THUNDER BAY -- Pushback from business operators in Thunder Bay's south core has prompted the executive of the Business Improvement Area to give the membership more direct involvement in selecting a new name.
The board has put the process on hold for review after numerous members protested that they hadn't been consulted about a survey conducted on a local advertising agency's Facebook page.
The survey sought feedback on several candidate names including Billy's Town, the Kaministiquia District, River's End and Uptown.
Fort William BIA members who learned about the project second-hand were upset not only by the lack of communication but also by the names that were selected for the survey.
Lori Paras, who operates the Hub Bazaar on Victoria Avenue, said people were asking if it was a Halloween joke. "They couldn't believe that this board would choose such names," she said. "It didn't make any sense. They didn't seem appropriate."
Paras said the written responses to the names showed members of the public had a similarly negative reaction.
She feels the membership should have been brought into the rebranding process at the outset. "There's a lot of stellar businesspeople in downtown Fort William and they didn't want to have their names attached to this."
Councillor Larry Hebert, one of three city representatives on the board, said some people have misunderstood the process.
Hebert described the recent exercise as a "test" decided on by the company the BIA is working with. "These were not going to be the final four (names) by any means," he said.
Hebert said the board believed that it had a mandate "to do some of this stuff. I have no problem with going out and doing testing," although he added that he wasn't happy with any of the chosen names.
The idea, he said, was to get reaction from people outside the BIA first.
"We wanted to see how other people in Thunder Bay would react to it...'Is this something that you would feel would be welcoming?' Obviously, they spoke very loudly: 'No,' "Hebert observed.
The administrator of the BIA, Kristina Belanager, said the board has listened to the membership and is putting the project on hold while it comes up with a process that's more inclusive "from start to finish."
