The fate of Merritt’s new destination branding tagline “Country with attitude” remains in limbo after two notices of motion regarding the slogan were addressed by city council at the regular council meeting last Tuesday.
The first motion was to rescind the original unanimous approval of the branding on Feb. 11. That vote also directed staff to begin implementation of the new brand, including holding an open house.
That motion was ineligible to be rescinded because the motion itself had already been acted on.
“Through our bylaws, we’re not able to rescind it,” Merritt Mayor Susan Roline said to the group of about 30 people who gathered in council chambers for the March 11 meeting.
City of Merritt Deputy Clerk Carole Fraser told the Herald that under the council procedure bylaw, a motion that has already been acted on cannot be rescinded.
The second motion was to continue to examine the brand Merritt: Country with attitude as presented by the Thompson Okanagan Tourism Association (TOTA), but also to accept alternate proposals from the public at large for consideration in the City of Merritt’s rebranding process.
That motion was deferred until after the open house, which took place last Wednesday. No date was set to address the deferred motion.
“I would like to defer this motion until after the March 12 open house and TOTA’s process can be explained to the public,” Roline said at council.
Roline told the Herald that even though the first motion couldn’t be rescinded, it is still possible to make changes.
“Even though we couldn’t rescind that particular motion, it doesn’t stop us from moving in a bit of a different direction down the road,” Roline said.
She said given the city’s commitment to working with TOTA, council will wait and see what recommendations TOTA makes once their work on the branding has been completed.
“Council will look at it, we’ll have discussion and determine where we need to go,” Roline said.
When the second motion to consider alternate ideas from the public is addressed depends on when TOTA’s process is complete, Roline said.
The mayor said the tagline “Country with attitude” wasn’t chosen arbitrarily and expects TOTA would go back and revisit the process of developing another tagline now knowing the reaction of the tagline that was chosen.
At Wednesday’s open house, community development specialist for TOTA Simone Carlysle-Smith said the input gathered from the open house will be taken into consideration as they continue to develop the brand.
She also said changing the tagline “Country with attitude” wouldn’t be difficult.
Roline said she has not heard from TOTA as to whether or not they plan to revisit the process of developing a tagline.
See the Thursday, March 20 edition of the Merritt Herald for more on the open house.
