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Who do you think deserves an honorary city name?

Posted: 03/20/2012 1:00 AM | Comments: 0

ASK AND YOU JUST MIGHT RECEIVE... You never know where you'll find a story, but Safeway is as good a place as any.

That's where I bumped into Reg Alcock's widow, Karen, on Saturday, and that's where she mentioned she had been to see the mayor last week.

Her mission?

She wants the city to name the stretch of Kenaston Boulevard south of Taylor Avenue after her late husband, who, before he died unexpectedly last year, spoke about how proud he was of his pivotal part in securing the federal part of the funding for the Kenaston underpass.

So Monday I asked Sam Katz what he thinks of the idea, which led to a discussion about others deserving of street-level immortality.

And the process.

"This is something I'm very, very much in supportive of," Katz said of honouring the former Liberal cabinet minister. "He's done a lot for the city."

But, as he's said before, renaming an existing street is a complicated exercise, basically because of how it impacts the existing residents, both business and residential, and the services, from postal to police and fire, that rely on knowing exactly where to reach someone.

The answer, instead, the mayor suggested, is creating an "honorary" street name, prominently placed, an idea he saw in Chicago. And that's what Katz hopes to "guide through the process" for Reg Alcock and his family.

But he says there is already a list of others who have been nominated for honorary street name status. Katz wouldn't give the other five or six names already on the list, other than Gandhi, which is being touted as a possible street name near the Canadian Museum for Human Rights.

Katz declined to share the other names because some of the people are still alive and may not even know they're being considered.

I wasn't sure why that should stop him, so I threw out a couple of names.

Neil Young and Burton Cummings?

The mayor didn't bite.

But since he seems to be taking nominations, even if it's quietly, I have a question for you.

Who do you think is worthy of an honorary street name?

And if you're really serious, tell me why.

-- -- --

LOOK WHO'S COMING TO DINNER... In case you missed the brief mention in the paper last January, Malcolm Gladwell, the celebrated author of Blink, The Tipping Point and Outliers is coming to Winnipeg in the fall.

And here's the best part.

You can have dinner with him.

Mind you, there will be several hundred others at the Winnipeg Convention Centre on Oct. 10, when Gladwell gives the keynote speech at an international business forum called Centrallia 2012.

How much are the tickets? I'm getting to that.

What you need to know first is anyone willing to spend the money can hear Gladwell, who will also open the floor to a question-and-answer session. But the bulk of the three-day international event is designed for meeting and mingling, which, hopefully, results in connections that make money for entrepreneurs, both local and international.

Or global business speed dating, as Free Press business writer Martin Cash called it.

The federal and provincial governments have tossed in $1.2 million between them to underwrite the $2-million cost. A communications officer associated with the event wouldn't say how much Gladwell is being paid.

As for what you'll pay for the privilege of listening, tickets are available at Ticketmaster for $155.95, all fees and taxes in.

Any of you blink?

I thought so.

gordon.sinclair@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition March 20, 2012 B1

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