North Battleford city council has agreed to a new commemorative recognition policy to honour members of the community.
At their Tuesday council meeting, council approved the policy which covers all requests for commemorations within the city of North Battleford.
The policy includes an application form and a scoring matrix, from which commemorations can be assessed. Those nominated are assessed based on a number of factors including civic, geographical and historic significance, level and intensity of meaningfulness, prominence, number of people affected and inclusiveness.
The list of acceptable projects under the policy include parks and open spaces projects such as bench and tree dedications, statues, fountains, dedication banners and unnamed access roads; exterior and interior projects and cemetery projects including statues, monuments, cairns, fountains and bench and tree dedications.
The new policy repeals three other existing policies or programs already in place: the commemorations and monument policy; the parks/facility naming policy; and the cemetery and gifts memorial program. The new policy covers those same areas and is more comprehensive.
A committee consisting of two city staff and two council members met and came up with the policy during a number of recent meetings. The development of the policy took place after a request came in to the city to honour Colby Cave, the NHL hockey player from the Battlefords who died in 2020.
Councillor Kelli Hawtin told council Tuesday that they wanted to create a policy suited for any request in the future 鈥� not just the requests that were before the city. Hawtin said an ad hoc committee will be set up to consider requests and the application form is designed to be user-friendly.
A key aspect of the policy, Hawtin said, is that whoever is being nominated to be commemorated has to 鈥渉ave significance to the residents of North Battleford, because there鈥檚 certainly many people all over the province, country, world, that could be commemorated, but we wanted to ensure that there鈥檚 a piece saying it鈥檚 important to the residents of North Battleford that this person is commemorated here.鈥�
Mayor David Gillan added that they tried to be as 鈥渨ide and encompassing as possible in the criteria for people to be nominated.鈥�
He said the criteria allows people to come forward and be nominated that 鈥測ou would not necessarily think in this regard, but they should be nominated.鈥� It could include those who have fostered equality, those who have volunteered, or the 鈥渦nsung heroes鈥� in the community, as Gillan put it.
The policy was approved unanimously.
