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Dartmouth isn’t in Halifax, but “HΛLIFΛX” will remain in Dartmouth.
On Tuesday HRM Regional Council (minus the absent Brad Johns, Barry Dalrymple and Linda Mosher) unanimously voted for a staff report on the use of HRM’s bold logo on community signs.
It’s a watered-down version of the original request, which was to look at the financial implications of covering up or removing the brand from Dartmouth signs and flags.
As the majority of councillors who spoke on the issue late Tuesday night dismissed the idea of removing the branding outright, the approved staff request is an effort instead to reassure angry Dartmouth residents worried about losing their city’s identity.
“We are hurting, your worship, in Dartmouth,” said Gloria McCluskey to mayor Mike Savage. “We just want our identity back.”
The Dartmouth Centre councillor repeatedly stressed that those on the eastern side of the harbour are a “proud people,” upset by HRM’s silly blue signs and worried their history is being erased.
Others didn’t feel the same way.
“Nothing has changed but the logo,” said councillor Tim Outhit. “It’s not ‘HRM’ with the lighthouse. It’s ‘Halifax’ with the arrows.”
Fire and Emergency brass waiting downstairs in City Hall during the Dartmouth branding debate pic.twitter.com/U5Vyl0l6lH
— Jacob Boon (@RWJBoon) February 24, 2016
The discussion took several bizarre detours before reaching its conclusion, with councillors on both sides of the harbour repeatedly pondering why Sydney Crosby—and to a lesser extent, Brad Marchand—don’t say they’re from either “Dartmouth” or “Halifax.” The hockey players tell the media they’re from Cole Harbour and Hammonds Plains, respectively.
Eventually, the staff request mutated into a catch basin designed to answer all the angry questions council has been receiving from Dartmouth freedom fighters these last several months. What will come back to city hall in a few months will be a careful, clear explanation of branding costs and signage requirements designed to end a conversation the municipality’s reluctantly been having since the new logo was announced in the spring of 2014.
No new signs with the Halifax brand will be installed until the staff report returns.
McCluskey, a resident of Dartmouth for the last 70 years and the former city’s former mayor, is retiring from municipal politics at the end of this term in October.
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This article appears in Feb 18-24, 2016.
Tim Outhit also said he nor his residents would have one of those signs in his bailiwick.
We’re happy and looking forward to the report. Thanks once again Jacob.
Business do not come to this area because of the darn name, they come to Dartmouth, Bedford, Halifax, or Sackville for business reasons. Again the councillors and the city messed this up. More money down the drain. Gloria is right on this, Whitman is wrong.
JFC if you can’t tell the difference between a stylized logo and a proper noun you need some serious help. No one is trying to steal your Dartmouth identity. No one is trying to wipe Dartmouth off the map. Crosby IS from Cole Harbour, which is why he tells people he is from Cole Harbour.
You Dartmouth in Dartmouth people aren’t fighting oppression — you’re making the rest of a good city look like whiny children and it needs to stop now.
I live in Halifax.
This whole discussion is a total and complete waste of time, money and resources. Amalgamation was supposed to curtail the in-fighting of this area and concentrate on bigger and more important issues, but go figure, we can’t even do that right. If any of you think that this conversation is anything more than small minded, petty bullshit more about an old woman’s ego than anything else, you’re out of your fucking minds. We look like a bunch of fucking idiots, fighting over minutia like a bunch of inbred hicks from the South Mountain.