St. Albert’s somewhat informal name selection process is being tweaked.
“We’re just working right now on refining our procedures,” said Carol Bergum, director of planning and development.
There’s been a recent spat of naming municipal infrastructure after historically significant people in the community – Victor Post Park on Perron Street, Benoit Bridge and even Dodger Dog Park, recognizing St. Albert’s former canine RCMP member.
Those examples have been driven by the mayor, as there is no formal naming committee or other process in place.
“I’m continually on the lookout for opportunities,” Mayor Nolan Crouse said. “A name is a snapshot of history.”
He has a few other historical personages in mind that should be honoured with a municipal item being named after them.
There’s a tradition of naming major arterial roadways in St. Albert after past mayors.
There is a municipal naming policy, and staff will be presenting proposed updates to council in the near future.
Currently, the process for naming something after someone specific is fairly informal, including incorporating historical names, Bergum said. They have a list of potential names. Some are from letters submitted by the community arguing for recognition. He said Crouse has a similar request list.
“A lot of the municipal infrastructure type things … that’s been instigated by the mayor,” Bergum said. Her department’s responsibility tends to be in street-naming or helping developers decide street names. They’ll try and honour someone appropriate if they can.
“We’re just working right now to try and formalize process and formalize council and the mayor’s involvement in that as well,” Bergum said.
Jamie Post’s cousin Victor was recently recognized with a park. His cousin was a well-known St. Albert photographer and had a shop on Perron Street, and his own father had a shop there as well.
So the area around the clock tower being named Victor Post Park is of particular significance to the Post clan.
“It means a whole lot to the family,” Jamie Post said, noting it’s a prominent spot.
He sent a message to the mayor’s office a couple of years ago about the possibility of naming something after Victor Post, and a short while after that a letter to the editor from a non-family member happened to call for something similar, suggesting the area that ended up being used to honour the photographer.
Jamie Post is an Edmonton resident and sits on that city’s naming committee, so he was familiar with the process there.
While there’s no naming committee for St. Albert, Bergum said it’s one of the options being explored as part of their review of options for formalizing the naming process.
“We’re looking at a number of different things and different approaches,” Bergum said.
