After an unfavorable reception, a merged community decided to change its proposed new name.
The new entity, made up of Beresford, Nigadoo, Petit-Rocher, Pointe-Verte and surrounding local service districts, will be called Belle-Baie, if the name is approved by the province.
The new new name was chosen after residents spoke out against the original name chosen by the transition committee, Baie-Jolie sur mer, calling it redundant and too long.
Maxime Lejeune, mayor of Pointe-Verte, said the committee had made a mistake in choosing the first name, and that he is satisfied with the one he submitted for the province’s approval.
“We went back to the drawing board,” Lejeune said. “Ninety percent of all comments made were genuinely respectful.”
The name will be used for administrative purposes by the new city council and in tourist advertisements.
But according to the rules of the province, the current addresses will not be changed.
Baie-Belle was one of the leading candidates among the 70 suggestions received by the committee, Lejeune said.
Sharing the proposed name helped the steering committee
Not everyone shares their proposed names, for better or for worse.
Lejeune said the name came out publicly because of a “slip”. The committee was not supposed to reveal his proposed name before the deadline to submit it to the province on May 16, he said. Last week, the name of Balie-Jolie sur mer came out and the response guided the committee to modify the submission before it was too late.
Lejeune said it was a silver lining.
“The slip-up happened, and that name came out and we realized we made a mistake,” he said. “It shows the people of the new entity that we have listened to them and taken their feedback into account for a new name.”
Other communities, like Woodstock, which merges with two surrounding local service districts and parts of four others, keep the cards close to the chest. Mayor Arthur Slipp said he would not reveal the name because the province has not yet approved or rejected it.
Vicky Lutes, spokeswoman for the Department of Local Government and Local Governance Reform, said the province would be “better placed” to share a list of proposed new names in the coming days.
The choice of the new name is a step in the province-mandated merger of municipalities and LSDs, with the goal of reducing municipal entities from 340 to less than 100.
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