Throughout the years here at CaliforniaCityNews, we’ve covered our share of city screw-ups and goofs, but we’re not sure if we can recall one quite as big as this one we stumbled across in the city of Ottowa, Canada.
City officials in the nation’s capital recently paid to create a public art project to celebrate a local man named Jack Purcell, who was known for mending broken hockey sticks and then giving them out to neighborhood children. But here’s where the mistake happened. Turns out Canada has another sports-related icon named Jack Purcell. The other Purcell was a world champion in badminton from Ontario who died in 1991.
You might know where this is going. Some design consultant mistook the badminton Jack Purcell with the Jack Purcell they actually wanted to honor; the man who was dubbed “The Stick Doctor,” and died many years before in 1966.
Local officials figure the company just Googled Jack Purcell’s name, and only saw the badminton player, not realizing they were looking at a different person.
Not only did this incident result in embarrassment for the city, it ended up costing them $50,000.
This might be one of the worst city mix-ups we can recall. Can our readers think of any worse? We’re sure California has had its share of mistakes in the past.
Read more on the mistake here.