General News

Mono looks at limiting logos to official social media channels to avoid confusion

August 28, 2025   ·   0 Comments

By JAMES MATTHEWS, LOCAL JOURNALISM INITIATIVE REPORTER

The Town of Mono’s trademarked images should be limited to official municipal social media channels.

Mono resident Anthony Hosein asked town council during the public question period, when it met Aug. 26, if the town has guidelines regarding the use of the municipal emblem or logo in social media posts.

Fred Simpson, the town clerk, said there is a social media policy, but it applies to municipal staff and members of committees and boards.

“So it’s not really applicable to the public,” he said.

However, the town’s marks and logos are protected under common law trademark rights, and the corporation of the Town of Mono has direct ownership of three trademarks.

“One of those is the crest,” Simpson said. “The Town of Mono crest is a trademarked item protected under law.”

Interestingly, the town also owns the trademark to the words “Headwaters” and “Headwaters Country.”

“How can the hospital be called Headwaters?” Deputy Mayor Fred Nix asked.

“Apparently, the Town of Mono hasn’t enforced that particular trademark,” Simpson said. “We’ve had Headwaters trademarked since 1995.”

The town crest was also registered in 1995, and the term Headwaters Country has been under municipal ownership since 1998.

Mayor John Creelman said there wasn’t the will in 1995 to spend the great deal of money and time to enforce the trademarked Headwaters. There are a number of area businesses in addition to the hospital that use the term Headwaters.

Creelman said there may be instances in which the town would like to enforce its claim.

“It’s interesting the source of this question runs a Facebook page that prominently features the town crest,” Creelman said.

“Thank you very much for the information and thank you, Anthony, for asking the question because we’ve been asking you to take the crest off (Facebook) for a while,” Councillor Melinda Davie said.

She said she is a member of Hosein’s Facebook page group and wagered that she will soon be blocked from it.

“It is a private group,” she said. “It is his private group, started as a real estate and discussion back in 2015 or something like that.”

The town has a municipal social media page.

“It might be worth revisiting an ability for our residents to ask and get questions answered now,” she said.

As indicated by the volume of questions asked of the mayor and councillors on Hosein’s page, Davie said there clearly is a feeling among residents that Hosein’s page is officially affiliated with the town.

She said that’s upsetting to her.

“A lot of the 3,000 people that are on there aren’t even residents of the Town of Mono,” Davie said.

Coun. Elaine Capes thanked Hosein for his question and its demonstration of respect for the municipality’s legal property. She said she’s fielded many questions from people who told her they thought it was the town’s social media portal.

Something needs to be done to assuage public confusion about that, she said.

“We’ll have to look at this deeper, but this was a good question to raise,” Capes said.

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