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$400,000 for legislative assembly party 20th birthday festivities include unveiling a conceptual design for waterfront park facelift
Miranda Scotland
Northern News Services
Published Tuesday, June 18, 2013
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
The territorial government is gearing up for a big bash this September to celebrate the legislative assembly building's 20th birthday.
The territorial government is planning a 20th birthday party for this September for the legislative assembly. The festivities comes with a budget of $400,000. - Candace Thomson/NNSL photo
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According to early plans, the festivities will kick off with a public event in the Great Hall of the legislative assembly building. Later on a timeline will be unveiled showing the various venues where the assembly sat before the opening of its permanent home on Nov. 17, 1993.
"The history of the legislative assembly and where the members used to sit is really neat," said Danielle Mager, public affairs and communications adviser for the legislative assembly. '
"They used to sit in a couple of gymnasiums, in community halls, they sat in the Elks Hall here in Yellowknife, in the Yellowknife Inn and at the Explorer Hotel."
There are further arrangements to set up the Katimavik Banquet Room at the Explorer Hotel similar to how it looked during the sittings. The former speaker's chair will be brought over and a gala event is planned for former premiers, speakers, current members, clerks, the commissioner and support staff, said Mager.
During the celebrations, conceptual designs for enhancements to the waterfront park on Frame Lake will also be revealed. The plan, Mager said, is to turn the area into a functional space to hold public events such as fire feeding ceremonies.
"Because the legislative assembly is supposed to be a building of the people ... they wanted to make a nice area that people of the North felt they could come and use," Mager said, adding work on the park is expected to start in the fall and be completed by next summer.
Portraits of the all the NWT premiers, painted by artists of their choosing, will be unveiled as well and signage will be added to the building.
The budget for all the festivities, Mager said, is $400,000. The funds will come from the building society, which will have a surplus once the legislative assembly mortgage is paid off.
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