A more formal process to name town properties is on the way for Bradford West Gwillimbury.
Committee-of-the-whole recommended the new park, facility and property naming policy during the June 7 council meeting, removing the ad hoc process that has been in place since the early 1990s.
In fact, it was 1990 when the Town of Bradford last had an official naming process on the books. At that time, the community at large was polled to determine the best names for area assets, including Fuller Heights Park and Cericola Field.
Since then, the naming of public properties has been at the discretion of council, honouring community builders such as Bob Fallis and Bud Brown, but with no formal process attached.
The new policy proposed by staff “places an emphasis on geographical or historic significance or individuals who made a notable contribution to the community,” similar to the street naming policy that was on the books in the municipality for years.
Coun. Jonathan Scott wanted to ensure this new policy matched the recent changes made to how streets can be named in the town.
“We had a recommendation from the Anti-Racism Committee that diversity also be a criterion that we looked at for naming,” Scott said, crediting Coun. Mark Contois for suggesting that “parks and trails could be great places to honour either Indigenous heritage or incorporate Indigenous names.”
The way the policy was written by staff felt very “generic” to Coun. Peter Ferragine, who thought it would be best to keep it that way.
“I don’t want to point it to anything too specific,” Ferragine said. “I don’t want it to feel like that trails should only be looked at for naming this way or a building should only be looked at for naming this way.”
Ferragine felt that the criteria spelled out regarding geography, history and individual significance left enough open to interpretation to not exclude any potential candidates for naming. But that purposeful vagueness doesn’t make it inclusive, Scott argued.
“The entire point of equity work is to call out underrepresented groups,” he said. “The status quo obviously favours the privileged class – who we typically name parks after. Putting in diversity as a criterion is deliberate because they are the groups who have been forgotten or left behind.”
Staff took the direction to add the diversity language to the policy, which councillors will get a look at during their next meeting.
When the new policy comes before council for ratification, so will one final ad hoc naming decision.
Councillors supported naming ball diamond number four at Joe Magani Park as Gary Baynes Field. Baynes was a two-term councillor who died in July 2020. Having grown up in West Gwillimbury Township, he was a fixture of local sports, including fastball, leading the Queen’s Hotel team to an All-Ontario championship in 1974.
