Eganville – Bonnechere Valley Mayor Jennifer Murphy has long wished for a nighttime Christmas parade in Eganville and she is going to get her wish this Friday night. Unless for some reason the parade is cancelled – again.

But just how the first-ever nighttime parade is coming about is another story.

The annual Santa parade, traditionally held the first Sunday afternoon in December, was abruptly cancelled this year with less than two days’ notice given to organizers and participants, infuriating many people and causing an explosion of discussion and criticism on social media sites.

The parade was scheduled for Sunday, December 6, but on Friday of that week an email was sent from the township office to all members of council, some township staff and the Rotary Club, organizers of the parade.

The email, distributed by Community Development and Administration Assistant Sarah Richter, at the request of township CAO Annette Gilchrist, read: “Due to the weather predicted for Sunday, we will not be able to provide traffic control or street closures as that would interfere with our winter maintenance operations. We don’t want to wait any longer to notify the public so we are making the call as late as we are comfortable with.

“Question for Rotary,” it continued. “Do you want to cancel or reschedule? If you want to reschedule, we can check with Kevin (McGrath, Recreation Manager). Next weekend doesn’t work but we can let you know if the 21 or 22 works. Please let us know. If you let us know by 4:15 p.m. today, we can add that to the post otherwise we will cancel and post on FB and our electronic sign.

“We are disappointed and thank you for your understanding.”

The email was sent at 3:28 p.m. and only a few saw it before the 4:15 deadline to contact the office.

Parade organizers were still reaching out late Friday afternoon to people informing them there was still time to enter the parade and as this was happening some people were responding saying they saw on Facebook the parade had been cancelled.

That created more work for organizers as people from outside of the community who had planned to participate had to be notified of the late decision.

The township tree lighting ceremony was scheduled for that Friday evening at 6:30 at the Tourist Information Centre. When Mayor Murphy announced to the small turnout that the parade was cancelled, at least two members of council were unaware of the decision.

The decision, which was made by the CAO and Works Department Head Jason Zohr, did not include any consultation with council or the organizers, and was made based on information from a weather apposed by the road department that a significant weather system was scheduled to hit the area on Sunday. However, all local forecasts were predicting the possibility of up light snow only. In the end, there was a light dusting early Sunday morning and sunny skies for much of the day.

The cancellation of the parade caused a furor in the community and many people expressed their disappointment to members of council. No one can recollect a Christmas parade ever being cancelled due to snow, but many remember parades being held during snowfalls.

Cognizant of the mood in the community, Mayor Murphy swung into damage control mode early Sunday morning of the original date for the parade, vowing to reschedule it and after conversing with Rotarians it was agreed the parade will be held this Friday night, December 20 at 7:30 p.m.

One of the reasons for the two-week delay was because the annual township Christmas dinner was held this past Saturday night.

The parade will leave from the public school at the end of Jane Street. For the past several years, staging has taken place at the arena, but due to a skating club presentation followed by men’s hockey that evening, the location had to be changed. It will proceed downtown, cross the main bridge and end at the Legion Hall where Santa will be back again to greet any children who might still be awake. On the day of the original parade date, Santa and Mrs. Claus still appeared at the Legion.

Mayor Issues Statement

Mayor Murphy issued the following statement last Thursday.

“We hope the community comes out to the rescheduled parade on Friday, December 20^th at 7:30 p.m. The township was very disappointed that the Eganville Parade had to be cancelled. 

“We are so glad that the township, Rotary and the Legion were able to work together and find a new date and time. I especially want to thank Brian Weckwerth and Dave Clark from Rotary who took my calls very early on a Sunday morning and to Dan Haddad at the Legion. They all jumped into action to make this event possible!

“The difficulty is that the parade happens predominately on an MTO highway and the township puts in a plan for traffic control that gets approved by the ministry’s contractor. 

“Due to staff shortages, the weather predicted and the required road maintenance standards, there was concern that the traffic control measures needed on the original date chosen would not be able to be provided.  

“We are working on backup in the future so that it doesn’t all fall to public works and Rotary volunteers and have also put out a request to Bonnechere Valley Fire Department and our neighbouring departments.

“We are also working on having a “rain date” for future parades should this ever happen again so that we don’t have to cancel but, rather, postpone right away. 

“I appreciate everyone’s frustration and we ask for your understanding as we use this opportunity as a teachable moment to serve our community even better in the future.”