I have lost track of the number of times people have asked me what I thought of the replacement of the electronic marquee at Memorial Gardens. And all too often they link the $129,000 cost with the raise council gave itself. I try to defend the former but not the later.
A nine-year-old electronic sign or any other electronic device is approaching or has already slid past its best before date. Not because the little wires and doodads inside are broken, but they are of an older generation. Things wear out, get tired and become useless. Apparently, some of the little lights on the sunny side of the old sign have ceased to function or at least grown dim.
This is the only comparison I can make between the cost of the sign and council salaries. Okay, George is an exception but he is from another era – almost pre-electronic.
The new sign will have features that will dazzle us with promotions not only for events within the Gardens but for events throughout the city. It will not only advertise hockey games and figure skating but with any luck, we may see and hear the thunder of curling rocks rumbling down the ice if we get the nod to host the Really Big Rocks Event.
If you haven’t seen the electronic billboards that send out new messages as you drive by then you just have been paying far too much attention to your driving. Or you were texting on your smartphone. The new high-definition sign will look just like your TV screen: the current temperature and time will display and with a little tweaking, the televised council meetings will show live on Chippewa Street. In fact, there will likely be an app that you can download that will show you the sign on your cell! Although you may not be able to hold up a paper cheque in front of the sign and verbally tell it to post it to your account - Council left that out of the specifications. What do you expect for only $129,000?
Memorial Gardens will likely be on the fringe of the free downtown Wi-Fi but imagine if that were available inside the hockey palace – you could text and tweet while pretending to watch the game on the big screen. We will soon have the best inside and outside electronic signs in . . . well, the City.
There is, however, another sign that needs a little fixing. That extremely modest sign at the south entrance to the City on Hwy 11 needs a little help. Although illuminating the sign after dusk was not in the original plans, indeed in its modesty, it never wanted to be seen at night, council did agree to install some lighting. Being out in the swampland, there is no electric service nearby so climbing on the green bandwagon, council gave the nod to install a solar panel nearby to provide after-dusk lighting. Alas, not only on cloudy days but even after a day of full sunshine, the solar system is not working.
This failure to illuminate may be in sympathy with the rest of the Ontario electrical system but I hesitate to suggest we ask Wynne to fix our solar sign. On the other hand, if solar power was reliable, we could take the old Memorial Gardens sign to our southern entrance and greet people to our fair City in semi-modern style. Just saying.
