A number of Airdrie’s landmarks, including City Hall and the water tower, will be bathed in purple light on Oct. 10, after City council unanimously approved declaring Oct. 10, World Mental Health Day in Airdrie Sept. 15.
Airdrie resident Tara Murphy came to council to make the request on behalf of the Amanda Todd Legacy Society, of which she is the administrative coordinator for Alberta.
The Society was set up by B.C.’s Carol Todd in 2013 to honour her daughter, Amanda, who committed suicide in 2012 at the age of 15 after she was allegedly cyber-bullied, and to raise awareness about bullying.
Murphy also has personal experience with the issue as she says her daughter, McKenzie, 14, was bullied from 2007 to 2013.
The Light Up Purple event was first held across Canada on Oct. 10, 2013, including in Airdrie where a candlelight vigil was held at Nose Creek Park and the water tower was lit up with purple light for an unknown cost.
Murphy suggested volunteers could do the work to install and man the lights at City Hall, the fountain at Nose Creek Park and the water tower.
Lorri Laface, team lead of Community Development at the City of Airdrie, told council members a decision to light up Airdrie’s landmarks would come with a cost since the work would need to be completed by trained staff, not volunteers, for safety reasons.
According to Laface, the cost to rent the necessary equipment and provide staff to complete the work and supervise the venues on Oct. 10 to prevent vandalism would be $1,070 with funding coming from the Building Operations budget.
Because of shift work and limited personnel, Laface said staff would need to incur overtime hours totalling 16.5 hours.
Staff is also busy at that time of year doing preventative maintenance for winter preparation of City facilities and pulling them off to install the lighting would negatively impart their work plan, according to Laface.
Laface said the staff recommendation was that council declare Oct. 10 World Mental Health Day but not illuminate any of the local landmarks.
However, several members of council said they felt the good generated through granting the request outweighed any impact on City staff.
Alderman Allan Hunter said he would support the request, but asked staff to look at how the initiative could be implemented yearly without incurring recurring costs and staff time.
“I’m certainly supportive, this year, of putting the $1,000 towards lighting it up as Ms. Murphy’s requested,” Mayor Peter Brown said.
“It’s the least the we can do,” he added.
“I personally know a lot of people who suffer from mental health issues in my family and outside of my family, and I think the more we can do to bring education and awareness around this issue is more important than the $1,000 we’d have to invest to make that possible,” he added.
Alderman Fred Burley was also in favour of granting the request, while directing staff to look into a permanent solution.
“The water tower is a landmark for the City. (If a permanent light was installed) in the future it would just be a case of putting a purple gel on the light so the cost would not be $1,000 in the future,” Burley said.
“It could be used for this event and for other events.”
