Road signs welcoming travellers to Winnipeg are coming down as ordered.
But neither Mayor Sam Katz nor the economic development agency given the task last week of replacing them say that means the city should launch a public effort to re-fashion its identity.
"This was never meant to be a branding exercise," Katz said Wednesday, as the city's executive policy committee approved his plan to have Destination Winnipeg replace 10 aging welcome signs.
"It's about extending a friendly welcome."
The signs, which bear the words One Great City!, have stood alongside highway lanes entering Winnipeg for almost 20 years.
Readers flooded the Free Press with suggestions for a new slogan after the story first appeared.
A spokeswoman for Destination Winnipeg, however, is now trying to lower public expectations.
"Our purpose was to replace the signs," said Allyson Krawec. "It hasn't been our job to come up with a new slogan."
Destination Winnipeg, the city's economic development agency, would probably finish the job by summer's end, Krawec added, saying it would provide Katz's office with new signs bearing updated graphics.
"Theirs is the final call," Krawec said.
Among Free Press readers, concocting a new slogan has proved a popular exercise.
Winnipeg's climate, its geography and history continued to inspire the most ideas among those the Free Press received Wednesday.
Among them:
Winnipeg -- Where Rivers Meet and People Greet, by Michelle Chouinard.
Winnipeg -- Once a Great City, by Ester Wainwright.
Winnipeg -- Where Celsius Meets Fahrenheit, by Joel Katz (a reference to the city's frequently recorded temperature of -40, which is the same in both temperature scales
Winnipeg -- A Tough Town with a Big Heart, by readers E. and C. Magee.
-- with files from Bartley Kives
joe.paraskevas@freepress.mb.ca
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