Two Elliot Lake Council Committees heard a report on the naming of city assets Monday, then asked for more recommendations.
It followed debate sparked by the talking points which arose from a report on possible naming options of city assets by the City's Special Projects Manager, Steve Antunes.
He authored the report presented late Monday to both committees.
The detailed report included recommendations in response to the By-law and Recreation and Culture Standing Committee request in February for staff input on city naming issues and options.
A note of levity was introduced early on in the debate, when at the start of the meeting, By-law Committee chair Ed Pearce referred to the naming report item on his agenda as the "fun item."
Pearce chaired the first of the two Monday committee meetings at 4:30 p.m. to consider the report and a number of other matters on the committee agenda.
Consideration of the same report by the Recreation and Culture Standing Committee followed two hours later. This happened during a meeting chaired by Councillor Sandy Finamore.
Both meetings were held virtually and livestreamed, later to be archived on the city's website.
The humorous undertone continued when, during first meeting debate, Councillors Norman Mann and Chris Patrie both referred to a hypothetical street or road called "Finamore" as an example of a naming option for a City of Elliot Lake publicly-owned asset.
Ironically, Antunes' report had also made a recommendation that namings should only be considered to honour elected officials, plus members of city staff or administration officials, as a posthumous act.
Members of both committees debated a number of points and recommendations arising from the lengthy report.
Finamore said she was concerned about precedence in naming, adding, "I don't think that the first come, first served works for me.
"I think that that's at the discretion of council. If there's two names brought forward, I don't care if it is closed session or they flip a coin. But I think it's at their discretion at that point."
As for a recommendation for naming submission fees, she said, "I have a hard time with charging for the renaming of streets, because I don't like putting barriers up for people to be able to do things.
"When I'm on the news tomorrow for wanting to name my street 'Finamore Street' I don't want them to say that I'm an elitist in Elliot Lake and that's why I'm doing it. I just don't want money to be a barrier for someone to do this. I understand that there is a cost. I think somewhere we can find money to rename the street and I'm sure we're not going to be doing 35 in a year.
"I'm not sure if you are ready yet for it to go to council or if you feel you need to do more work on it, Mr. Antunes? I think that it's not something that's time sensitive for sure, and we're going to do it and want to make sure we're doing it right."
Referring to Antunes, Finamore concluded, "You've certainly captured a lot of different scenarios here."
Antunes is expected to do further research and dig down deeper on the subject, including the feasibility of paid naming rights. At some point, a detailed naming policy and enabling bylaw are expected to be created for consideration of council.
Monday turned out be a very busy day in Elliot Lake.
The Committee meetings closely followed a late afternoon report of the death of a second Elliot Lake COVID-19 patient who had received hospital treatment. The death was revealed by Elliot Lake St. Joseph's General Hospital and Algoma Public Health.
It was Algoma's fourth death related to COVID-19.
The announcement of the death of a previous former patient had been released by the Elliot Lake Hospital a few weeks earlier.