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Ghost bikes and other impromptu roadside memorials to people killed on Ottawa’s streets should be allowed to remain in place for up to six months, says the head of the city’s transportation committee.
Coun. Keith Egli said Monday that he plans to support Capital Coun. David Chernushenko’s motion to double the amount of time roadside memorials will be allowed to stay up.
A new policy proposed by city staff said such memorials should only be allowed for 90 days, but people could pay $250 for memorial plaques that the city would design, install and maintain for two years.
Extending the deadline for roadside memorials to six months strikes a good balance between those who don’t want to see the memorial at all and those who may want them to stay up for a year or longer, Egli said.
“I think six months is a reasonable compromise,” he said, adding “there’s very broad-based support for the change from three months to six months” among committee members.
The city surveyed 20 other municipalities and made up a policy based on their “best practices,” though the report notes that only two of the cities they looked at have 90-day limits. Most allow memorials to stay up for one or two years, or leave them up as long as somebody’s tending them.
Existing memorials in Ottawa would be now taken down by the city six months after city council approves the policy, instead of three months, as initially proposed.
But the timing is not exact, Egli said. The six-month countdown only begins when a ghost bike or other roadside memorial is brought to the city’s attention through a complaint to 311 or a councillor’s office. “We’re not going to have roadside memorial patrols, we’re not going to go out looking to take memorials off the road,” he said.
The proposed policy also says the memorial signs would only be allowed if the dead person was an Ottawan and had never been convicted of a crime and had no outstanding provincial or bylaw infractions.
Egli said an outstanding conviction or other infraction will not automatically disqualify a person. Staff has to act in a reasonable and compassionate way, he said. “If you shoplifted when you were 20 years old and 30 years down the road you’re a traffic fatality and your family wants to remember it, that’s not going to hold it up,” Egli said.
The push to extend the timeline for roadside memorials may be welcomed by the families and friends of people killed in traffic accidents.
“The ghost bike ended up allowing us to focus our energy, to channel our grief … it was a very, very valuable outlet. There’s no way that 90 days would be adequate,” Brent Naçu told the Citizen last week.
His sister Danielle, 33, died in October 2011 when she was struck by an opening car door that knocked her into the path of another car.
The transportation committee will discuss the policy — and Chernushenko’s motion — when it meets on Wednesday.
mpearson@ottawacitizen.com
twitter.com/mpearson78
查看原文...
Coun. Keith Egli said Monday that he plans to support Capital Coun. David Chernushenko’s motion to double the amount of time roadside memorials will be allowed to stay up.
A new policy proposed by city staff said such memorials should only be allowed for 90 days, but people could pay $250 for memorial plaques that the city would design, install and maintain for two years.
Extending the deadline for roadside memorials to six months strikes a good balance between those who don’t want to see the memorial at all and those who may want them to stay up for a year or longer, Egli said.
“I think six months is a reasonable compromise,” he said, adding “there’s very broad-based support for the change from three months to six months” among committee members.
The city surveyed 20 other municipalities and made up a policy based on their “best practices,” though the report notes that only two of the cities they looked at have 90-day limits. Most allow memorials to stay up for one or two years, or leave them up as long as somebody’s tending them.
Existing memorials in Ottawa would be now taken down by the city six months after city council approves the policy, instead of three months, as initially proposed.
But the timing is not exact, Egli said. The six-month countdown only begins when a ghost bike or other roadside memorial is brought to the city’s attention through a complaint to 311 or a councillor’s office. “We’re not going to have roadside memorial patrols, we’re not going to go out looking to take memorials off the road,” he said.
The proposed policy also says the memorial signs would only be allowed if the dead person was an Ottawan and had never been convicted of a crime and had no outstanding provincial or bylaw infractions.
Egli said an outstanding conviction or other infraction will not automatically disqualify a person. Staff has to act in a reasonable and compassionate way, he said. “If you shoplifted when you were 20 years old and 30 years down the road you’re a traffic fatality and your family wants to remember it, that’s not going to hold it up,” Egli said.
The push to extend the timeline for roadside memorials may be welcomed by the families and friends of people killed in traffic accidents.
“The ghost bike ended up allowing us to focus our energy, to channel our grief … it was a very, very valuable outlet. There’s no way that 90 days would be adequate,” Brent Naçu told the Citizen last week.
His sister Danielle, 33, died in October 2011 when she was struck by an opening car door that knocked her into the path of another car.
The transportation committee will discuss the policy — and Chernushenko’s motion — when it meets on Wednesday.
mpearson@ottawacitizen.com
twitter.com/mpearson78
查看原文...
