Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Concern expressed over next steps for WL Brand

Courtesy of Kim Herdman:

After attending last night’s Council meeting my concerns regarding the new branding for Williams Lake have not been laid to rest. The audience was reassured that there was an in depth public consultation process. The marketing company came to Williams Lake, talked to the people, read reports, formed a committee, constructed a website…basically they did their due diligence. A plan was presented to Council at a Committee of the Whole meeting where it was approved and shortly there after the Branding was in fact being used on the City website.

It seems the process left out the public consultation where they get feedback, tweak it and then present a publicly endorsed plan to the Council for vote and then implement after approval. But yes we are told they did present it to the public…in the lower mainland, in Calgary and who knows where else! I find it appalling that these people who don’t live here who don’t know Williams Lake are approving our Brand, and worse still these people who do not have to live with its stench polluting our reputation are the ones being consulted not us.

After overwhelming outrage by the citizens of Williams Lake we are now being told the concept that was approved at the Committee of the Whole and was supposed to be voted on last night was not really the finished product. I question the protocol of Council voting on a concept that was not final. I am also mystified why the public were not informed of the website that was implemented to keep the citizens informed and gather feedback. A perusal of the City websites shows nothing of the Branding in their news feed nor could I find any link to direct Citizens to the Branding website.

When one visits http://www.mywilliamslake.placebrand.ca/ it is clear that the informing ended last July 21st…and it wasn’t until Citizen outrage that another update was added on April 9th.

So at this point do I feel confident that the new motion to present the latest Brand presentation to the public will be in a spirit to gather feedback and maybe tweak it to something we all can be proud of? Not one bit, especially when I hear comments that those that are not happy with it are too old, negative, look at life as a glass half empty, or somehow just not intelligent enough to get it.

1 comment:

tbarr said...

Steve my initial reaction to the brand was--its laughable!!so I decided to attend the meeting to get more background info on the whys and hows--this came about.I came away rather liking the whole concept and with the exception of the word"republic"thought some very good ideas had been put forward.-Many people were offended at the thought of our losing our western cowboy image.my image of a cowboy after reading every western written by Louis L'Amour was of a carefree individual doing his own thing because that's what he wants to do.he loves the life.If I bring this thought forward you might say in the" Republic of life'thats the kind of life you can live in Williams lake.of course you have somehowget this thought across to the local citizens.Some thing to think about about.I do not agree we should throw the whole effort out.Council did make a good decision to have another look.