The Stratford Perth Museum and Stratford Royal Canadian Legion is asking council to consider a 10-year sign-bylaw variance that will allow for as many as 100 banners honoring local veterans to be installed on downtown light standards in the leadup to Remembrance Day over the next 10 years.
Stratford council is considering a request from the Stratford Royal Canadian Legion and Stratford Perth Museum that could see the further expansion and extension of the annual Remembrance Day banner program honoring local veterans over the next decade.
At Monday’s planning and heritage committee meeting, councilors considered a request submitted by museum general manager John Kastner earlier this year to approve a sign-bylaw variance that would allow for a maximum of 100 banners to be installed annually on light standards in the downtown core and on Ontario and Huron streets during the leadup to Remembrance Day until 2032.
Started by Stratford singer-songwriter and Honorary Colonel for the Royal Canadian Air Force Loreena McKennitt in 2018, the Remembrance Day banner program gives locals the opportunity to apply to have their relatives who fought in the first and second world wars, as well as in other early 20th-century conflicts, honored on a banner hung in and around the city’s downtown core. Since then, the museum has taken the lead on the program and last year a total of more than 30 banners honoring local veterans were hung downtown.
With the city’s current sign-bylaw variance for this program expiring later this year, Kastner told the Beacon Herald he wants to ensure the program can continue into the future without the need to apply for sign-bylaw variances and the proper permits every year. If his request is approved, the museum would be permitted to install roughly ten new banners annually in addition to the banners already in its collection until that maximum of 100 is reached.
“In 2021 we added 12 new banners, so we can add way more than 10 a year,” Kastner said. “What I wanted to do is, for the person who takes over this program, they wouldn’t have to reapply for the proper permits. I submitted the request so the program has a bit of runway.”
While Kastner said he has received 13 applications from area residents hoping their veteran relatives might be honored on new banners this year, the timing of council’s decision on granting a sign-bylaw variance will not give the museum enough time to gather photos and information from the veterans’ families and have those new banners printed.
“I went back and forth with the city over the past few months and in the last correspondence I had, they said it wouldn’t get approved until October,” Kastner said. “We need about a five-week turnaround for that and historically (the banners) go up the last weekend of October, ahead of Poppy Day. We’d be hard pressed to get that turned around for (then). We’ve got images to get and all that sort of stuff. So when the city said (the request) wasn’t going to subcommittee until September and not getting approved until October, we made the decision at that point that we couldn’t do (any new banners) this year.”
But while no new banners will be hung this year, Kastner is hopeful the museum will be able to continue expanding its collection next year and in the years to come.
“The response has been really good. I think the banners look really good. Lange Bros. (tree services) puts them up as volunteers, they don’t charge for that, so that’s really beneficial for us,” Kastner said. “All people have to do is pay a $200 donation and that basically pays for the production of the banner, almost.”
In addition to expanding and extending the Remembrance Day banner program, Kastner requested a 10-year sign-bylaw variance to allow for the annual installation of Remembrance Day signs on city hall two weeks ahead of Remembrance Day. Kastner and the legion also asked that the city waive the applicable sign-permit and sign-variance fees amounting to $838 for 2022 or a total of $8,380 over the next 10 years.
These requests will go before Stratford council for a final decision at its next meeting on Sept. 26.