Mayor Dooley -
I agree with your hesitation to spend $33.000 on the Nelson Identity Project which may end-up filed away at City Hall - like other farmed-out projects of similar intent: the Cultural Tourist and, of course, the $60.000 logo.
I now see more clearly what transpired around the Nelson Identity/Brand Project before its oddly superficial treatment in the Committee of the Whole (COW), Nov. 18 - which that performance wasn't. With a backroom-arrangement earlier and the public irrelevant - the COW presentation was a barely-there formality only. To be completely by-passed by Kevin Cormack later in his CBC announcement of the same topic.
With his radio-explanation and eventually a 3rd version in the Nelson Star - this surprisingly the most complete - quite disconnected from the COW-reality: things got confusing for me - I felt jerked around.
Neither in the COW nor the radio-item was a focused attempt made to clearly inform the public. The same public Council and Mr. Cormack supposedly are working for. The public? What public?
The sudden identity-crisis not so much one of Nelson per se but its decision-makers: the Chamber of Commerce, the Tourism Developers - but above all the Cultural Development Committee (CDC) and its now appendage: City Council. Mr. Cormack, too, whose job-description does not include single-handed, proactively getting involved on this level. But there he is! All mentioned in this COW as backers of the identity search, branding urge.
While Nelson is what all these groups turned it into, allowed it to become. That's its identity - that's its identity-crisis! Brand that! Outch! Expecting this one-size-fits-all to fix everything will only worsen whatever Nelson's calamity may be: they officially hand over pesky responsibility to this construct. And Donna Macdonald's CDC.
Assets of interest - but are they brandable?
Provided by Drysdale/Mackenzie - fathers of the crisis - as local examples for possible branding: Railtown, Hall St, Heritage, Nelson Commons (Nelson Commons?), the outdoors and The Most Artistic Small Town In Canada hardly qualify.
A 20/20 look:
Railtown
More a concept than a reality, even when the new Chamber-of-Commerce/Railway-Station is finished: Railtown as such will be a light-industrial wasteland for years to come.
The inside-out bridge at its entrance and embarrassing artsy overkill along the path towards Nelson Ford won't substantiate an art-brand either.
Not brandable
Hall Street
Few people are walking along Hall now - this won't change, no matter what the M&Ms attempt to change it into. And how much money the City puts into it - somewhere between 2 and 3 mill. As funding this white elephant will take many years - work will be done unnoticeably piecemeal and take forever. Hall may be an artery to the lake - but with its Front St. dilemma and no direct access to the lake once at the lake: this may work as a generic concept for out-of-town experts but not as a reality here. And, M&Ms, nobody's got married in the gazebo yet - thus hardly will in the distant future.
Not brandable
Heritage
It is not a growth-industry - it's what it now is, can't be expanded. Not to forget that Nelson just recently got out of the heritage-cage, and City Hall admits to having to loosen-up somewhat around its heritage-ghetto mentality.
Which had gone as far as - in 2011 - the Heritage Commission (CHC) through Dave Wahn attempting to have its bylaw amended to the effect of the CHC henceforth vetting every single local development-proposal and only if deemed heritage enough handing it to relevant City departments. Council asleep through this one - I woke them in a COW to this disaster-in-the-making. The clause was dropped. Do we want to go there again? Faux heritage development? Benjamin Moore color-charts forever? Council in Victorian drag?
Not brandable
Downtown Shopping
The pretty much consistent number of empty store-fronts on Baker should have made clear by now that there is only so much money to be squeezed out of so many tourists. Via stuff nobody really needs. Unless Baker goes through a serious end-to-end attitude-adjustment: this is it. In the meantime - I have no problem with shopping at the mall.
Also see post Nelson in Living Color, 1 Dec. 2011 below.
Not brandable
Even Councilor Macdonald - local doyenne of the body artistic - admits in a Council meeting to this never having been more than a bunch of hooey. Branding it would - frankly - be an easily exposed lie. Not nice! It is telling of something that Drysdale/Mackenzie are not familiar with this particular reality nor that of the Nelson Commons.
What we do have though is all sorts of awkward tree-paintings in coffee-shops and the tired Art Walk. We have Castlegar bargain-basement sculptures up-and-down Baker; Ikea shower-curtains on Baker; the artsy overkill at the foot of Baker. Beyond the lie - nothing of quality.
Also see post Nelson: Plop-Art Plopping (Part 2), 20 Oct. 2013 below.
Not brandable
The Great Outdoors
Well, we do have that and like it - but so have many other places. And that's fine with us - we're not into selling this place to the highest bidder, so that certain interest-groups can take it to the bank more often.
Not brandable
Seeing that none of these assets are substantially unique (and/or existent!) enough - finding some sort of umbrella-branding to include many or all can only lead to a whole bunch of everything adding-up to one big nothing.
An effective Nelson brand would need the proven-and-sustainable abundance of one unique bigtime asset now - which we don't have - not bits of this and that and possibly in the future maybe.
So what's to brand here?
The Branding Police
Say the CDC - and let's face it: it would be they - decide on a particular brand. Then - in order to maintain and add to it - rules would have to be put in place a la heritage, and we would end-up with somebody watching that nobody oversteps. The comfort of uniformity - the status quo. The branding police! Harperville!
When the CDC was reorganized a while ago - absorbing the then all-powerful heritage-guardians - we seemed to be on our way to a more balanced decision-making construct in cultural matters. What happened though was that new versions of the CHC and Advisory Planning Commission (APC) became subspecies of the CDC - making the latter more powerful than the CHC had ever been. With Councilor Macdonald - the CDC's prime-mover at City Hall - getting Council to throw major money and major concessions at her group. So now there's no end to artsy-this and artsy-that all over the place: none of it having substance, quality because the oddly insensitive CDC's only goal is getting more and more of that stuff out there - and no overall vision with an economic benefit part of it. Because the CDC has no defined identity. On paper yes - in reality no.
Also see post Nelson: Plop-Art Plopping (Part 3), 29 Oct. 2013 below.
Councilor Kiss in the Star: Large sums of money are being spent without this cohesive vision, she said, referring to the informational signage and lamppost banners downtown. This would be a worthwhile investment in advance of all other expenditures. We should know we're not just putting bad money after bad money because we don't have a plan for how things should look.
Weeell, Councilor, you have a point with those banners, but those large sums of bad money after bad money are being blown by your colleague's expert CDC only(!) - after having been handed to her by City Council: meaning you personally! Without demanding a precise plan/goal, without any preconditions - period. The proverbial buck stops with City Council. This Council obviously an identity-whirligig - with no individual parts.
So unless Council takes a realistic look at its inbred responses, to then force the CDC to do some soul-searching for the greater (economic) good - or else! - this branding-thing is just so much pricey botox.
Nelson Whatever
I suggest that Council rein-in the CDC, put a plug in the approval/money flow and concentrate on eventually finding a single big, exceptional item - as a Nelson Commons could have been - to draw tourists here as a destination instead of stop-over.
There won't be an increase in tourists with the players habitually just recycling the same-old, only dressing them up in more-and-more over-the-top adjectives. Growth needs stepping out of one's comfort-zone, taking risks - thinking new and bold and big!
See also Nelson: Plop-Art Plopping (Part 1), 8 Oct. 2013 below.
30 out of the 33 comments on the brand-article in the Star - thus far and an astonishing response for Nelson - see no point in branding: they agree with the mayor. Hello, Council!!! This is your ignored public!!!
No, Sam Van Schie, in the COW above the mayor was hardly outnumbered by the rest of council. Two councilors were absent in body; two were absent in mind - not saying a word; leaving two not saying much of consequence. But then - all this was orchestrated by Kevin Cormack and Donna Macdonald in advance (Stephanie Fischer, CDC-Chair - very seldom attending meetings - in the audience for this one!).
So Council and CDC - bottom-line: what's there to brand, without you making yourselves appear even more foolish - and embarrassing Nelson! Using our money doing it!
Mayor Dooley, I also agree with your statement that you like Nelson not having cookie-cutter buildings, and there shouldn't be just one design throughout the whole city.
Individuality,
Diversity -
Yes!
Thank you -
c lao s
This is my 100th post.
Images: Keith Haring
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