Town preparing for 2020 centennial

By Cole Parkinson
Vauxhall Advance
cparkinson@tabertimes.com

Come June, Vauxhall will be in celebration mode.

With 2020 being the centennial for the town of Vauxhall, council and administration are still in party planning mode with the celebration coming in June.

Another group, the Centennial Committee, have also been busy for months getting things planned with the date rapidly approaching.

One of the biggest endeavours still to overcome is allocating money towards the celebration which will include entertainment, family events, fireworks and a parade.

With $10,000 of the town’s money and $15,000 from grants, the town still needed to decide where that money would go.

“We thought we would ask council, as the Ag Society is going to give some money to the clock tower, and then apparently two local residents are putting money towards it too. For the grant, we had asked for $25,000 towards the mural but we only got $15,000. The town is also giving $10,000 to the centennial and BRID (Bow River Irrigation District) has generously offered to help. We did not know if the town wished to put some of the grant money or some of the town’s money towards the clock tower project or the little tatter tots (mini mascots) or something additional,” said Mindy Dunphy, office manager at council’s regular meeting on Jan. 20.

“Basically, we have put $10,000 in and we have to absolutely commit to that. So far, the money isn’t earmarked,” added Mayor Margaret Plumtree.

It was further explained that while the grant money was originally going to a centennial mural, the cost to put that together was far greater than the grant they would be receiving.

“When we did the grant, we didn’t know where to put the money, we had some ideas but we aren’t going to move forward on the mural because it is going to cost way more. There is the idea of the little potatoes so that is $3,000-$4,000. There is also the permanent structure that the chamber is very interested in doing and they’ve got some money going towards that. We could divide up the money and do those two projects, we could just do one or come up with a different idea. We do need to make a decision very soon,” continued Plumtree.

Hiring more entertainers and putting the money towards fireworks were all brought forward.

“I would think the $10,000 would be going towards the party as a whole. I expected the clock to be a chamber of commerce initiative,” stated Coun. Ray Coad.

With the town partnering with BRID, who is also turning 100 in 2020, the district has committed to matching the funds the town puts forward to the party.

“They are not interested in funding the monument but are happy to pay for the party,” explained Coun. Richard Phillips, who is also district manager for BRID.

Another facet for the celebration will be the community-wide supper, which could potentially be an event that sees some additional funding.

“We are hoping to subsidize tickets because the quote we had was around $20 a plate. We would like to sell tickets for maybe half that just to make it affordable for families and subsidize that with either grant money or whatever else we can use,” explained Coun. Kim Cawley. “I would like to see more go towards Saturday family activities because we don’t have the typical July 1 stuff going on.”

As there were plenty of options to put funding towards, it was suggested to bring that discussion to the next Centennial Committee meeting.

Since there is still a bit of time left before a decision has to be finalized, the town wanted the Centennial committee to get together for further budget/money information and bring it back to a future council meeting.

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