Desire to honor late Lance Cpl. Rylee McCollum leads town to consider policy for place names

Desire to honor late Lance Cpl. Rylee McCollum leads town to consider policy for place names
 
JACKSON (WNE) — Jackson’s Town Council is planning to name a street, park or another public place in town after fallen U.S. Marine Lance Cpl. Rylee McCollum, who grew up in Jackson, along with making a policy for how to handle such naming decisions in the future.
Councilors and the mayor discussed the matter at last week’s council workshop, with some eager to move on the matter immediately and others wanting to take more time to deliberate the proper location. All stated their support for honoring McCollum by naming a public place after him.
Rylee McCollum was one of 11 U.S. Marines, one Navy corpsman and one Army soldier killed Aug. 26, 2021, by a suicide bomber during the evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan.
Vice Mayor Arne Jorgensen moved to have town staff devise wording of a policy for the naming of public places to be brought back to council at a future meeting. Councilor Jessica Sell Chambers seconded the motion.
But the conversation didn’t end there, as multiple councilors favored not waiting for a policy to be in place before honoring McCollum.
“I would like us to name something in honor of Rylee McCollum today. ... This is a big deal, bigger than just us, and I think we could take action to honor Rylee, his family and his ultimate sacrifice, and still move this policy forward,” said Councilor Jim Rooks.
“We need policy, yes, let’s move that forward, but there should be nothing stopping us from doing this today,” Chambers said.
Acknowledging Rooks’ and Chambers’ sentiments, Mayor Hailey Morton Levinson said it was perhaps more appropriate to move forward with Jorgensen’s motion and have staff come back with options for someplace to name after McCollum.
Jorgensen’s motion passed unanimously.
 
 
This story was published on June 28, 2022.