To avoid potential family feuds, a policy regarding family names on Lac La Biche County road and street signs has gone back to the drawing board.
In recent months, several requests to have area family surnames added to numbered roads signs have been requested by residents. In early September, the family names of Bourque and Boucher were approved — after initial revisions — to have a portion of 100 Street leading to McArthur Place renamed to Boucher Street and a one-block stretch of 105 Street named Bourque Street.
The naming tradition was halted, however, at last Tuesday's county council meeting when two families requested their names for the same downtown street.
In July, the Hamar family, long-standing business owners in the community whose family name was associated to a hardware store, bakery and a grocery store on the east side of Lac La Biche's 101 Street for several decades, requested naming the street Hamar Way. As councillors were awaiting some revisions to the request at the insistence of municipal administrators, the Abougouche family, also long-standing business owners whose family name has been associated with a grocery store on the west side of 101 Street for several decades, sent in their request to have 101 Street declared as Abougouche Street.
While most on council realized the two requests were a sign of trouble, one councillor's initial reaction was to pick a favourite.
"In my opinion, the Hamars have been there longer and have had more businesses along that way," said Coun. Darlene Beniuk during the Sept. 22 public council meeting. "As far as businesses go, they've had more business on that street and for a lengthier time as well, going back 100 years."
Choosing one over another is not the way to go — obviously, said Coun. Lorin Tkachuk, explaining that putting well-respected community contributors into some sort of "popularity contest" wasn't going to happen.
"If it became a council decision, I would prefer to say that we'd go with neither," he said.
Beniuk continued, saying the Coutney family was also a prevalent name on 101 Street, "and they had multiple businesses there."
Signing off
The policy has a "design flaw," noted councillor Jason Stedman, who said the naming policy would have to be an all or none solution.
"I don't want people to be submitting requests for ones we aren't comfortable making," he said. "I don't want to be naming any streets at all if we aren't going to do 101 Street. I don't want to see some get approved and some that don't."
He suggested to remove the street-naming option entirely and instead dedicate plaques, benches or tree-stands to recognize the contributions of area families.
"Maybe we put this thing on ice so people don't keep putting names in while we are discussing it — we should suspend the program," he said.
Tkachuk agreed, suggesting the idea of a dedication wall could be worked into the plans for the McArthur Park Master plan that is being developed. But also said he was in support of the street-naming policy, but stressed the procedure needs to be more stringent.
Mayor Omer Moghrabi — whose own family also had their own business on 101 Street for decades — said the policy would be stalled while administrators took a closer look at it. Families with naming requests already submitted to the municipality will be contacted.
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