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It isn’t typical for Kamloops residents to hear their controversial mayor having a relaxed, unedited chat about his perspectives, but a local meme maker and podcaster changed that earlier this week.

Nevin Webster makes funny memes poking fun at Kamloops on Instagram and has large fan following. He also had a podcast called Kameo from 2018 to 2020 and interviewed various community members.

After a battle with a mental health disorder, Webster is back, and kicked off his new podcast Loopszer with a 45-minute interview with Mayor Reid Hamer-Jackson on Oct. 22.

“The podcast grew out of my meme page and the memes have been critical of him so I had an interest in talking with him,” Webster said. “I don’t think anyone expected I’d get the mayor for the first episode.”

Hamer-Jackson has been a regular subject in local news since he was elected for numerous code of conduct complaints and investigations at city hall.

Webster wanted to give the mayor a chance to freely share his perspectives.

“It’s just been news snippets and cycles, and no one is really giving him a chance to talk unhindered, untethered, unfiltered,” Webster said. “Once I was with him it was just trying to keep up and see if I could keep the conversation going in a direction I wanted, which is harder than it may have sounded to do.” 

They had a chat that covered several topics including Hamer-Jackson’s perspectives on past and ongoing conflicts with city council, a bit about his role as mayor and his campaign for a safer community.

“The citizens voted for me to be the mayor, they voted for them to be councillors, and the citizens are the ones that own city hall,” Hamer-Jackson said in the podcast about his challenges with city council.  “The citizens voted for me whether you like it or not. They voted for me to be in that mayor’s chair, they voted for me to be in that mayor’s office, not eight city councillors.”

At one point the podcaster and mayor shared they both had children, and Webster asked if the mayor would want his grandkids to be raised in Kamloops considering the safety concerns. Hamer-Jackson campaigned for his position as mayor on the issue of community safety.

“That’s why I’m the mayor today, I want a safer community and accountability,” he said. “My kids who grew up in Kamloops, they moved out when they were fairly young and when they come back here today, they go what happened?

“I mean they’ve been in areas like Kitsilano and Yale Town and New Westminster and its not the same all over, it’s not the same. This has become bad, we don’t look good.”

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Webster said the podcast is getting more views than his previous 100 Kameo podcasts. Overall people said they enjoyed it and are looking forward to more, but it isn’t the type of podcast Webster is planning to do a lot of.

“The bulk of what I want to do isn’t going to be politically focussed. I’m not a journalist and don’t want to replace journalists,” he said. “I took a backseat approach... and just guided the conversation.”

While Webster’s next interview is with another city councillor, he hopes to interview local athletes and community leaders going forward with the goal of making time to drop two podcasts per week.

“I’m not trying to fill a hole or be a gotcha podcast, its going to be people I’m interested in talking to,” he said.

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In regard to his conversation with the mayor, Webster said he thinks he earned a friend and the two have shared text messages since.

“Some listeners who are critical of me said I was too sympathetic to him, but you talk to the guy and its hard to get a word in, and he has some charisma about him, it’s hard not to nod your head along.

“He checked in with me the day after the podcast dropped after finding out I’m a critic of his. And I’m like no it’s not that I don’t like you, I like you as a guy, I just don’t agree completely with all your politics. And he agreed, and he told stories of meeting with people on both sides, people who like him and dislike him, so I think I got a friend.”

Go here to listen to the Loopszer podcast.

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