A flap no more, tourism banners fly in the downtown streets

"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.

With the public pacified once again and the damage control complete, the Mayor praised the passion of those civic volunteers who only a week ago were ready to storm the doors to fly their flags. A lesson no doubt learned by City Hall and its politicians and bureaucrats, who are now suddenly aware that the public is quick to action, all it takes is an emotional issue, a bit of arrogance on the side of the city and suddenly the peasants are ready to revolt.

While the issue of the last week has finally been put to rest, one wonders if there will be any leftover animosity on the volunteer side. With those that give of their time and efforts feeling that their city government and tourist infrastructure isn't particularly respectful of their efforts, or mindful of whom they are working for and being paid by.

The Daily News featured the happy conclusion as their front page story in Wednesday's paper.

'STUNNING' BANNERS FLUTTER WITH PRIDE ALONG THIRD
After fears volunteer banners would be side-lined they end up at centre stage
By Kris Schumacher
The Daily News
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Pages one and three

After a breakdown in communication between the various groups involved in the 2008 Banner Project and subsequent public protests and finger-pointing, the City of Prince Rupert is making sure every locally-produced banner has a place to hang.

Mayor Herb Pond announced Monday that more than 80 per cent of available spots on Third Avenue West will be reserved for the Matisse-style Civic Pride banners, made by local student artists as a school art project.

Many banners have already been put up along Third Avenue and have already been garnering positive feedback from locals and visitors alike.

George Hills Way will also have its light posts adorned with the Civic Pride banners as originally proposed, and Mariner's Park will receive a visual arts focus this summer with the hand-painted banners complemented by the Journey of the Salmon art mural.

"We really are fortunate to have such passionate volunteers," said Prince Rupert Mayor Herb Pond.

"Local people interested in helping visitors explore the whole community, local volunteers looking to beautify the community, and local artists bringing out the best in our youth."

In addition, wayfinding banners, designed by local artist Debbie Mierau and tied to an Exploration Guide aimed to encourage visitors to explore the entire city core, are already being placed along routes in Cow Bay, 'the Cultural District' and 'Historic Downtown'. Pond said that as a result of the confusion and lack of communication between the city, the Prince Rupert Civic Pride Committee and the local Wayfinding group, city staff will develop a clear and simple permitting process for the future to ensure that there is one point of contact for exchanging information.

"I know there was some angst caused by us wanting to slow down for a moment and consult all the groups, but it was important and I'm really pleased with the way city staff did just that," said Pond. "I can't wait to see the results. The youth art is truly stunning again this year, and once again we're giving them places of prominence. Hundreds of hours from the artists, parents and teachers went into creating the banners and it shows in the final product."

Prince Rupert Secondary School art instructor Tasha Parker is happy to hear that her student's artwork will be displayed on Third Avenue West and George Hills Way, although she says many students were upset and discouraged about the manner in which their project was originally received.

"It makes me feel better, but if that's the kind of consideration we're going to get, it doesn't make me want to do it again next year," said Parker. "It turned so many kids off of painting, a lot of them didn't come back and finish painting their banners. But everybody is happy now that there are some on Third Avenue, and they look fine with the commercially-made banners."

Forty-five student-made banners will hang on Third Avenue and around 25 will be seen along George Hills Way.

A banner day for a protest march

The residents arose as one, well a group of fifty or so anyways, marched on City Hall on Tuesday, seeking out answers and redress to the suddenly controversial issue of tourism banners around the city.

The Bannermania issue has become one of the hot button political topics of the last week as local residents outraged at what they believe to be rather poor handling from senior city officials began to express their anger with the city's print media.

As things seem to have turned out, compromise will rule the day (and maybe save a politician or two at the same time) as the two sides work out arrangements to have the 88 publicly created banners introduced to the city streets in short order.

Both the Northern View and the Daily News have devoted a number of stories on the topic, culminating with Tuesdays protest at City Hall.

We provide both of their interpretations of the day's event below, the Northern View website release and the article printed in Wednesday's Daily News.

Banner protest unfurled at city hall
By Kris Schumacher
The Daily News
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Pages 1 and 2

Although tempers flared this week over banners designed by hundreds of school children, it appears cooler heads will prevail and a compromise between involved parties could be reached during the next week.

More than 50 people showed up at Prince Rupert City Hall yesterday afternoon to protest the city's decision to purchase commercially designed way-finding banners and to demand the 88 locally designed pieces of art be hung downtown. Members of the Prince Rupert Civic Pride Committee, teachers, parents, students and members of the public gathered on the 400 block of Third Avenue West to ask Mayor Herb Pond exactly why the city had deviated from the original goals of the Banner Project.

After 10 minutes of attempting to explain the city's intentions and assure everyone that they have every intention of honouring the local art with prominent placements in the community, it was apparent those gathered were not getting the answers they had hoped for and let Mayor Pond know with a barrage of questions, demands and opinions on the matter. It was at that point that Mayor Pond told the crowd that continuing such a chaotic dialogue was not proving productive, and he invited everyone inside council chambers for a more structured and coherent discussion.

Some 30 people took him up on the offer, and what began as a protest turned into an impromptu town meeting, with Mayor Pond and Bob Thompson, general manager of engineering and public works, answering to the group of concerned citizens. While the meeting lasted well over an hour, within the first 10 minutes both Pond and Thompson admitted that a gross lack of communication between the city, Civic Pride, and other stakeholders had occurred with regards to the Banner Project. Pond was adamant that the city would be paying the highest honour to the locally created banners, which he said are undoubtedly "better" than those that were purchased as part of a $200,000 tourism grant to the city.

After hearing about the tireless work of volunteers including Prince Rupert Senior Secondary art teacher Tasha Parker, who dedicated many hours of her time to ensure the student banners were as beautiful as possible, Thompson stated that he would be personally delivering an apology to Parker for the lack of communication on the project, and to ensure that future endeavors between the city and school district are not plagued by such problems.

Pond and Thompson heard from many parents, teachers and volunteers who felt strongly that the city has no choice but to honour the original arrangement and let the student banners hang in Cow Bay, Third Avenue and George Hills Way. While their passion was felt by everyone gathered, it was perhaps the student artists who made the strongest point with the most impact when their voices were heard at the table.

"We've been doing these banners since last year, and to us, being art students and not being athletes, for people in the city to notice us and our artwork by putting it up made us happy," said one of Parker's PRSS art students. "We were all thinking 'Yay, the city is recognizing us for what we do, and we don't have to hold a basketball to get a picture.'"

Although many of those in the meeting didn't walk away happy, there was at least an understanding that over the course of this next week Thompson would be doing everything in his power to meet with the students, teachers and volunteers to come to an agreement for this year's batch of banners. One idea brought forth at the meeting was to have the local banners and way-finding tourist banners staggered and alternating block by block down Third Avenue.

Another idea was to hang the students banners either above or below the commercial banners, and yet another was to hang the student banners with coloured streamers on either side to correspond to the city's colour-coded mapping system to guide tourists.

With the first cruise ship set to arrive next week, the Daily News will have all the details of the final decision as soon as it's reached in the days to come.

City to work with students, teacher to resolve banner dispute
By Shaun Thomas

The Northern View

April 22, 2008

A crowd of well over 50 people gathered outside of Prince Rupert City Hall at four p.m. on April 22 to protest the city's stance on potentially moving the more than 80 banners painted by local students out of the downtown and Cow Bay areas.

Mayor Herb Pond quickly came out to meet with the protesters, and was met with some very vocal opposition to and questions regarding the replacement of the students' banners with commercially produced banners aimed at helping cruise ship passengers to navigate their way around Prince Rupert. Stressing that the three objectives of the city are to beautify the city, honour the students who painted the banners and improve wayfinding for tourists, and that not putting up any of the students banners in those areas was not the city’s intention, Pond said he believed all three of those objectives could be achieved.

However, it soon became difficult to fully respond to questions from the crowd without being cut off, so Pond invited those in attendance to sit and talk in council chambers, which most protesters did. With a packed council chamber that included parents, students, teachers and representatives from Civic Pride, Pond and Public Works' Bob Thompson participated in a discussion around the issue that lasted more than an hour and included input from almost everyone in the room. Some ideas to resolve the dispute included the staff recommendation to do one side of the block with the professional banners and one side with the students' banners, alternating block by block, and hanging colour coded streamers from the students’ artistic banners. It was also noted that the City has a permit from Highways to place banners along McBride up to the Lester Centre.

As the meeting came to an end shortly after 5:30 p.m., the mayor and Thompson said they would work with the students who painted the banners and PRSS arts teacher Tasha Parker to ensure that the banners were hung in a manner and location that would honour the students and their artwork.

Look for more details in the April 30 issue of The Northern View.

Calling the Damage control department at city hall!

“People coming from large communities see empty lots and empty storefronts, and those are warning signs they’ve wandered into a bad neighbourhood,” --Mayor Herb Pond trying to explain the thinking behind the recently purchase commercial banners for the downtown area.

“It was an arrogant move on the part of upper city management, and none of the councillors were aware of this move,” --Civic Pride Chair Barry Foxall, explaining how the civic group felt when advised that locally produced children's banners would be shuffled off to other areas of the city.

Well, that’s it, the people are angry!

Finally stirred to action not over yet another potential increase to taxes, or a miscounted five million dollars, not with the accelerating cost of a dock repair, or the seemingly weekly increase in vandalism, but rather they are apparently taking to the verbal barricades over cloth banners on a street light pole.

In what may be the most unusual controversy around here in a while, the Mayor and city staff are all in a bit of hot water with Civic Pride, the local organization dedicated to the task of improving the city’s esthetics.

After an few frustrating days with our municipal leaders, the volunteer group was painting the picture of an Imperial mayoralty, one where the Mayor and upper managers run roughshod over the little people.

Monday’s Daily News provides some background on the controversy from members of the Civic Group, many of which made sure that everyone was aware who they held responsible for the Banner mess.

In an unusual approach, the Mayor in Monday’s paper explained that the city banners were designed to compliment the tourist maps handed out and reassure visitors should they wander into an area of empty stores, empty lots and such that it wasn’t a bad area. It was a comment that stirs up memories of the last time that the Mayor and council got into trouble over tourism, interestingly enough about maps, you can refresh your memories on that one here and here.

The Daily News continued to poke the hornets nest introduced to the front page on Friday, with part two of the great banner debate, which finds the city on the receiving end of some sharp jabs from those that are feeling pushed aside by the wheels of municipal government.

A word to the wise for Mayor Pond (and any councilors that may unfortunately get tied up to this initiative), it’s never a good thing when the people that do the voting use the word “arrogant”, once handed that scarlet A, it’s hard to put it away by voting day.

A protest is planned for Tuesday at 4 pm at City Hall to express dissatisfaction with the actions of upper management at the City. It could be a worrisome thing for the Mayor and his bureaucrats, if folks will march on City Hall for a banner, you have to wonder how long before they may march for a few of the other issues that seem to be annoying the locals these days.

The continuing revelations of “Bannergate” were found as the Front Page story of Monday’s Daily news.


CIVIC PRIDE SLAMS 'ARROGANT' CITY FOR LACK OF CONSULTATION
Volunteers fuming for being kept out of banner decision
By Kris Schumacher
The Daily News
Monday, April 21, 2008
Pages one and three

The City of Prince Rupert has moved ahead with a banner project of its own, much to the dismay of the Prince Rupert Civic Pride Committee and the School District Arts and Culture Committee who say they were blindsided by the change in plans.

Both groups are upset they weren't told sooner of a change that they say calls for commercially designed banners to be hung downtown, pushing volunteer-made banners to McBride Street and George Hills Way.

Civic Pride Chair Barry Foxall and Secretary Treasurer Charlotte Rowse claim plans for this year's crop of homegrown banners were set in motion back in November 2007 at a cost of $4,000, yet they only found out last week after holding a meeting with Mayor Herb Pond that the city had commissioned the other banners.

“It was an arrogant move on the part of upper city management, and none of the councillors were aware of this move,” said FoXall. “We phoned (councillors) and they told us they knew nothing about it, and the Port Authority phoned us in support of Civic Pride, wanting us to continue the good work that we were doing.”

The banner project was an initiative that Civic Pride undertook back in 2003 after getting groups together including School District 52, Prince Rupert Grain, and the Port Authority.
Students and other volunteers who made banners expecting them to hang in the downtown core expressed their disappointment in the Daily News on Friday. Many plan to make their feelings known at a demonstration outside city hall at 4 p. m. on Tuesday.

Foxall and Rowse said it was an expensive program, since each banner’s holding bracket cost $207 in addition to the time and effort put in by the artists.

At the November 2007 meeting it was decided that, to appease the city, in an effort to direct visitors to different areas of town, the bottom of each locally designed banner would include colour coding corresponding to the district in which it was hung.

“In January they decided to move forward with their initiative, and they should have come to us at that point and told us what they were looking to do” said Foxall. “We could have stopped making banners at that time, saved $4,000 and move on to another project.”
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“We’re quite good at those things, that’s what we do,” said Foxall. “Several business owners have come to me to ask if we could do murals on the side of their buildings.”

Mayor Pond said that last week’s meeting was the first time he had met with Civic Pride members since they were angry after hearing about the city’s plan from an unknown source. Pond said there was never an agreement or commitment from the city to place banners in any specific locations, a detail he thinks is very minor in terms of the overall plan.

“We said all along that we would love to have more banners throughout the community, to beautify the city, honour the artwork of our kids, and help visitors navigate and feel safe exploring the downtown core,” said Pond. “Those are three objectives we always wanted to do, we never had the money to do it. So we were certainly always thankful to have the support from Civic Pride to get at least a part of that done. In January, we determined there were some grants that we could get that would allow us to take that next step and do all we wanted to do, and that’s all we’ve done.”

The new banners that the City of Prince Rupert and Tourism Prince Rupert have purchased are three distinct designs and colours that represent three zones that colour-coordinate with the maps given to tourists. Pond said what it is really about is getting the tourists past all the empty storefronts and lots so they realize there is still more to the city that is worth exploring, instead of turning around and heading back to their hotel or cruise ship before reaching Fifth, Sixth or Seventh Streets and beyond.

“People coming from large communities see empty lots and empty storefronts, and those are warning signs they’ve wandered into a bad neighbourhood,” said Pond. “So we’ve created this series of banners, and we don’t know if it’s going to work. But it’s always been a goal to try having a unified identified, standard of banners so when they’re passing some industrial buildings, empty lots or whatever, they know that they’re still in the right zone and they haven’t wandered where they shouldn’t”

Pond feels the banners created by those dedicated artists are clearly a magnificent accomplishment and an asset to the community, and he hopes that wherever they are located, they will be seen and enjoyed by residents and visitors alike.

Civic Pride members are disappointed with the move, and say that although the bottom line should be to get the kids banners up somewhere in Prince Rupert it is unfortunate none of the other stakeholders devoting time and money to the project were informed of the decision.
“I don’t want these kids to give up on Civic Pride,” said Foxall.

“We really feel railroaded by the same people we were trying to help out and save money.”