Drumheller city councillors reaffirmed their help of the Pleasure neighborhood on Monday after a draft coverage appeared to threaten the elimination of the years-old Pleasure crosswalk.
“I’m sorry to all of you, everybody in the neighborhood. This had no intent to go the place it went,” Mayor Heather Colberg mentioned.
The proposed coverage outlined what sort of flags had been and weren’t permitted to be flown by the city, and a schedule of when to fly flags in June with overlapping occasions of Pleasure month, Nationwide Indigenous Peoples Day and the annual flying of the Correctional Companies Canada flag.
The draft coverage additionally urged all sidewalks within the city be solely parallel white strains or alternating black and white strains, to match provincial steering.
The city’s mayor mentioned it will be “irresponsible” to not have a correct coverage in place given the variety of requests for hanging flags and banners the city receives in a yr, and {that a} revised coverage can be voted by council on March 18.
Councillors mentioned all by way of the weekend, they heard suggestions from their constituents and neighborhood organizations.
Coun. Lisa Hansen-Zacharuk mentioned one older man in the neighborhood wrote to council supporting the Pleasure crosswalk.
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“For him, it wasn’t simply the (crosswalk). It was extra about being accepted and ensuring youngsters are protected and that the neighborhood is aware of that it’s protected right here,” she recounted. “And I wish to reiterate that sure, you might be. You’re essential.”
Coun. Tom Zarinksi mentioned he heard “an terrible lot of excellent suggestions, an terrible lot of excellent options from individuals.”
“And that to me simply form of reveals me that this (public enter) course of works,” Zarinksi mentioned.
Coun. Patrick Kolafa mentioned he favored the crosswalk and the response from the neighborhood to the agenda merchandise.
“As a council, one of the vital valued property we’ve got is a motivated neighborhood who’re prepared to place their effort and time to make our neighborhood higher. And I don’t wish to thwart that,” Kolafa mentioned. “And if it is a mission that folks really feel is vital and have the means, the drive and all of these issues to place it collectively, I don’t wish to stand in that approach.”
Colberg echoed Kolafa’s feedback that she doesn’t wish to hinder an effort to maintain the crosswalk if the Pleasure neighborhood needs to help it.
“Of all of the naysayers, not a single one wrote in,” Hansen-Zacharuk famous.
CAO Darryl Drohomerski mentioned his crew was contemplating the potential for transferring the general public show of help for the LGBTQ2 neighborhood from the crosswalk to a mural, one thing lots of the councillors sounded in help of, to enhance the longevity of the paint that in any other case requires repainting at some value.
In 2020, the crosswalk was repainted close to the city corridor to unlock the city’s historic downtown for movie and tv productions.
“We’re economically pushed by tourism and the movie business. And that sidewalk downtown received painted three completely different instances due to movie,” Colberg mentioned.
Coun. Crystal Sereda additionally famous there’s a dinosaur – the city’s trademark – additionally painted in Pleasure colors within the southern Alberta city.
“The place else can we be capable to be certain that we’re at all times inclusive and the place can there be an area that might be higher, that all of us can unite?” Sereda mentioned. “We are able to’t come collectively on a crosswalk in unity. We could be in a spot in unity and I believe there’s perhaps extra dialogue about the place can this be.”
The proposed coverage got here to the Drumheller committee assembly simply weeks after a latest plebiscite in Westlock, Alta., successfully banned Pleasure flags and crosswalks on municipal property handed by 24 votes.
“We’re not Westlock and we by no means have been,” Hansen-Zacharuk mentioned
“We wish to be the cleanest, friendliest, most wanted neighborhood in Alberta,” Colberg mentioned. “This complete factor had no intention to make anyone really feel that we’re not.”
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