Members of the Military Ames were present at a regular City Council meeting on Monday, July 24, after submitting a letter to the City with regards to the demolition of the old cenotaph.
With the instalment of the new cenotaph, Military Ames had also planned a decommissioning ceremony to retire the old one. However, as stated in the letter to Mayor and Council, “Rtd. Private Dalum was driving be the old Kimberley cenotaph and witnessed City workers jackhammering the retired cenotaph. He was shocked and outraged. He proceeded to City Hall and requested this be stopped. The demolition has ceased.”
The letter questioned the City asking, “We would like to know who ordered the demolition. Why was this done with no consultation with Military Ames? Why was our plan (as discussed) for a proper decommissioning ignored? What was the urgency in demolishing the cenotaph? Why, in the very least wasn’t this done properly with respect?”
Council members had a chance to speak on the letter during the meeting.
“I want to thank the Military Ames for what you’ve done, the memorial is just a phenomenal testament of respect that’s now in our community forever,” said Councillor Darryl Oakley. “The process to develop this new memorial and to respectfully remove the old cenotaph, in my opinion, I feel it went off the rails a bit in terms of communication and no one is at fault - nobody.
“I feel that the City is under tremendous pressure, always, to keep up with dozens of new infrastructure projects that have to go. I think that nobody would ever do anything disrespectful. I appreciate the letter and I appreciate what Military Ames is doing and has done, and I really appreciate the City and what they’re trying to do as well; trying to keep it going here.”
Councillor Sandra Roberts said, “I highly respect the group that has come together and all that they’ve done, in terms of creating the idea, making use of a piece of crown land and taking that and running with it so quickly and being able to bring it to fruition in the time that they did.
“Interestingly enough, none of this was a part of the operations plan for the City. All of the sudden, the operations plan kind of went to a halt in order to do a lot of the stuff that they needed to do, or chose to do, to facilitate this project. With all of the things that were going on in the City, I have to say that I feel strongly that with Cindy coming upstairs [at City Hall] regularly and asking for requests or some kind of demands that she needed right away, I feel as though the operations people just bent over backwards to make sure this got done. I do believe there was a misunderstanding. I personally assumed a misunderstanding as well in that I believed that once those signs, the brass, was removed and some of the stones were removed to be included in this cenotaph, that was it. I had never heard and am not aware of a ceremony that may have been appropriate to take place.
“I’m a lay person, like most of the people in Kimberley, who presume that the ceremony was for the new thing [cenotaph] and I fully appreciate that when staff went to do the removal they did it with no poor intention. They believed it was time to go and they did not realize that there was an issue there. I feel as though the Military Ames, in their passion, have kind of gone a little bit overboard in how they responded to the workers who have worked so hard to make sure that their deadlines were met and that the City of Kimberley has a really wonderful and amazing garden. I feel sad that somewhere along the line this got a little distorted.”
At the end of the Council Meeting, community members and Military Ames had the chance to comment. On behalf of Military Ames, Cindy Postnikoff, who spent countless hours working on the new cenotaph, responded to Council’s comments.
“First of all, thank you for the compliments on the park and our work,” said Postnikoff. “I want to respond to your comment, Councillor Roberts, on our reaction to the destruction of the Cenotaph being overboard. I realize that the letter I wrote to Mayor and Council was pretty emotionally charged - that was an initial reaction and that’s why I did a revised letter.
“It’s clear to me that, in your words as a lay person, you might not understand the magnitude of what that demolition had. I’ve had phone calls and emails from people really distraught about that. I had one particular email from the daughter of a WWII veteran who was too upset to come to the decommissioning ceremony. This is very near and dear to a lot of people in this community.
“Interestingly, there was nothing said about it until I delivered the letter to City Hall, and ten minutes later I got a phone call from Mike Fox, who apologized for dropping the ball on this. I have had conversation with several people in City Hall, on Council about our decommissioning ceremony; it’s been a part of this from day one. It’s been in the newspaper several times simply because we had been approached by so many people [asking] what were we going to do with that old cenotaph. It was very important to them what happened to it.
“We thought in the very least he [Mike Fox] should have contacted us. It’s obvious that that’s a part of our dealing with the City. He said retrospectively he would have. My thought was that in the very least, it should have been done respectfully.”
“In response to your comment about the operations department kind of dropping things to work with us, to get this project completed - I don’t agree with that. We did not have a lot of support from the operations department through this entire process. We got used to the ‘no, no’ when we asked for something and we just stopped asking. That is the reality of how that project went. I think it’s really important for the City to take a stand and to make an apology to the people of the community. There are a lot of people with opinions about what’s happened here.”
Community member, Shirley Rossi, also spoke, “I won’t tell you how old I am but I know my father is a Veteran and I was about three years old when he left and unless you’ve lived it, you would have no idea what it’s like. When every day my brother and sister would run home from school and ask my mum, ‘is there a letter from Dad?’ It’s heartbreaking. My mom and dad were staunch legion members and I know what the cenotaph meant to them. This is deplorable. I’m sorry, there’s nothing you can do now, it’s done, I realize that, but I too agree with Cindy, there should be an apology. That should have never, ever happened.”
Community member and Veteran, Tom Hradec, ended the meeting by saying, “I know council is probably not too aware of what exactly a monument means, but all they have to do is look and think what it is. Be it ten thousand, fifteen thousand soldiers that paid the ultimate price for Canada’s freedom.
“Personally, myself, I really think council owes the township of Kimberley an apology. When I looked at that pile of rubble [the old Cenotaph] I saw a dead solider laying there who had not been properly buried. The decommissioning service is basically to move, I guess, the spirits of our fallen over to the new cenotaph. It’s quite a symbolic thing and it sickened me, as I’m sure you’ve heard from Cindy and other members of the public who are quite appalled by this. I’m glad that now, this committee understands the symbolism of a Cenotaph of this nature.”
The City put out a press release on Tuesday regarding the issue:
The City of Kimberley regrets the current situation regarding the decommissioning of its old cenotaph. The City has worked diligently with Military Ames for the past two years towards the opening of the Veteran Memorial Park and home to the new community cenotaph. Since the official opening on July 8th, the Park has received rave reviews. Military Ames has been praised many times by the City for making the Veteran Memorial Park a reality.
There were many conversations between the parties during the project construction. The one concerning the decommissioning of the old cenotaph was not recent and got lost in the focus on completion of the Park. The plaques and flagstones were removed from the old cenotaph months ago, and included as part of the new memorial. City staff were left with the impression that the decommissioning of the old cenotaph was to be completed before the new cenotaph was commissioned on July 8th. The City regrets not awaiting written confirmation of Military Ames intentions for the decommissioning.
The old cenotaph was set for demolishing to make way for the Peak-to-Platzl trail extension. It was a veteran passing the site who requested that workers stop the demolition, and informed that the official decommission had not yet taken place. The City responded immediately by stopping work. Ms. Postnikoff was contacted by the City’s Operations Manager who apologized for the miscommunication. The decommissioning ceremony took place on Sunday night.