Michael’s Right! Let’s Honour Bob Turner!
Michael Labelle’s wonderful February 15 letter inspired me to do a little bit more research into Bob Turner, his legacy, and the (typically pathetic) steps that Cornwall’s municipal government has taken to honour the man subsequent to the city’s having torn down the Bob Turner Memorial Centre on 4th Street, just a couple of blocks from the house I grew up in, in 2013.
Since the Cornwall Civic Complex is predominantly a place for sport and for community congregation, both of which perfectly exemplify Bob Turner’s contributions to our community, renaming it after Mr. Turner would be a wonderful gesture on Cornwall’s part and an awesome way of celebrating our shared history and our willingness to come together, both for social justice and for sport.
Further to that, we should also consider renaming the Cornwall Sports Hall of Fame after Lori Dupuis, as our doing everything we can to recognize and to celebrate her accomplishments would help empower more young women to take up recreational sports and an active lifestyle.
Curious, on 2/28/2017, I did a little bit of research regarding this very idea while at my office and found that the Cornwall City Council, in a grandly interminable style that perfectly befits Cornwall’s moribund political establishment, just decided to defer a motion to rename the Cornwall Civic Complex and wait for yet another wasteful report, to be delivered to City Council later in April.
One would think that, by this point, with the Cornwall Civic Complex’s having been open since 1976, at least one person in Cornwall would have had the imagination to think “Hmmm…Cornwall Civic Complex is an incredibly dry, generic name for a facility so important to our community. Maybe we should give it a more dynamic, engaging name that speaks to who we are as a city and that celebrates our heritage!”
As a happy side-effect, it would cost taxpayers much less than writing report after report and not taking any action.
Josh Frappier
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