Borough eyes veteran banner program
A popular program to honor local veterans with decorative banners could be coming to a third town.
North Wales Borough Council has given the go-ahead for staff to proceed with taking part in the Hometown Heroes banner program, but on a smaller scale than in nearby Lansdale.
“It appears that we have 27 spots on our poles that are equipped” to hold those banners, said borough Manager Christine Hart. “We have 27 spaces now, and the only thing we need to
discuss is whether or not we want to do them seasonally.”
Last year Lansdale resident Anne Henning Scheuring started a program to display decorative banners recognizing local veterans in Lansdale. The program far exceeded Scheuring’s initial goal of 48 banners, growing to more than 400 by the end of last year and capping at 500 banners for 2017.
Hatfield Township has also recently expressed interested in taking part in the program, and Hart told council this week she and Scheuring have been looking into where the program could work in North Wales.
“The Hometown Heroes program will run this exclusively for the borough. We won’t be involved, other than having Public Works (staff) place the banners,” Hart said.
Seventeen of the potential banner spots would be along Walnut Street, and 10 more on Main Street, and Hart said an additional five poles have been identified as possibilities if the borough buys the appropriate hardware.
“If we double them up, in some areas we can do one on each side of the higher poles, so depending on trees and transformers we may be able to do about 53,”
Hart said. “We will never have 500, we just don’t have that many poles, but this is a start.”
The light poles that could sport the veteran banners currently display similarly sized banners that show the borough’s name and seal, and Hart said those could be changed to make way for the veteran banners, but due to limited staff, the borough may not be able to raise and replace the banners as often as in other towns.
“We’ve had the historic
banners up for quite some time. We are not in a position where we have a public works (department) that can seasonally take them up and down,” she said. “The only other type of banners I foresee going up would be celebrating our 150th (anniversary) coming up, or perhaps if we get seasonal banners, but we haven’t done that in some time. ”
In Lansdale, the program criteria said banners could recognize veterans who lived in town or attended school there, or relatives or
friends of those who did. Because of the limited number, Hart said, those criteria may need to be tightened for North Wales.
“I don’t think we can do that, because with only 32 spaces, I think we need to keep the uniqueness of, ‘they actually served and resided in North Wales,’” Hart said.
Council members said they liked the idea and would talk about other banner ideas later in the year, and they authorized Hart and borough staff to finalize
details and post information on the borough’s website and Facebook page. Several council members also said they were willing to sponsor or pay for individual banners.
“Can we get this done by Memorial Day?” asked Councilman Mark Tarlecki, and Hart said that was her goal.
Tarlecki said the borough historical society has historic photos of service members that residents could sponsor, and councilman Jim Cherry said he could think of enough family members to fill the 32 poles himself.
Hart said she and staff would reach out to the borough’s
American Legion post to see if it could help publicize the effort and find veterans, and the borough could also help get the word out about that group and provide space for them to host public meetings.