Portland City Council may be about to override its own rules to undo its 2009 change of 39th Avenue to César E Chávez Boulevard.
Cesar Chavez was the founder of the United Farm Workers union. After his death in 1993, he was taken up as a secular icon representing the hopes of oppressed farm workers and of Latinos in the United States, and streets, schools, and monuments around the country were named after him. But in March The New York Times published an exhaustively researched report that he had groomed and sexually abused several underage girls in the 1970s.
Since then, a number of local governments have moved to strip his name from public places. Houston renamed its Cesar Chavez Boulevard after a local Korean War veteran, Joe Ramirez. San Diego replaced Cesar Chavez Parkway with Chicano Park Boulevard in honor of a celebrated local park known for its public art. In Phoenix, Cesar Chavez High School has been given the temporary name Champions Circle High School until a permanent name can be chosen.
Now Portland City Council’s Public Works Committee has voted 5-0 to recommend that the City of Portland waive its rules on street naming to rename César E Chávez Boulevard as Campesinos Boulevard. Campesinos is a Spanish word that translates as peasants, farmers, or farmworkers in English.
But Portland city code, passed by a previous city council, says city streets may only be renamed after a prominent person who’s been dead at least five years, and only after advocates show public support by gathering 2,500 signatures from City residents or at least 75 percent of property owners on the street. It also says before City Council makes a final decision, affected neighborhood and business associations are to get an opportunity to comment and a public hearing is to be held.
A resolution introduced by city councilors Loretta Smith and Tiffany Koyama Lane bypasses all those rules and puts the name change directly before city council. Smith and Koyama Lane were joined by committee members Sameer Kanal, Mitch Green, and chair Olivia Clark in supporting the measure.
Of the 193 written comments submitted by members of the public about the resolution, only 11 were in favor of the change to Campesinos, and the overwhelming majority favored a return to 39th Avenue. That mirrors the public’s sentiment when 39th first became Chávez 17 years ago: A city survey at the time showed that residents of 39th Avenue opposed the name change by 694-91.
Though city unions declined to weigh in on the change, replacing more than 7 miles of street signs could cost $200,000 — at a time when the cash-strapped city could be looking to lay off as many as 100 city employees.
