Owen Sound city staff have a recommendation for a new name for former Ryerson Park, but the public input process relied on to help arrive at it was a bit messy.
A report from Owen Sound’s Director of Community Services Pam Coulter will be discussed during a committee meeting Wednesday, when community services committee members will consider the recommendation that the park at the bottom of the 8th Street East hill be named Niisinabe-ki Park.
Niisinabe-ki is Anishinaabe and translates as “person lowered to earth,” according to Coulter’s report.
The recommendation from staff came after the city took votes on preferred names for the park through a public engagement process. Twenty-five potential names were presented and ranked voting was completed online between July 15 and August 28.
Coulter says there were 1,203 responses. Niisinabe-ki received 401 votes (33.3 per cent) as the preferred park name, and second was Ryerson School Park, which received 344 votes (28.6 per cent).
But Coulter says staff became aware of concerns that “people were voting more than one time,” as participants in the online engagement process were not required to register or provide personal information. More than 300 responses were found to be potential duplicate submissions, after staff examined IP addresses associated with each vote.
The tally is different with possible duplicates removed. The total votes in the preferred park name process is only 896. The top choice is Ryerson School Park, with 281 votes (31.4 per cent) and Niisinabe-ki is second with 221 votes (24.7 per cent).
“It is worth noting that although this approach removes duplicates, it also most certainly would remove legitimate votes that have two different family members voting from the same IP address or multiple individuals using the same Wi-Fi network,” Coulter adds in her report.
Either way the top two choices for the park among respondents are Niisinabe-ki and Ryerson School Park. It’s just not clear what the true preferred option among Owen Sound residents is, as the city did not require voters to provide personal information and the removal of possible duplicate votes produces a different outcome.
The report recommends committee bring council Niisinabe-ki Park as the preferred choice. But, it also suggests other options for the community services committee: undertaking a new park name voting process, or using the data as presented to form its own recommendation to council.
City staff are also recommending Ryerson School Park — which may be the preferred public option based on the engagement data — be removed as a naming option entirely “given the previous direction of the working group and council.”
It’s all a bit messy.
“The survey was designed with accessibility and ease of participation in mind. Residents were able to rank their preferred park names anonymously, creating a simple and user-friendly experience while protecting participants’ privacy. While this approach supported inclusive participation by reducing barriers to engagement, it also was open to misuse of the participation process by some voters that has impacted the credibility of the outcome as well as resulted in legitimate votes also being discounted,” Coulter says in her report. “Staff will review protocols for future engagement that may involve community engagement-based voting.”
The city’s community services committee will discuss the report during its meeting Wednesday.
Council will have the final say on the new name for the park.
The Ryerson Park sign was removed from the green space and playground area located at the bottom of Owen Sound’s 8th Street East hill in 2021, in consideration of a perception some hold associating Egerton Ryerson with Canada’s residential school system.
Earlier this year, Owen Sound council decided to move ahead with a name change for the park and directed staff to prioritize one with a location reference.
A working group struck as part of the city’s formal name change process determined the park was not named in honour of Egerton Ryerson, but rather for its proximity to former Ryerson School.
The park was originally known as Boyd Street Park and was renamed Ryerson School Playground in 1988, according to a past Bayshore Broadcasting report.