The City of New Westminster’s 2023 budget documents doesn’t include any money to rebrand the city.
At budget workshop on Jan. 30, Coun. Daniel Fontaine questioned why budget documents don’t include funding for a rebranding process, an item council had referred to staff in July 2022.
“I'm not aware that council has approved a rebrand,” said Blair Fryer, the city’s senior manager of economic development and communications. “What council has approved in the resolution was that a report come back to council on the process around rebranding and what it would involve.”
In July 2022, council approved a motion by former mayor Jonathan Cote to the process of updating the city’s logo and phasing out the use of the “Royal City” moniker in its branding. The motion also called on the city develop a plan to engage with the community in the development “of a new brand identity that is inclusive and allows for collective pride in our city.”
Fryer said staff plan to do some work on the motion in the spring and bring it back to council, at which time it could make a decision and direct staff accordingly.
“No money has been estimated for that because we haven't done the work,” he said.
Coun. Jaimie McEvoy said he’d like staff to bring back a report with “ballpark” costs of a rebranding sooner rather than later, given some of the figures he’s heard discussed in the community.
“I've heard estimates from $20,000 to $15 million,” he said. “So I'd like to bring a ballpark soon so that we have a proper notion of this, because it's really been put out there that this is going to cost a great deal of money. I'd like to know and I think the public would like to know.”
At its Jan. 30 evening meeting, council defeated a motion by Fontaine and Coun. Paul Minhas to have the city cease work on any corporate-wide rebranding projects through to Dec. 31, 2024.
“If this motion gets approved tonight, we won't have to worry about what the cost is going to be of a rebranding because it'll be halted until at least Dec. 31 2024,” Fontaine said.
The, put forward by the two New West Progressives councillors, stated the city is facing significant budgeting challenges that could result in significant property and business tax increases this year. It went on to say that corporate rebranding exercises can be extremely costly and have the potential of returning little net benefit to taxpayers.
“For some cities, it has literally cost millions,” Fontaine said. “I can only imagine stripping the crown off the sides of every single vehicle, off of work vests, off of notepads. … This is not an inexpensive process.”
Coun. Ruby Campbell stressed that no money has been allocated to a rebranding process anywhere in the city’s budget.
“I heard that that staff would be at some point in the year coming to us to give us an estimate. But at this point, there is no money allocated in the budget for rebranding,” she said. “It needs to be very clear that that is not a line item in the budget at all right now.”
Fontaine maintained it could become a budget item, if council were to support a rebranding exercise after staff report back to council.
“With the stroke of a pen, we could tell staff to stop investing any more time in this,” he said.
McEvoy reiterated that he would like staff to provide information about the costs of a rebranding exercise, given numbers are being discussed in the community – even though no formal evaluation of potential costs has occurred.
