http://www.orilliapacket.com/2014/05...htfoot-leacock
Re: “Welcome to Gordon's city,” May 7
The article reads like a good news/bad news joke. Council is investigating rebranding Orillia — good news. It wants to add Gordon Lightfoot’s name to the Orillia brand and is paying $60,000 to consultants to do so — bad news.
Council is a generation out of date if it thinks that adding Gordon Lightfoot’s name to the city’s signage will do anything for Orillia today.
The slogan “the Sunshine City” is also outdated. Outside of Orillia, the connection between the slogan and Stephen Leacock is tenuous at best. Do people still read Leacock’s books? Do schools teach Leacock’s Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town anymore?
Meanwhile, the Downtown Orillia Management Board (DOMB) and member Ralph Cipolla are crying poor, claiming downtown merchants cannot afford to provide free parking for their customers. However, tattoo shops and bong parlours do not move into high-rent districts. Their appearance downtown is a clear sign of commercial decline. In fairness to Cipolla, he admits free parking alone is not enough to turn downtown around.
Patchwork compliance with the DOMB’s Victorian heritage sign requirement only makes the area look seedier and more dilapidated. With 40 vacant storefronts, perhaps the DOMB should promote Orillia as the largest ghost town east of the Mississippi.
Instead of paying consultants, council should hold a public contest for the best rebranding suggestions. The prize could be free parking downtown for life.
For example, since Orillia has abandoned the MURF (multi-use recreation facility) in favour of SMURFs (small, mostly useful — or user-less, if your cup is half-empty — recreational facilities), we could license the Smurfs’ images and market ourselves as the “Home of the SMURFs.”
Personally, I favour using Halloween to market Orillia. Shoppers spend more on Halloween decorations than on Christmas. We could become an all-year Halloween destination. Orillia could become “The Witches’ Village — a bewitching place to visit.” The cobwebs in the vacant storefronts would fit right in until they become tenanted.
The Halloween theme is multi-dimensional. Besides the obvious — folks looking for Halloween stuff and those chasing the occult — we could add attractions to draw fundamentalist Christians. We could install dunking stools along the waterfront where people could pay to dunk witches. Timers on the stools would protect the “witches” from being drowned by well-meaning Christians.
We could also offer full-immersion baptisms, in one’s choice of faith, in the same parks, using similar equipment. After visiting downtown to be charmed and spellbound by the witchery and assorted devilry, who wouldn’t need to be cleansed of such magical attractions? Orillia might even attract baptism conventions. Where else could you get baptized and then drown a witch to celebrate your new state of grace?
All kidding aside, downtown Orillia needs to be born again. Dump the tattered Victorian theme, pull in the local arts community, offer tax incentives to attract high-quality businesses and professionals. Lightfoot and Leacock are not enough to stave off the unsavoury businesses that follow on the heels of tattoo parlours and bong shops.
Douglas H. Brown
Orillia
Orillia welcome signs to mention Lightfoot??
