The Chehalis City Council says call the city what you want — The Rose City, The Friendly City, even The Mint City, with reference to I.P. Callison & Sons’ factory redolence on National Avenue — because for now the city isn’t interested in officially changing its nickname.
“I like The Mint City because my father worked at the mint factory for 25 years,” Councilor Daryl Lund said after the meeting, admitting his sentimentality.
Chehalis’ official nickname has been The Rose City since 2000.
But in early April, the city adopted a new motto: “Chehalis — Where Heart and History Shape Our Future.” The tagline adoption was supposed to be followed by a new nickname, as worked upon by the Chehalis Community Renaissance Team.
What the team came up with was The Friendly City. The city had tabled a resolution last month to adopt the nickname and on Monday decided to drop the resolution altogether.
At a workshop meeting last week, Mayor Anthony Ketchum and Mayor Pro-Tem Dennis Dawes expressed worries over local media using the nickname The Friendly City in a contrary way if negative news about Chehalis were to come to light.
Mayor Pro-Tem Dennis Dawes said the Renaissance Team would prefer action on a nickname resolution, but for now the City Council would rather it just “die a slow death.”
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Adam Pearson: (360) 807-8208
