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Roundabout’s first draft lacking Sicamous flavour

Sicamous council wants to see the community better represented in the roundabout centrepiece.
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By Heather Black

Sicamous council wants to see the community better represented in the roundabout centrepiece after seeing the first draft of signage at last Monday’s Committee of the Whole meeting.

The proposed design consists of six, steel cut signs on fixed concrete representing the three collaborators—Sicamous, the Columbia Shuswap Regional District and Splatsin First Nation—with two panels each, all facing outwards to welcome traffic coming from all directions. A number of councillors, however, didn’t get a real feeling of Sicamous in it.

“We’re rebranding Sicamous and I don’t feel any of our new brand in there,” Coun. Colleen Anderson said, though admitted that part of that is due to the fact that the new tagline and logo is just now getting ready to roll out. “We’ve got the Shuswap in there, we’ve got Splatsin in there; we need more Sicamous. I totally agree that we’re splitting the cost and everyone needs to be represented in the project. It’s still Sicamous though, at the end of the day, so it still needs to have a Sicamous feel.”

As presented, the design depicts different aspects of native art, with some reflecting the hieroglyphics around the lake, the salmon run and one panel stating Welcome to the Shuswap – Weytk Secwepemculecw (the Splatsin language translation). While two others do designate Sicamous – Sek’maws and the district’s new tagline of Live More, council agreed with Anderson that they would like to see it reworked to incorporate more of a Sicamous feel.

Town manager Evan Parliament, however, explained that this is just the first draft to get their feedback, which will then be given to the designer to make changes accordingly. By Friday morning, staff and council had a conference call with main contractor McElhanney Consulting Services, who will now meet with their graphic designer and come back in about two weeks with a total of four options to be reviewed by the greater committee of Sicamous, CSRD and Splatsin, allowing all to have a say in the end result.

“Based on the call this morning, I think the four options will be well received by all,” Parliament said.