Sechelt council has voted to tone down a proposed Christmas display at municipal hall by sticking to putting up lights on the building but not adding a lit-up Santa on the roof.
The decision to take a pass on the Santa installation came during a reconsideration vote Nov. 4.
Council had approved an Oct. 21 request from the parks department and the communications manager to use $3,700 from the unspent balance of the council travel budget for white lights for municipal hall, $4,500 for “the creation and installation of a lit Santa on the roof of municipal hall” and $10,000 to install electrical outlets in Acacia Park to allow for the safer use of lights in the trees and a larger display. The total unspent balance in the council travel budget for 2020 is $45,275.
Mayor Darnelda Siegers said she called the reconsideration vote after hearing from councillors who wanted to revisit the issue.
On Oct. 21, council passed the recommendations as a package, with only Coun. Tom Lamb opposed. At the Nov. 4 meeting, council tackled them one by one.
Coun. Matt McLean, who recused himself on Oct. 21 because of potential conflict with the Acacia Park proposal, took part in the debate over the other two items.
He supported installing the lights.
“I think that’s an appropriate investment,” he said. “We look at the lights around downtown and every year we hear cries for more lights. I think it’s a little bit of a gap in our lighting system right now. Rockwood is amazing, Cowrie Street is amazing, and right in the middle is town hall. So we can help bridge that gap a little bit by installing lights on town hall.”
Coun. Brenda Rowe also spoke in favour.
“I think the [municipal] hall should be one of the feature points in downtown,” she said. “It's going to be a very different Christmas for a lot of people and a lot of the usual things aren't going to be happening, so if we can provide the community with the enjoyment of taking their kids for a ride to see the lights and have it look a bit spruced up, I think we should do that.”
Council voted to confirm its earlier decision on the lights.
It also voted to go ahead with the improvements to the electrical service at Acacia Park.
“It's much needed and it needs to move forward,” said Coun. Eric Scott.
The proposal for a big Santa on the municipal hall roof, however, did not survive closer scrutiny.
Coun. Alton Toth, one of the councillors who asked for the reconsideration, said while he supported the lights and improvements to the electrical service to Acacia Park he was “sort of on the fence about the Santa.”
“I regret that we did not have more of a discussion on it last time,” he said. “We've heard pretty clearly from the community that they take particular issue with the lit Santa.”
Coun. McLean said he thought sticking a Santa on the roof would be excessive. “You put that up if you want the best display in town. We don’t need the best display in town; we need a nice display, which we have done with the Christmas lights.”
Coun. Janice Kuester said she “didn't really think it was a great idea” the first time although she voted in favour Oct. 21 to support the other proposals.
Lamb and Scott also voted against the Santa.
Only Rowe and Siegers voted in favour.
Siegers said she saw the Santa as the first piece in a display that “would get better year after year throughout downtown” and that would reinforce downtown as the focal point of Sechelt and show “what we do as a community, how we show our community spirit at Christmas time.”
Rowe said she supported the idea in part because of what she’s experienced with COVID in her work in the healthcare system.
“In the time of COVID, maybe it is what we need,” she said. “I'm surrounded by people that are really struggling with a lot of things right now around COVID and a lot of normals that are gone.”
