The topic of welcome signs for the city had council engaging in some passionate discussion at Monday night’s council meeting.
The dispute centered around the design of a Grand Forks Rotary Club welcome sign proposal that had been brought before the previous council last fall.
At a Jan. 23 meeting, Coun. Cher Wyers proposed that the new council meet with the Rotary entrance sign committee to discuss the possibility of two signs (at the west and east ends of the city).
“I would also like council to accept their proposal on the table this evening, as they have presented it, subject to the meeting and changes we may like to see,” Wyers said on Jan. 23.
The motion passed unanimously and a secondary meeting was held, where all the trouble began.
Coun. Michael Wirischagin said that he had been told by residents that two council members (Councillors Gary Smith and Bob Kendel) had been going around saying that the approved sign was not going in.
Wirischagin disagreed with what the two were doing but said that the two were not at fault, however, as they were new to council; rather he blamed Mayor Brian Taylor.
“You are the mayor, you should be telling those councillors that a decision of council is final and they should respect that. You should be telling them, Mr. Mayor, there are rules to this game and without rules, there is no game,” Wirischagin said.
He said that he disagreed with past council decisions but never disrespected them.
“A decision is a decision and it is final, if these councillors did not agree with moving forward with the sign as motioned by Coun. (Cher) Wyers they should not have voted in favour of it. Neither should have you, Mr. Mayor.
“I refuse to vote on anything at this table, as I have no trust that decisions are going to be respected and final. For you to disrespect all the hard work that Coun. Wyers, the Rotary, the past council and the credit union have done is disheartening. I have lost my faith and I know many others have as well in this council.”
Wirischagin then threatened to remove himself from chambers (on a temporary basis) as he saw no reason why he thought his vote would count or any decision made by council would be respected – ultimately, Wirischagin did not leave.
“It (was) certainly, as Coun. Wirischagin points out, a bad move on (my) part to allow this secondary meeting to occur, that brought in a lot of complications to the matter,” Taylor explained during question period.
“Where it stands is, we need to bring the whole group together and to solve this problem of choice.”
Smith said that he and Kendel didn’t mean to cause problems.
“Coun. Kendel and my involvement in it was, we wanted to bring forth an opportunity to regionalize the sign, not the sign itself but the frame that it sits in, to take advantage of Boundary Country brand that has been developed by the region,” Smith said.
“There was no intention whatsoever to subvert the work that Rotary had done and they seemed quite receptive to the idea or the potential of having a regionalized sign and how we could actually take advantage of that, so that’s really where it came from.”
Taylor said that he was committed to getting the problem sorted out as soon as possible and a meeting with the entrance sign committee would come in short order.
The original concept had the sign with RDKB, Rotary, Boundary Country and city logos along with the phrase “Famous for Borscht.”
