The job's not done
These are the goals Reid was elected on in 2022. They were goals then and they are goals now — work to be taken to the council table, not outcomes one person can hand you. They haven't changed. The order has.
What four years changed
The goals didn't move. The order did.
In 2022 safety was first. It was what people were living with every day, and it still is.
Four years at the council table taught Reid something he didn't know when he ran: you cannot get a safer community without accountability first. Safety costs money, and money without oversight goes nowhere. Decisions that land in your neighbourhood get made in rooms you can't see into. Operators who answer to no one don't change how they operate.
Accountability was never a separate goal from safety. It's the thing that makes safety possible. So it goes first.
Accountability & transparency
Hold government officials accountable — goal #2 in 2022Open the doors at City Hall — wide
The past four years have closed the doors on public input and on transparency into how council decisions get made. Get the public voice back inside City Hall — into the decisions, and into the process that leads to them.
We work for the citizens. They're the boss.Fewer decisions behind closed doors
Land, legal and personnel matters have to be closed. Far too much else has been. More of the city's business needs deciding in the open, where the people it affects can watch it happen.
A full review of civic and management expenses
A full review of civic and management spending. Management salaries have climbed faster than most citizens' earnings. Good people at the helm, at a wage that matches the job — tax dollars are not an open chequebook.
Treat every dollar like it's your family's
Because it is. Every line in the budget came out of a household in this city, and it should be spent with the same care that household would spend it.
A Top 100 Employer again
Kamloops should be somewhere people want to work. Getting the City back onto the Top 100 Employers list is a measurable goal and a fair test of whether the organisation is being run well.
Civic pride, in the staff and the public
Pride in this city should show in how the people who work for it are treated, and in how the public is spoken to. It belongs in every decision, not in a slogan.
Claim every grant that's available
Chase every grant and incentive on offer, and hold the people responsible for it to account, so available money does not go unclaimed.
Answerable, at every level
Officials accountable for their decisions and their spending. Oversight of tax dollars throughout the organisation. And a City that talks to citizens rather than at them.
Community safety
Invest our energy into community safety — goal #1 in 2022Safety is still what people are living with
Moving accountability first is not a demotion for safety — it is the order the work has to be done in. Safety is the point. Accountability is how you get there.
Review the CSO program end to end
A complete review of the Community Service Office program, so officers have what they need — management support and training included.
Recovery, not a revolving door
Work with community partners including BC Housing to reduce pro-drug and harm-reduction sites and increase rehabilitation and recovery facilities with wrap-around services. Let's get people better.
Hold operators to a standard
A standard level of service every operator must meet, with clear goals around wellness and recovery. More spent on people and services, less on real estate.
Build housing people can attain
Work towards more affordable and attainable housing in close partnership with the Canadian Home Builders' Association Central Interior. Low-income housing for seniors helps people on a fixed income live through retirement.
Physically clean up the streets
Additional funding for street cleaning and maintenance. Get Kamloops back to its slogan: making Kamloops shine.
Prosperity
A Kamloops we can all be proud of again — goal #3 in 2022Finish the revitalization zones we already have
Rather than extending ten-year tax-free holidays into more areas of the city, keep incentivizing the ten-year revitalization tax exemption in the zones it already applies to. Encourage infill, and discourage the sprawl that stretches infrastructure we are already struggling to maintain.
Cycling routes that actually connect
Work with stakeholders to make Kamloops cycling infrastructure and paths more connected and safer. An active, connected community is a healthier one.
Fix the roads properly the first time
Our roads are in dire need of better repair. Review and identify better techniques so potholes and sections of road are fixed properly, once.
The goals didn't move.
The order did.
Food security and the land that grows it
Kamloops should be as self-sufficient as a city of this size can be. That means backing the farmers and producers we already have, and protecting usable agricultural land rather than letting it be rezoned away a parcel at a time. Anyone who has watched the highways close knows why it matters.
Every road into this valley has closed
Kamloops is a highway town, and highways close — for fire, for flood, for winter. Every closure is the same reminder: what's on the shelves came in on a truck that had to get here.
The farms in this valley are the shortest supply line we have. That isn't nostalgia. It's insurance.
Land that grows food is not surplus land
Farmland taken out of production does not come back. Removing a parcel is a permanent decision, not routine paperwork, and the burden should sit with the applicant.
Water is the other half of it
Land is only agricultural land while it can be irrigated. Noble Creek showed what happens when the water infrastructure that serves farms is treated as a line item to be switched off. What happened there is the reason this belongs in the same conversation as pipes and pumps.
Back the growers who are already here
Food security is not a project the City builds. It is the farms, market gardens and ranches already working this valley — and whether City Hall makes their work easier or harder.
A city that can feed some of itself is a city with one less thing to worry about.
The police services building
The police services building is not part of Build Kamloops. It should still come first. Citizens have said overwhelmingly that safety is the number one priority, so before any further Build Kamloops project proceeds — before the arts centre, before the multiplex — the facility our RCMP need should be settled. It has been kicked down the road instead.
A full review of the current plans
Before another dollar is committed: the site, the cost, and whether it actually serves policing here for the next forty years.
Don't demolish a usable city asset
The building on Battle Street is a multi-million-dollar asset the citizens already own and it is still very usable. Knocking it down is a decision that needs justifying, not assuming.
A practical vision, not a nostalgia project
Once a new police services building exists on a site that suits policing, this one does not come down. It becomes the new City Hall — central, solid, already owned, with decades left in it. Two problems, one asset.
There are better locations
Other sites offer better highway access and room to expand — and leave the existing building in the hands of the people who paid for it.
I'd urge every citizen to take a few minutes and go and stand in front of 560 Battle Street. Walk around it. Look at the brickwork, the grounds, the Wall of Honour in the courtyard. It is in good shape and it is in the right part of town.
Then picture it as a community hub for your city leadership — the place your local government works from — while the RCMP finally get the purpose-built facility they need and deserve on a site that suits the job.
That isn't sentiment. It's common sense with a building attached.
Reid has a plan, a potential location and a vision. What Kamloops needs is a council with the same — practical, fiscally responsible, and unwilling to repeat the mistakes of the past.
Build Kamloops, at a responsible rate
Reid understands that a growing city needs new amenities and new facilities. What matters is the rate — what the city can carry fiscally, and what the citizens can carry in debt that will be paid off by generations who haven't voted yet.
Pause, then review
Reid's September notice of motion sets out how far two projects have moved since electors approved the programme in 2024:
- Arts centre — about $154M to about $211M
- Multiplex — about $154M to about $168M, and four ice sheets down to three
- Defeated once already — a one-year pause was voted down 8–1 in March 2026
- Grants secured — about $7M of the arts centre's $211M
Reid's September 2026 motion asks council to pause discretionary spending and new commitments on both — not work already contracted — until it has the full financial picture: borrowing, lifetime interest, debt servicing, the tax implications, and an operating plan for the arts centre.
What's inside it
The performing arts centre and the multiplex sit within Build Kamloops. The police services building does not — but it is the more urgent of the two conversations, and it should be settled before the programme goes any further. Why the police services building comes first.
A growing city still needs to grow
This is not an argument against building. Kamloops needs these amenities and will be better for having them. It is an argument about sequence and about pace — getting the finances, the crime and the social issues under control first, so the projects that follow are ones the city can actually afford.
The infrastructure we've already paid for
Kamloops needs serious investment in the infrastructure it already has. The citizens paid for all of it, it is out of sight until the day it fails, and making sure it is looked after is the job.
Aging underground utilities
May 2026: a main on River Street failed. 8,000 households were without water for more than 36 hours. Six schools closed. The first repair didn't hold.
In a city this size that should not happen. Pipe doesn't announce itself until it fails, and fixing it after costs far more than maintaining it before.
Security at existing facilities
City buildings, yards and equipment need proper property security. Assets that aren't protected get damaged or stolen, and the repair bill lands on the same taxpayers who bought them in the first place.
Asset management, taken seriously
Take care of what we have before we build more we can't manage. Asset management is the least glamorous line in the budget and the one that decides whether 20,000 people have water on a Tuesday.
That is the argument for reviewing the pace of Build Kamloops — not an argument against building.