The North Grenville Municipal Council has finally responded to a request by the Oxford Mills Community Association [OMCA] to “rename” Maplewood Park. The issue arose when the municipality replaced an old sign at the Park. The new sign repeated the inaccurate description of the area as “Oxford Mills Park”, a name by which it has never been known, officially or otherwise.
OMCA wrote to the municipality on June 12, asking that the Park be officially designated as Maplewood Park, the name by which it has been known for years. Council asked Cahl Pominville, Municipal Clerk and someone who had worked at the old Oxford-on-Rideau Town Hall before amalgamation, to research the name of the park and recommend a course of action. Last Tuesday night, Cahl reported to the Committee of the Whole.
It seems there had never been an official naming of the park. When the old Public School was adapted as a community hall around 2001, it was called Maplewood Hall. Then the municipality changed the section of County Road 18 which goes past the park as “Maplewood Avenue”, and so the park became known to residents as Maplewood Park. Therefore, Cahl reported, there was no problem naming it Maplewood Park officially, as it never had an official name before, although it was called that on the municipality’s web site. There seems no reason why the sign there had ever called it Oxford Mills Park.
All seemed well, and the name change went through on a unanimous vote. However, Deputy Mayor Barb Tobin, who has a rather chequered history of butting heads with Oxford Mills people and OMCA in particular, went into an apparently random rant, asking Cahl whether OMCA had gone through the proper process for having the name changed. In spite of the fact that Cahl assured her that the Association had covered all the bases in their letter to Council, Ms. Tobin continued to demand that “consistency” be applied to all such applications. Ms. Tobin refers to herself proudly as the Rules person on council.
In the end, the unofficial and inaccurate name was changed to a now-official title of Maplewood Park, and, presumably, the municipality will pay for a new sign, giving the correct title, to be placed on the grounds in due course.
