Recently former mayor Stu Wells commented on an idea to name the walkway from Highway 97 to the Osoyoos Golf Club in memory of former mayor and MLA John Slater.
Wells was in favour of the idea, which had been proposed by longtime resident George Mahovlic in a recent letter to the Osoyoos Times.
Slater certainly had an impact on this community and region during his time in public office.
He was passionate about Osoyoos, and despite his foibles, he accomplished much for the town. He is certainly worthy of having his legacy officially recognized.
But Wells made another interesting point that deserves serious consideration.
“We haven’t done enough in this town, in my humble opinion, of honouring the people who have made significant contributions to making our beautiful little town the great place we all know it has become,” he said.
In many communities, streets are named for important people in the community’s past.
Here we name our streets for apples, birds and flowering shrubs, or simply by sterile numbers.
Renaming out streets would probably cause too much confusion, especially because some of them have already gone by different names in the past and some already have more than one name.
But perhaps as new streets are developed, some can be named for past Osoyoos trailblazers.
Buildings, parks and even geographic features are often named for past citizens in other communities.
Wells is right. Osoyoos hasn’t done enough to recognize the people who have contributed to this town’s history.
When the idea was raised with Mayor Sue McKortoff, she quite rightly pointed out that council has other more pressing issues on its plate.
No doubt some historic names will be controversial. And we doubt council would want to wade into some of those historic controversies.
But Wells makes the suggestion that a volunteer committee could be formed to look into the question.
Such a committee, presumably including some oldtimers and long-time residents, and probably representation from the Osoyoos Museum and Archives, could come up with a list of worthy names and also identify some places where a few names could be recognized immediately.
Council would simply need – with public input – to adopt the committee’s overall recommendations, without wading into the weeds of the individual choices.
Wells says he would “gladly” be part of such a committee. We hope that he and others will step up and get the ball rolling on this worthy idea.
