Barrie city councillors want to be immortalized in street names

Barrie councillors want to name new city streets after … Barrie councillors.

While discussing a street-naming motion tonight for Ward 10 in the city’s south end, Deputy Mayor Robert Thomson introduced an amendment to that effect.

It asked that staff re-establish the policy of naming streets after elected members of city council, and automatically add the title and name of elected members of 2022-26 Barrie city council and onward to the street-naming registry — if they do not already have a park, bridge or facility named after them.

“I thought this would be a policy that we could honour the people who serve their community and something they could be proud of,” Thomson said. “I would put their names on the registry immediately.”

Only Coun. Ann-Marie Kungl spoke against the motion.

“I think 'Kungl Court' has a good ring to it, but honestly, I completely understand the intention. I do struggle to support it," she said. 

The Ward 3 councillor noted people’s reputations often change later in life, or even afterwards.

“You can’t control what someone does ... or how they exit an organization or whatnot,” Kungl said.

“You can’t do anything wrong after you’re deceased,” Thomson said.

There was some confusion about how the policy worked now, so Dawn McAlpine, the city’s general manager of community and corporate services, explained.

“The existing policy contains a provision that any naming that might occur for a member of council or a member of staff, if they were on the list, does not take place until after the individual is deceased,” McAlpine said.

“That policy was common in many municipalities when we reviewed the naming policy and, based on some less-than-positive experiences that they’d had after people had left their time serving either on council or staff, that perhaps the naming was no longer appropriate based on specific actions," she added.

McAlpine said all the names must come through city council for approval. 

“At one point, it was automatic that names for members of council were added to the policy," she said. "However, I believe the requirement is currently that all of the names come before council for consideration."

Thomson said he was fine with people having streets named after them while they were still alive.

“I look around the (city council) table and there’s a lot of young people,” he said. “It might be quite a while before they get names.”

Later in Wednesday night’s general committee, councillors approved a motion that city staff review the existing list of names for originality, appropriateness and representation of the local community and its residents.

Also, that staff enact a policy that any Barrie resident who served in the Canadian Armed Forces and is killed in action, or served on a fire, paramedic or police department and is killed on the line of duty, have their last name added automatically to the street-naming registry if a park, bridge or facility is not already named after them.

“These are automatic. If you die in the line of duty and it passes the check marks … you’re in. Same thing with Canadian forces,” said Coun. Sergio Morales. “I think we just need to look at all of this comprehensively.”

City council will consider final approval of these motions at its Oct. 4 meeting.