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Today we are chatting with Stephen Fleming, our City Clerk, to talk about everything that is Election 2022.
Welcome to Kelowna Talks, a podcast presented by the City of Kelowna that explores the "why" behind the decisions that shape your city. Tune in for weekly episodes with host, Bob Evans, Partnerships Office Director with the City of Kelowna, as he welcomes guest subject matter experts to explain the processes and decisions that influence the lives of the citizens.
Kelowna Talks - EP17
Stephen 00:00
I'd just encourage people to take the time to figure out who they want to vote for, make an informed choice and go out and vote either October 15, or one of the advanced polls prior to that.
Zoe 00:12
Welcome to Kelowna Talks where we explore the why behind the decisions that shape your city. Together, we open the curtain and dig deep into current issues, plans and policies that come out of City Hall. Thanks for joining us as we talk about Kelowna, and the topics that matter to you.
Bob 00:37
Hi, everyone, I'm Bob Evans, partnership director at the City of Kelowna and host of our Kelowna Talks Podcast, I acknowledge that our community is located on the traditional ancestral unceded territory of the Syilx, Okanagan People. Well, it's almost that time. It has been four years already. Wow. Yes, the time is upon us for the municipal elections across British Columbia. October 15, it's voting day for the municipal government in our province, including in Kelowna. And even though it's still August, we're starting to see candidates for the mayor and council have come forward to our city. It's always interesting time for sure. And I was looking forward to it. Today we're chatting with Mr. Stephen Fleming, our city clerk to talk about everything that is election, 2022. Welcome, Stephen. So first off, I always like to start off getting to know you a little bit better. So did you grow up in Kelowna? What do you get up to when you're not at City Hall? Can you tell us a little bit about who you are?
01:34
Sure. So I grew up in Ontario, different cities bounced around, moved here with my wife in 1991. We moved to Burnaby. And then in 2003, we came to Kelowna. So when I took the deputy city clerk job at the city, been the city clerk since 2008. So we've raised our boys here and was a great place to raise them. And I've really made Kelowna our home. It's the longest we've ever lived in one place, either of us, and as a couple is in Kelowna.
Bob 02:05
Nice. So when you're not city clerking, what, what do you get up to? What's your, what's your hobbies?
02:12
Yeah, well, I the, as you notice, from my background, when I sometimes do teams meetings, I like to read, I've got an extensive library. I have an active interest in military history, and so have different interests that way as well.
Bob 02:27
Okay, so what are you currently reading?
02:29
Well, having said that, I'm actually reading really interesting book. So it's a travel book, something a little different for me called Empires of The Indus, The Story of a River, and it's a person who has traveled up the Indus River in India, and a combination of current and historical observations, the author spoke several of the languages, which makes it very interesting. And it's something a little different for me to read. I've also just started a book called Metropolis, The History of The City, which was published, I think, in 2020. I do have a number of books, I like reading about the concept of the city, in particular, ancient cities from 1000s of years ago, because a number of the issues that we think we're facing aren't new. I came across a reference just yesterday when Cyrus the Great was building his new capital in 550 BCE, the big emphasis was on parks and gardens. So very interesting things. We have the conversations today, parks and gardens, and that there aren't necessarily new ideas. It's different ways of doing things.
Bob 03:36
Yeah. Okay. Well, that's good. Thank you for sharing that. So back onto our topic. This must be a pretty interesting time for you in your in the in the four year cycle of of counsel, how many elections have you been part of in your career?
03:50
Well, I'd have to count that.
Bob 03:51
So how many fingers do you have on your hand?
03:55
Yeah, so I was involved in three elections in different capacities in a municipality in the Lower Mainland before we came here. The first election here was 2005. So nine, nine elections and two by-elections, so this will be my my ninth.
Bob 04:10
So I'm going to come back and ask you some interesting things you've seen over those nine plus elections, because I'm sure there's lots of interesting stories. And I'm also sure we probably don't have time to hear all the stories, but we'll pick out a couple of them that may be of interest to our listeners. So now we're seeing people pick up nomination papers from City Hall put their names out there. How does that work can you tell us about the nomination process? Sure.
04:36
So right now, all people are doing is picking up a package. They're not officially legally candidates until they hand them in. And that period starts August the 30th and will end on September 9. So that's the time you can actually formally become a candidate is in that period only. So every election we have lots of people pick up packages, they don't always bring them back. At about a two thirds to three fifths return rate, so maybe 60 to 65%. And it varies by race mayor is usually about half councillors a little higher. So this is indicating we'll have probably a lot of candidates, judging by the great number of packages that have gone out. But until you actually file it's hard to say.
Bob 05:21
Yeah, okay, we just checked the numbers this morning. And they're sitting at 12. candidates for mayor and 45 for council. So that's interesting from a percentage perspective and who, who goes where and who in fills those out?
05:33
2014, we gave out 51 packages for counselor, There ended up being I think about 30 on the ballot. Yeah, so we'll see what happens this year. The 4 year term, I think makes a difference. It's quite a commitment. You know, in four years, a lot can happen in your personal life and your professional life. And so I think that is a different than 3, it does make a difference of commitment you're being asked to make.
Bob 05:58
Okay, so based on that, tell us a little bit more about some of the key things that somebody that may be interested in running for office should know.
06:05
The biggest thing is that counsel is a collective decision making body not an individual making body and that you need to convince majority of your fellow members of council that your idea is a good one for it to happen. You need a majority of council, which usually five votes in our case. And if you don't get that, then it doesn't happen. And that you need to build that sort of collaborative collective decision making body. It's interesting that in Ontario, they have introduced some strong mayor legislation, which would be a first for the country. And we'll see how that goes over if it gets picked up in other places, but that's not the case in BC.
06:45
Well, the mayor, in BC the mayor's one vote on council, like everyone else, they're a member of council, like the councillors are, they have different some different duties and responsibilities as the as the leading, chairing the meeting spokesperson for the municipality. But in terms of what's proposed in Ontario, the mayor would be able to appoint senior staff positions arbitrarily. They'd be able to present a budget to council, it's much more like an executive, they become an executive wing, which at local government, there is no executive, there's no cabinet link there is a provincial or federal. So it's quite a different governance model.
Bob 06:45
So tell me a little bit more about that, the legislation side of it. What do you mean by that?
Bob 07:29
Okay. So as I listen to you, and I've always wanted to ask you this, because we're we'll get a little bit more in the election. But how did you get to be city like what prepares somebody to be interested in legislation? Being a city clerk, the organization of government? I'm, you know, I just have to ask that question.
Stephen 07:46
It's a great question...
Bob 07:49
You can't see but he has a smile, he has a twinkle in his eye, he likes this stuff, people...
Stephen 07:54
Nobody goes to school saying I want to be a city clerk or I want to go like, you can be a planner, you can be an engineer, you can be an accountant, all sorts of other things. Most of the clerks I know fell into the job completely by accident, as did I, I fell into local government by accident. 26 years ago, I had to be talked into applying for a job. And it turned out it was in the clerk's office, I've always worked in a clerk's office. And I've done sort of every position you can do in the clerk's office over my career, but my like, my master's is in something called Soviet and East European Studies, which doesn't even exist anymore. I went to Carleton in Ottawa, and at the time, Soviet Studies was really big because it was the late 1980s. And then the Berlin Wall fell down, Glasnost the Soviet Union fell apart. And what do you do? That training in hindsight really helped prepare me for, you know, being able to analyze a problem read legislation... Things like that. Be able to present comfortably, but a lot of online learning BC is very good for providing once you're in local government, providing education and training for people in local government, and I've been fortunate to be able to take advantage of a lot of that. I've also participated in being later in my career, someone who's then turned that around and helped teach other local government staff.
Bob 09:23
Wonderful. Okay, had to ask that question. Back to the election. We touched on it a little bit, and there's probably a lot of misconceptions about the role of Council and what they can and cannot do. Can you help us understand a little bit about that authority chain between, just the local residents, Council, Mayor and staff?
Stephen 09:43
Sure. So in going back to your high school, you know, civics class that we all either didn't get or slept through. In Canada, there's only two recognized forms of government and that's provincial and federal. And so municipalities fall into the provincial sphere, which is why every province has different rules for their municipalities. And it makes it a little confusing, because it might be, oh, here's a great idea from Brandon, Manitoba, or Winnipeg thing or something. But well, they might not have the same legislation as we do. And vice versa. So we can do basically what the province allows us to do is that and we're creatures of the province, right? So we also can't go into, say federal rules. A number of years ago, there was an initiative, a number of municipalities passed by laws banning shark fin soup, because they were concerned with how sharks were caught and things like that those bylaws were deemed to be unconstitutional, because oceans are a federal responsibility. And so the municipalities had no ability to regulate what happened in oceans. So all those bylaws were struck down, right? We had a candidate last election proposed a sales tax on marijuana, you can't do that. So without the authority, you don't have the authority. And so, you know, whatever. And so you have to be aware of what we can and can't do. And that's part of the clerk's office job is to answer that fundamental question. Can you do it? Which is very, very different than should you do it? If the first question is, can you do it?
Bob 11:16
Okay. And expanding again, on what, what a potential candidates may be faced with? I want to ask about time, and the time commitment of counsel. And as we grow as the City of Kelowna, as we know, we're one of the fastest growing cities in Canada, and there's many, many issues, and a lot of them are very complex in nature. So yeah, from a normal time perspective, for Council, what what does it take? What are they what are they put in
Stephen 11:42
And that's a question we get a lot. Ultimately, it's up to each member of council, how much time they put in, you're required to attend council meetings. If you don't, if you miss too many in a row, you can lose your seat. So that's the sort of baseline you have to be at council meetings, right? And then how much you prepare for them? Or are we have a very tight turnaround time and have for many, many, many councils, that you get the agenda package late Thursday, early Friday councils Monday. So you're spending Friday or the weekend going over the agenda package. I know a number of the counselors over not just this council, but previous councils might go visit sites that are up for redevelopment or things like that. So we ask every council Are you good with this schedule? Because we can change it? It's up to you. When do you want your agenda package? To date, no councils said change it. I think as we get more complex, we might see that in the future that it's a council might want more time to go through their package, right? Right now Council meets all day, during the day on a Monday, most Mondays. It's not every Monday in a month, maybe four times a month, say and then one or two public hearings, on a Tuesday evening. With the changes in the in the provincial rules on development, I think we'll see fewer Tuesday evenings, because I think the rules will change. But those are another thing to prepare for. The other thing is the majority of our councils on the Regional District either as a full board member or an alternate, and they meet twice a month, and have still these commitments there as well. And there's other external committees you might be on that might like DKA or something. And so it's not a full time job. But it's creeping up to it's always been considered a mayor to full time job and a counselor has about a third or so of the mayor. In terms of the expectation.
Bob 13:40
And the compensation isn't great, either. I mean, people don't go into this to make money. It's it's a passion. And it's it's a calling I guess, would you say that?
Stephen 13:50
Yeah. You never know what people's motivations are. I guess that's a good question to ask all the candidates who are running like, I don't know why 45 people have picked up or if you include me, or why 57 people have picked up the package, what their motivations are, I think they'd run the gamut of different things. Counsel did talk about, you know, it does come up a compensation from time to time. It's always a controversial issue.
Bob 14:17
Yeah, fair enough. It's public service. This is interesting. And you mentioned you're from Ontario. And I was historically I'd like to say from Ontario, because I've been in BC for a very long time. But we don't have a ward system. And that's quite common and other provinces that common but it happens in other provinces. So why don't we have a ward system? And how do how does council work in terms of representation? And that's the whole point of a ward system is that you feel like you're representing a part of the city. So can you help us understand that a little bit from our local context.
Stephen 14:49
BC does not have a tradition of ward systems. If you go back far enough 1920s 1930s I think there were boards. I'm not sure why they disappeared. It's one of the many ways BC is different from the rest of the country and most other major centers in the country have a ward system. There are advantages and challenges of the ward system. It's not something that UBCM advocates for, the legislation does allow a ward system should a municipality want to go that route. Lake Country has a partial ward system, which is a carryover from their incorporation. But other municipalities in BC have not gone that route for I'm sure a variety of reasons. Vancouver looked into it, maybe 15 or more years ago, the council recommended it and it was defeated at referendum. That's the closest I think anyone's come back to a ward system, since then. Like any system of council governance, there's pros and cons to a ward system. And, you know, for a variety of reasons, that is just not something that councils either here or elsewhere have wanted to pursue.
Bob 16:01
Okay, interesting. Well, we'll see where that one plays out over time. And something else that you don't normally see, I guess, or generally see, compared to provincial and federal elections is partisan or specific political parties at the municipal level. Can you expand on that a little bit too? Is it all just about the individual candidates or we have had slates in the past?
Stephen 16:21
And just a follow up to that to the ward system as well is that when a member of council swears their oath, part of their oath is they'll take the interest of the entire municipality in making their decision. And so I think that's a hint as to why perhaps ward systems aren't their ward systems can lead to more fractionalization perhaps or but, you know, part of your oath is you're taking what's the best interest in the entire community, when you're making your decisions, in terms of at the local level, elector organization is the term used legally for us with equivalent of a party, they're quite common in the Lower Mainland, they have not had a law, much of a history here, a couple of times people have created them for an election, we did have, like 2014, we had five people run under an elect organization. Prior to that we had I think, three people run under one, there is one registered for this year. So we'll see how that plays out. And for whatever reason, again, it's like people have run namely as independents, and not been part of formal electoral organizations. And that's when the name of the organization appears under the ballot as it does the provincial or federal level. And you can call yourself whatever election BC allows you to.
Bob 17:49
So you said there was one already in process what does that look like? How do you do that?
Stephen 17:53
Well, the deadline to register with Elections BC was August 2nd. So you had to meet criteria that is in the legislation. And then Elections BC basically says, Yes, you meet or no, you don't, and then sends out a list that says, These are the elect organizations that we've approved, that could endorse candidates, and then there's a, you'd have to have permission of the organization... Yes, we'll endorse candidate X. And then candidate X has to say, Yes, I'll take their endorsement. So and then that would appear on the ballot. So we'll see what if that you know, how that transpires this year, and go from there. But it's something that has not been part of the tradition here. slates are a bit more unofficial, election advertising rules have sort of really tightened up and that if you are going to advocate for an individual or a group of individuals, you need to now say who you are, where the money's coming from. And the election advertising rules over the past three or four elections, or two or three elections have really tightened up and this is in reaction to some of the things that were happening in the Lower Mainland, right, spending huge amounts of money, billboards, and you didn't know what they were or anything like that. So that the a number of reforms have changed that and that union need to register if you're going to promote a third party candidate, you need to register with Elections BC and file some information so people know who you are, and where you where the money came from. And, and there are spending limits now too.
Bob 17:53
So looking for equality, fairness, open..
Stephen 18:03
...and that yeah, it shouldn't just see who has the most money can buy or win or help influence. But we'll see how these, you know, there's new rules again on third party advertising for this election. So we'll see how that all plays out.
Bob 19:45
There's an upcoming candidates forum. And again, this will probably play after that happens but what kind of coaching or information session what does that look like for you and for the candidates?
Stephen 19:59
Every election year, we've offered this for the past several elections. And it's really just a way for anyone who's interested, you don't have to be a candidate or picked up a package just to say, hey, here's the basics of how council works. This is, you know, some of the questions that you've been asking, like, how does council make decisions? How often do you meet? What's the time commitment, things like that. And just so people have an idea of what they're getting into, we find that sometimes there's lots of misconceptions as to how council works, what the authority of members of council are, or not, what the authority of the mayor is, or isn't. And so better to know that before you decide to run and say you get elected, and then you find out oh, well, my, my, what I wanted to change is actually something that the province or the federal government has control overnight, the municipality or something. And over a 4 year term, there's like all sorts of things that we'll be dealing with 4 years from now that we haven't even thought of right now. And just to get an idea of, you know, this is this is what your, you know, this is the adventure you're proposing that you're about to go on to convince the public that you're one of the successful candidates.
Bob 21:13
Interesting choice of words, adventure, I think it is an adventure for many, many people. And we've seen lots of different candidates come through city hall over the years. Which cycles back to what I asked you early on, which is, you know, maybe this is maybe a bit kind of controversial, and we have to obviously keep attendees confidential. But any good stories you can share with our listeners, as we get close to our close here that would bring a smile to our face.
Stephen 21:41
Every election, whether it's federal or provincial, or municipal, the biggest issues are always around election signs, their placement, where they are. And I know there was, when we now hand out little do's and don'ts in very photographic form saying here's a, here's a picture of a sign put up lawfully, here's a sign not, so make sure you do it right way. And we had to add one that said, don't put a sign near this. And you know, there's the natural gas lines. And there's those white and red warning signs that says there's a natural gas line nearby. Well, don't put a stake in the ground here. Yeah, well, a candidate put a sign right near one of these things. And they hammered them in with two feet pieces of rebar because they didn't want, because lots of signs get vandalized and broken and things like that. And they said, I know no one's going to take my sign and how they didn't blow themselves, literally blow themselves up is beyond us. Like we looked at it because it was also unlawfully placed because it was a safety sightline issue. Right? And bylaw went to remove it. And we're like, Whoa, we're not removing that. So we got the candidate to come and remove it. They didn't blow up a second time. They also weren't successful getting on counsel, but it's so we actually now have in our, in our sort of signed guideline, do not put a sign anywhere you see one of these natural gas line warnings.
Bob 23:07
That's, that's, that's good. It did make me laugh. That's a good story. And it's safe. And there's no particular person, that person if they're listening to this will know who it is. But that's okay. So, as we come to a close, is there anything we missed that you'd like to get across to our listeners, Stephen, in terms of...
Stephen 23:27
Just that, I'd encourage those listening to vote, it can be a bit daunting figuring out we do get, you know, complaint saying, oh, there's too many candidates, how am I supposed to know, we will list all of them on our website with links to their social media or websites. And I just encourage people to take the time to figure out who they want to vote for make an informed choice and go out and vote either October 15, or one of the advanced polls prior to that.
Bob 23:58
Right. That's a good place for us to end. Because typically, what's our normal turnout? From a percentage perspective?
Stephen 24:04
30 to 33%. It's not great, but it's been consistent around 30 to 33%. Okay, yeah,
Bob 24:12
well, let's get out there evrybody, and let's try to bump that percentage up, just similar to the expanding candidates list here. And let's hope that nobody blows up. We can all get to the polls and bring ourselves in the new council. So thank you very much, and Mayor, of course, and school trustees. So thank you for your time. I really appreciate it, and let's see how things play out over the next few months.
Zoe 24:40
Thank you for listening to this episode of Kelowna Talks. For more conversations about topics that matter in your community. Subscribe on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. If you liked what you heard, give us a five star rating and review and share Kelowna Talks with your friends and neighbours. For more information about this podcast and other big community conversations visit Kelowna.ca/communitystories.