What's in a name?, Councillors yank commemorative-naming change

Posted Feb 16, 2012 By Laura Mueller

EMC news - A last-minute realization that a proposed change to the city's commemorative naming process would remove councillors from the process led Coun. Maria McRae to ask a city committee to review the idea.

The River ward councillor made the request just before city council approved its new five-year arts plan, which included a proposal to create an independent board to approve naming things such as roads and parks after people.

Heritage advocates have been calling for a strengthened approach to commemorative naming after highly politicized attempts to name Ottawa landmarks in the last year - first, the renaming of parts of Richmond and Robertson roads in Bells Corners to Lloyd Francis Boulevard, and then the suggestion to name the new city archive after former mayor Charlotte Whitton.

Both proposals were jettisoned following public outcry.

The arts plan proposed a new commemorative naming policy that would be overseen by an arms-length board and included more citizen engagement in the process.

But it wasn't until just before council was set to approve the arts plan that McRae received clarification that the proposed board would include citizens and heritage authorities - but not members of council.

"Members of council, who are the only people accountable to their residents, deserve to be a part of this," McRae said. "We should never be excluding elected officials from having a position on something that matters to our residents, because we are accountable to them and they are the ones that elect us."

McRae's amendment asks the city's governance renewal committee to look at that portion of the proposed policy. That will be a quicker way to put the new commemorative naming plan into action if it's needed, McRae said.

STICK TO THE RULES

"I am a firm believer that if the system's not broken, we don't need to fix it," she said. "And if we would stick to our commemorative process and not go around it, it would work."

College Coun. Rick Chiarelli, who came under fire for his Lloyd Francis Boulevard proposal, mistakenly registered his dissent on McRae's idea, but he said in an interview that he supports her idea.

"Just because something becomes controversial, isn't a good enough reason for council to hand off the decision making to someone else," Chiarelli said.