“We really are fortunate to have such passionate volunteers,” – Mayor Herb Pond striving to calm the hurricane of slighted volunteer banner makers
Bannergate is all but over, the one time tempest now but a memory, as the children’s and community banners take their place upon the light standards of the downtown area, ready to welcome tourists and residents alike.
In one of the more tempestuous weeks for the normally unflappable Mayor Pond, the anger of the artisans proved to be stronger that the call of bureaucracy, as the city relented on its tourism banner policy, no doubt a little humbled by the backlash from the public.
Using the always helpful mea culpa of poor communications, the Mayor outlined the steps that the city will take from now on in matters of these kind, suggesting that there will be a more consultative approach and we suspect hopefully one that won’t have the Mayor having to face angry artists and their parents (not to mention electoral voters) just a little annoyed at the less than open and transparent methods of their decisions.
I love the kid’s banners…
As for those corporate banners, what a waste of cash they were…
So we are made up of districts… I had to laugh that the gaming center is part of our cultural district, and the safeway lot is historic down town…
“Districts” sounds American … Guess they want it that way for the cruise ships…
Yeah I chuckle every time I see one of those “Historic Downtown” banners. Exactly which part of downtown is historic? Would that be the 7-11… the Tim Hortons… maybe the new/old post office?
I think they should purchase a banner that the chair man can fly from his wheel chair designating him as a cultural site.
Yup I agree…
Those corporate banners are down right tacky…
I bet they flew in a consultant to sort out the district thing…
Come on city council could the money not been better spent?
As I say I love the kid’s banners … They should of just put them up as the rest suck…
The Inlander is considered " Historic Down Town" I can think of other names for it…
Yeah Parking lots and 7–11 are also considered the same…
From Speakuppr above: As an addendum to the great banner debacle… it was interesting that the city found it necessary to pay it’s workers double time to put up the banners on a weekend rather than wait a couple of days… Guess Hollywood Herb wanted to show once again… he’s a take charge kind of guy!!
Do you have any confirmation that the city workers were being paid double time on the weekend for the banner hanging? Could have been done through scheduling of workers on straight time, which always an option when it comes to less than emergency tasks as this.
That being said, it might make for an interesting question if we had a media that was interested in reporting instead of cheerleading. which seems to be the nature of the beast of late. Maybe it will make for a good question from the peasantry at the next council open mike night…
If the city did pay overtime purely to hang ceremonial banners, then it obviously is a poor allocation of tax dollars and indicative of a lack of responsibility of those running the city.
But until we know for sure, not much use in bashing the city or the Mayor on this one, because facts are always better than innuendo
Well the historic downtown banners would have made more sense on 3rd Avenue. And there are a lot of tourists that get a kick out of finding the actual older buildings.
Your comments are well taken Podunkian although your use of the word innuendo is not correct. While perhaps I can be accused of making assumptions. I’m quite certain my previous post left no doubt as to my criticism.
It is correct that I do not have the payslips in question but the information was passed on to me by a city employee in a position to know. The unfortunate thing is that the taxpayers of Prince Rupert are so used to stories of mismanagement from city hall that most don’t bother asking questions anymore. As for the local press, they seem to have fallen in the habit of taking press releases from city hall as news.
