There has been some public outcry since the district announced it had budgeted $100,000 for a new entrance sign.
On social media, some argued it was a hefty sum to spend on a welcome to passersby, but how much do other communities spend on their signs?
Squamish’s closest neighbours, the Resort Municipality of Whistler, paid $78,000 for its new sign installed in 2013, according to the resort’s spokesperson. That figure included concrete and wood, electrical costs and about $15,500 for landscaping. The sign’s letters and lighting were reused from the old sign.
Vancouver made its signs in-house, according to a city spokesperson. The signs, installed in 2006 at five entrances to the city, were created by the city’s fabrication shop out of steel, with bases made of granite salvaged from old curbs around the city, the spokesperson said.
The signs were updated just before the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games with a line in French. No information was available on exactly how much the signs cost, but the material for them was funded through a grant from the Union of British Columbia Munici-palities community tourism program.
The City of Salmon Arm budged $120,000 in 2007 for two entrance signs. The exact figure spent is not known, according to a city spokesperson, but about $60,000 came from a Union of British Columbia Municipalities community tourism fund.
Not every community bothers with signs.
Interestingly, the City of Victoria does not have its own entrance sign. Instead, a Welcome to Greater Victoria sign is installed in the District of Saanich and another is at the Victoria airport.
The City of Port Alberni, a waterfront city on Vancouver Island that is about the same size as Squamish, doesn’t have an entrance sign, either. Instead it has a sign that welcomes people to the Alberni Valley, which was paid for by an electoral area of the Alberni-Clayoquot Regional District, and cost about $5,000, according to a city spokesperson.
Other communities have had their signs for so long, no one can remember when they were erected or how much they cost. Staff at the City of Duncan can’t recall when the signs were put in there but it was before the 1980s, a spokesperson said.
In some communities, corporations pick up the tab for entrance signs.
The City of Nanaimo has two entrance signs. The elaborate, approximately 30-metre-wide sign with towering flag poles at the north end of the city cost $150,000 about 12 years ago.
The sign was paid out of a $300,000 donation by a local shopping centre as part of its expansion.
On the extreme side of the ledger is the City of Edmonton. Since the 1990s, the city has been considering removing its circa 1980s “City of Champions” entrance signs.
In February of 2008, the city council rejected chosen artist Gene Dub’s two steel crystal pyramids signs by a vote of six to five due to the $2.5 million price tag. In the end, the city spent $2,000 earlier this month to take down the City of Champions tagline from the six signs where the tag line remained, according to a city spokesperson.
The tagline had been stolen from others over the years, according to media reports.
Entrance signs are important to a community’s brand, according to the 2007 report, A Community Resource Guide, created by the tourism research innovation project through Malaspina University-College (now known as Vancouver Island University). “Municipal signs and community entrance signs provide distinctive recognition for your town or village. Entrance signs enable a community to identify itself and welcome visitors with a custom-made sign which often reflects some aspect of the community’s character,” according to the report.
Squamish Mayor Patricia Heintzman has said she would like the community’s new sign to be distinctive and reflect Squamish’s culture as well as guiding visitors to key sites.
The goal is for the sign to be designed this year, she said.
