EDMONTON – For some, Edmonton may be the land of “opertunity.” At least, that’s what some flawed city signs are saying.
The signs, advertising City of Edmonton land sales, advertise a “multi family opertunity” to any interested buyers.
The signs are located near the Belvedere LRT station. To add to the embarrassment, the web address on some of the signs leads any interested users to a dead link.
Mayor Don Iveson wasn’t thrilled with the signs. The mayor, just back in town after a Canadian mayor’s conference in Toronto, tweeted his frustration Friday.
The city will be removing the signs Friday. By 11 a.m. crews were already at the site removing or altering them.
“The errors were brought to our attention yesterday and we’ve been working with the sign vendor to address it immediately,” said a city spokesperson in a statement. “This was an unfortunate mistake in a small print run of signs, and we are looking into how it happened in this case.”
“We understand that errors like these are highly visible and impact the city’s image, and because of that, citizens feel very strongly about them, and we take them very seriously.”
For the record, the word is spelled “opportunity.”
Colin Babiuk, a public relations instructor at MacEwan University, said there seems to have been a lapse in the proof-reading process.
“Where that took place, I’m not really sure. Is it the sign company themselves who just put those pieces on the sign or did somebody at the city actually see that?”
So, what does the mistake mean for the city?
“It kind of has an impact on your credibility,” said Babiuk.
“Being a professional organization such as the city, you’d expect that things would be spelled correctly.”
However, Babiuk thinks officials handling the incident the right way.
“Don Iveson with his tweets… he’s addressing the issue,” he explained. “The way he’s engaged in social media and kind of acknowledging it and having a little bit of fun with it himself I think is the right thing to do in this situation.”
“It’s a typo,” Babiuk added. “These things happen and you clean it up as soon as you can.”
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