For those of you who don’t know it, Williams Lake is a city in B.C.’s interior (the Cariboo, to be exact) that is probably best known for cowboy stuff. It is home to the BC Cowboy Hall of Fame, the city website has splash images of people riding horses and its biggest claim to fame is the annual Williams Lake Stampede. So when the downtown business improvement association unveiled a new mural design for the community the mayor wanted to know, where was the cowboy stuff? Or more specifically:
“It’s ugly,” [Mayor Walt] Cobb muttered, his microphone picking up his voice loud and clear.
“I personally don’t like this mural,” Cobb said, adding he was under the impression that any mural that went up in Williams Lake at least had to represent something in the area whether that be historic or resource-based.
“I’m sorry but that picture doesn’t fit the criteria as far as I’m concerned.”
According to the artist statement the mural is meant to represent the region’s resilience following a 2018 season of unprecedented wildfires that caused the entire city to be evacuated.
“The Cariboo has been through so many unprecedent events in the last few years,” the artists wrote on Facebook.
The fires, the crash of the lumber industry, pandemic, and floods. Our grit, resilience and strong community should be celebrated and remembered. To commemorate the events we propose to paint a burned forest. Amongst the tall dark trees there will be a small green tree growing and almost glowing representing hope and new life. Throughout the trees and high in to the sky there will be flying whales representing how we rose up as a community and thought outside the box. Discovering new ways to thrive and still hold on to who we are. The whales will be all different species to show our diverse population.
The DBIA also said the goal of the mural was to diversify the range of public art in the city (at the same council meeting approval was given to paint a mural of a cow moose), but council suggested it simply didn’t fit in with the feel of the community which itself prompted wider discussion.
In the end, though, it’s moving forward as the Williams Lake Indian Band stepped in to provide the needed funding.
Criminal record checks for elected officials?
The Union of B.C. Municipalities met this week, and one of the items on the floor was whether elected officials should be required to get criminal record checks. The argument in favour is that “those holding local government office are elected into a position of trust and power where they have access to sensitive data and are expected to ‘conduct themselves in an open, transparent and accountable manner’’”. However, it was also argued that it could serve as a further barrier to increasing diversity in leadership.
Ultimately he resolution, which is simply a recommendation and won’t necessarily (or likely) become policy, passed with 55 per cent support.
What’s in the Throne Speech for cities?
The Federation of Canadian Municipalities reacted favourably to this week’s Speech from the Throne, continuing to hammer home on the theme of the need for rural broadband.
The surprise move, though, I think was the announcement the government plans to subsidize flights to rural communities in order to ensure “Canadians have access to reliable and affordable regional air services”. Certainly welcome news in places that have considered a future without flights.
The problem with small-town values
Watching what happened in Red Deer this week provides a poignant backdrop to read this piece from Matthew Grim in the Des Moines Register: “There is an absolute correlation between insisting you live in utopia and demonizing people for pointing out hard realities that it's not.”
Alright, that’s two weeks in a row! If you enjoyed this feel free to forward it to someone else who you think may enjoy it, or share it on social media. Have a good weekend.