Friday, May 11, 2007
What's in a name?
Your ideas are needed. Here's a fun little contest that you can help me with. The topic comes up at Monday night's City Council meeting, so let's brainstorm quickly.
We're all happy, I hope, that the Boys and Girls Clubs of South Puget Sound are building a state-of-the-art center for our local kids in Lakewood. You can see construction progress here and learn more about the center here.
The city of Lakewood agreed to contribute federal block grant funding in return for the programs that the Boys and Girls Clubs will offer local kids, and to help them build the building. In return, we may have what the rich people call a 'naming opportunity.' Normally, you only get to name something when you donated a lot of money (so, for example, Paul Allen donated money to UW and named a library building after his dad)
In Lakewood's case, we get to name a conference room. OK, it's not a building, but it is still nice to say that it's the conference room that Lakewood helped pay for. Here's the question - what do we name the room?
The most obvious choice is 'City of Lakewood' room. Or I've suggested we honor Bill and Jo Harrison by naming the room after them. Whatever you say about Mayor Harrison's politics, he was the first mayor in lakewood for many years. And Jo contributed to the community for many years as well.
However, it would be nice to have a lot of ideas to pick from. If you have a suggestion for what we should call the room - who or what we should memorialize - then send me a note. It's best to send the note by Monday afternoon as this will come up at the Monday evening council meeting.
(Update posted in June: if you want to see how this turned out, visit this story in The News Tribune)
