed yet another freedom of information request for the recording. Kamloops City Hall told Sarai about the request and told him when it would be released.

So the day before it was released, he toddled on over to his buddies at Castanet again for the mea culpa. You won't read there that Landry reported in October that Bill Sarai made the recording. You won’t read much about Bill’s conduct in there but you will find obvious cover.

The reporter opted to describe Bill’s motivations this way: "The meeting was recorded because of its nature.”

Huh. The passive voice is telling.

I guess that means because Bill was going to confront Reid about a slight to his ego. Had he kept a cool head himself, Bill probably planned to leak the recording as well. You can hear it when he demands Reid release his rude text messages to "the public".

“I’m not proud of what I did, but this person brings out the worst of everybody,” Sarai told Castanet.

Really Bill? Seems to me you went in there to literally draw the worst out of Reid for your little recording.

Sarai told Castanet he heard rumours the mayor was painting him as the aggressor so he sent him the clip.

“I thought it would back him off from continually lying about who started the yelling,” he said.

Again, that's not what's on the recording.

And that’s it, no more questions for the councillor. Why didn’t you release this when it was being investigated internally and by the Integrity Group? Silly question, I guess. Why come forward now? Has he apologized to Reid? Does he regret calling the mayor paranoid and delusional when he knew it was his own little fiction?

Nah. This story isn't about Reid's actions.

I mean I guess I get it. If a councillor is handing out secret documents like candy, you smile through rotted teeth and don’t piss him off because you know how he’ll react. I’d have thought at some point objective journalism about a dishonest councillor might eventually find some light, but hey to each their own.

Yes, Bill was also tenuously absolved by those same investigators for leaking documents, but with a wink and a nudge.

In one leak of an internal investigation into Hamer-Jackson, Bill was the only councillor who sent the confidential documents to his personal email — around midnight one night. All other copies were accounted for but his.

Did he allow investigators into his own email? We have to presume no, because Sarai won't answer our questions and apparently Castanet isn’t asking.

So yes, let’s do get back to regularly scheduled programming because all the focus Shall Be on Reid’s antics. Perhaps Reid should play their game and request Bill's antics be investigated to completion, including personal emails. (RUN AND TRIPLE-DELETE THEM, BILL!)

Councillors are foolish if they don't take action. Letting Sarai’s lies, bullying and games go without censure, investigation or even comment by council makes all their hand-wringing about Reid's lack of decorum look cheap and hollow. They've found every tool to bring consequences to Reid's actions, they can't suddenly ignore them for Bill.

That's not natural justice. It would probably leave them open to a legitimate lawsuit from Reid.

I mean that’s the way it looks to me.

I’m sure Reid’s supporters are far more level-headed about it.

— Marshall Jones is the Managing Editor of iNFOnews.ca

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