Thanks Amanda. Having our laws obeyed by everyone would be a good start. Your recommendations of having the politicians do more in terms of substance rather than show are wonderful.

Thanks for your comments, Tracy, both here and on Blogtown. Sincerely appreciated.

I agree with your suggestions, Amanda -- for a number of reasons. In addition to those you mentioned, changing street names costs a lot of money! To start, there's the cost of replacing all the street signs. In addition, there's the cost (in time and money) for everyone who lives/works on the street who then need to update the address on letterhead, forms, subscriptions and more. And thousands of maps already in circulation are suddenly out-of-date, creating confusion for folks trying to find places located on the street with the new name. -- Linda

"But renaming streets doesn't improve people's lives. It gives politicians a publicity opportunity that costs them nothing." I'd like to hear you justify that statement to the group of Latino Oregonians who are proposing the Interstate/Cesar Chavez renaming. That project, as at least one of the links you cited notes, was not initiated by any politician but by a group of Latinos who feel it *will* improve the lives of people in their community. It seems to me the height of arrogance for others of us to claim we know better than they do what is most meaningful to them.

It appears that it is legal for the city council to waive those particular code provisions. Is anyone arguing that it isn't legal? In my strictly personal opinion, the code requiring the petitions etc. doesn't describe a very proper process. Its purpose seems to me to me to be less to protect the citizenry from activists or politicians and more to make sure that streets will never get renamed--or at least they will never be named for anyone who would be the choice of relatively poor, relatively low influence minority communities. I understand those code provisions came about after the controversy over naming MLK Blvd. That was quite some time ago now. Has it been successfully used to rename a street in Portland any time since? Perhaps it *is* time to change the code. We do live in a living, changing community. I think the cost of the particular change being asked for is far less than the benefit we can accrue as a community from symbolically supporting a group of people who, despite their significant contributions to our community, often feel unrecognized and unappreciated. Is symbolic support where we should stop? Of course not, but symbolic support is where we are being asked to start by members of that community. Again strictly personally, I don't think it's a bad thing to carve out a few exceptions to the normal rule of having our streets that are named after people named after rich white men.

It seems to me the height of arrogance for others of us to claim we know better than they do what is most meaningful to them. There you pinpoint another difficult issue within this one, Doretta. I know in the Rosa Parks Way renaming, that not all black North/NE Portlanders supported the change. My view on that change was formed in part by talking with several people in that demographic group who felt the Portland Boulevard street naming didn't further the values they wanted honored with her name. I think it is almost as problematic to assert that the group of people advocating for the Chavez change speak for all Latino people, or all union people, or all immigrants, as it is for politicians and others to dismiss (or accept) the ardent desire of those who want the change without full review and community discussion. Certainly, everyone should respect the fact that the people asking for the change know what they want, and believe it will help. A more inclusive process rather than the hurry-up-it's-a-done-deal one, allows other people who may be of exactly the same background and/or underlying beliefs, to offer alternative suggestions without seeming to oppose honoring a hero.

Is anyone arguing that it isn't legal? I come from a land use background, in City code issues. In Adjustment Reviews, if a code section is routinely waived and adjustments given for the same thing over and over, the Planning Bureau and Bureau of Development Services often submit a proposal to the Planning Commission, to change the code to allow the frequently-waived use by right. Sometimes the outcome is that the code should be changed to allow the new standard. Sometimes the code is affirmed, and in effect staff are told to stop waiving it so often. And sometimes the decision is that the code standard is fine as is, because most applications meet it without requesting the adjustment, and that it's OK if there are relatively frequent waivers. The point of this is, that the decision on the code language is made separately from the ones on individual cases. I think we're seeing at the national level, the danger of elected officials believing they are above the law - above the Constitution, even. If the City Council wants to be able to approve street name changes in a different manner than currently mandated, they should hold a hearing and change the standards, rather than setting aside the rules repeatedly. Oh, and another thing that bugs me on this: I agree with you, Doretta, that at least these streets aren't being named for rich white men. But it saddens me that minority groups feel (with justification) that the most they can aim for in advocacy is to get the votes on the Council to change street names. Sure, it's a step towards recognition of the values of their causes, and to honor their heroes who are also our heroes, to many others. But with steps like that, dependent on gaining the favor of the men with the real power, it will take a very long time before people in minority demographics can hope to have a real share of that real power. Perhaps going through the petition process would engage more people in the struggle, and help leaders of minority groups develop the power to be decision-makers.

When I was attending the University of Oregon in Eugene in the early 70's, a group of us organized a relatively successful boycott of the "EMU," the Erb Memorial Union student center cafeteria. The United Farm Workers --led by Chavez-- had moved beyond grapes to organizing lettuce workers. We students wanted "scab" lettuce out of our cafeteria. Chavez even came to one of our rallies. What bugs me about the street name changes is that somehow in the process we homogenize the history of these people. Dr Martin Luther King we "honor" by naming a street after him...but where are we, years later, when "MLK" is a street name that can mean as little as "EMU" (who was Erb, of Erb Memorial Union? I don't know. The EMU's real claim to fame is being where John Belushi yells out --and starts the-- "food fight!" in the movie Animal House). I like to think of him as Dr. King. "MLK" is a street --and most big cities have one-- that means almost nothing to people, beyond "turn left on MLK and go over the Hawthorne Bridge." (And who is Dr. Hawthorne, anyway? Anyone really remember that Hawthorne Blvd used to be Asylum Street, where Dr Hawthorne had his practice?) I guess I mean to say it all sort of trivializes who these people were, and what they stood for. Declare no one can serve "scab lettuce" in the Portland Building cafeteria, stop Safeway from selling Chilean grapes...I don't know, something meaningful that actually aids the causes people like Dr. King and Caeser Chavez actually stood for seems more relevant to me. I just worry that, in the future, "MLK" will be a street name as meaningless as "FDR Drive" in NYC. Who stops to think --or knows-- that's named after Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Or why that is. I think we honor our heroes by trying to walk in their footsteps, not by driving down streets named after them.

"I know in the Rosa Parks Way renaming, that not all black North/NE Portlanders supported the change." There's a red herring if there ever was one. Which change in the history of humanity has been supported by *all* of any group of people of significant size? There did not appear to me to be significant African American opposition to the Rosa Parks change. I certainly saw no indication of an active opposition movement among African Americans even if it would not have been some people's first choice of things to do. Those people who would have chosen otherwise are still free to champion whatever their first choice was/is, of course. The group asking for the Cesar Chavez renaming is not a bunch of lightweights operating on a whim. The core group have all been involved in significant leadership in the Latino community, many of them for decades. Indeed, at least a couple of them actually worked alongside Cesar Chavez. "I think it is almost as problematic to assert that the group of people advocating for the Chavez change speak for all Latino people, or all union people, or all immigrants,..." Another red herring, Amanda. They, of course, have never claimed to be speaking for all Latinos, union people or immigrants. They are merely saying that their experience as Latinos and their decades of leadership in the Latino community have lead them to believe this project is worth doing. I understand the desire for an inclusive process. I am one of many people who have counseled them to make maximum effort to bring all of the community along in the process and to make it clear this is about more than just renaming a street. However, I'd have trouble counseling them that they have to use a process that appears to me to have been specifically designed to keep streets from being named after "unpopular" minorities when there is another alternative. Like you, I'd rather live in a utopia where the idea of "unpopular minorities" is unheard of. Unhappily, that's not where we do live and it doesn't seem right to me to put the burden of living with that fact *all* on those minorities--which is the practical result of asking them to endure that particular expensive and lengthy public process. Having had some experience in public debate where the subject that did not always stay just below the surface was essentially just how despised a minority people like me should be, I can't in good conscience advocate a process likely to repeatedly subject other people to that. I'd probably think differently if what I was hearing from those who are bad-mouthing the idea of the Chavez renaming was "Please, we want you to spend some time with us, we want to learn more about why this is important to you and what it means to you to be Latino in our community." That's not what I'm hearing though. What I'm hearing is, "we don't like change", "your idea is dumb", "our ideas are better than yours", "let's pretend there is no racism in our community", and--last but not least--"we don't want people to think a bunch of Mexicans live in our neighborhood". (I'm quite sure you don't subscribe to that last one, Amanda, but I also think it's absurd to pretend it's not a significant factor in the larger discussion. Interstate Ave., by the way *is* my neighborhood.)

I don't agree that the "who do you represent?" argument is a red herring. I think it's valid when targeted at Neighborhood Associations, and also in this case. These groups are participatory, not representative. Very worthy for that, yet it's valid and important for elected officials to both respect the advocacy of activists, and also to ask, "whose voices haven't been heard in this process?" And the key word is "process". If you were to change the current process for street naming, what would be the criteria on which City Council should decide, Doretta? Some of your comments seem red herrings to me, as some of mine do to you. For instance, I for one do spend time listening to and advocating with people of Hispanic heritage, and you have no way of knowing whether others concerned about the process do, too. You seem to be making an assumption based on their position on this issue - when you say, "I'm hearing...", you mean "I'm inferring...". Projections and deductions can be inaccurate. And when part of the issue is racism, sometimes that is helpful, sometimes not. I've said before and still believe that such a sensitive and important issue is not one that the Internet is best suited to address. People need to look in each others' faces, and converse rather than post-counterpost, to help with those inferences and deductions. One problem with the Council's waiving of the process, is that the focus remains on the particular street and the chosen name, rather than on those underlying assumptions you listed, Doretta. The outcome will be either the street is renamed, or not. If it's approved, people who want the change will feel heard - that's good, except maybe they haven't gained any real power. People who didn't will feel resentful they have to send out change-of-address cards. If it isn't, the opponents feel they "won", proponents that they "lost". And the wider community can just go right on ignoring racism here in Portland. In a clearer process with hurdles that if you jump them, you have a solid case for approval, the appearance that the decision is made based on which group of stakeholders can exert more political pressure is diminished. In a petition process, the burden but also the power is with the community activists. Currently, with the rules waived, the power is kept firmly in the votes of the five Councilmen. My immediate concern is about the process, not about a particular street or honoree. Surely you can see that Chavez, as a union hero, is one of mine, as much as one for people of Mexican ancestry? So, what criteria should Council substitute, since you think the current rules are burdensome and unfair? Or should they repeal the street naming policy entirely, and let each Council decide how to get to three votes for or against any proposal brought to them, by one or two powerful people, or any group of activists?

There is no basis for your comment that I'm inferring and not hearing. Go back and read your original post or the comments on the links you cite. I think I've quite accurately paraphrased what's there although I'll concede that I have probably not given the process issue it's full weight. I have not said that you (or anyone else) don't ever listen to Latinos. I have said that the response to these particular people does not seem to include much interest in where they are coming from. If you read what people are writing I think that's pretty easy to support. Yes, as a matter of fact, most city business does get done by getting three votes on the city council. It's not clear to me that street renaming deserves an exception. Again, it isn't clear to me that following the process you are promoting will have the positive effects you are claiming for it. I go back to my earlier question: has that process ever been successfully used to change the name of a Portland street? In terms of sitting down face to face, are you personally interested in doing that with the committee who are promoting this project?

There is no basis for your comment that I'm inferring and not hearing. Go back and read your original post or the comments on the links you cite. OK, I did that. I stand by my comment that you are inferring rather than hearing. I find your "paraphasing" interesting, because nowhere do I read, hear, or even infer " "we don't like change", "your idea is dumb", "our ideas are better than yours", "let's pretend there is no racism in our community", and--last but not least--"we don't want people to think a bunch of Mexicans live in our neighborhood"." in Amy's article or the comments on Blogtown. I read/infer/paraphrase "change costs real people real money", "you obviously care about your proposal with good reasons, here's an alternative I'd like considered", "latent racism is real, but not the real issue here to me", and.... I have no idea where you get the bit about not wanting Mexicans in neighborhoods. I can see where you could get "your idea is dumb" from my post. I didn't mean it that way, and apologize to anyone who heard or inferred that. See how difficult it is to discuss the process, in the context of individual requests? So your proposed process would be to scrap the renaming policy and let three votes on Council choose with no defined process? That was the process before the MLK renaming, which caused such debate that the current code was adopted. Council waived it first for the SW Naito Parkway renaming, pretty much on their own initiative. Is it OK with you if they decide they want to change your street name, having a done deal for three votes even if you get to testify about it? No, I am not personally interested in sitting down with the committee promoting the Chavez project. My concern is with the process, rather than this particular renaming. I'd be interested to hear the opinions of advocates for and against the renaming of MLK, Rosa Parks Way, Interstate/Chavez, and Naito Parkway, as part of an assessment of whether to amend or repeal the process in the code. After 16 years of community activism, I've learned to target my volunteer efforts to work where I may be able to make a difference. I am neither a decision-maker nor a stakeholder in the Interstate renaming process, and I doubt anyone would care whether I participate or not. If I were going to dive in, it would be on the overall process rather than this particular request. I'll continue to volunteer in the struggle to get downtown millionaires and corporations to pay their janitors more than $28 per day, as the issue disproportionately affecting Latinos and Latinas that I care about most passionately. Don't hear much with three votes on the City Council concerned about that, do we?

Just a little more followup, I think we've about beaten this one to death. I'll start by copping to inferring to some degree, although what I hear people say that they aren't putting down in writing makes my inferences much less of a leap than you might think. I still have a problem with the posts, of which yours is one, that amount to "bad idea, here's what you should be doing instead". Although the final decision will be made by three votes on the city council, the Cesar Chavez committee (which I joined last night, by the way--it's a fabulously interesting group of people) has been out in the community talking to people for weeks and will continue to do so. They (or possibly now I should say "we") are explaining the project and soliciting letters of support from a wide variety of community groups, businesses and individuals and are preparing to circulate a petition. This isn't at all a backroom deal. Your posts, of course, contain no hint of the "we don't want people to think there are Mexicans in our neighborhood" and I have absolutely no doubt you don't share those sentiments. Do you for even one second think that's true of everyone else? I can assure you without doubt that it isn't. My only further comment about process is that if you really want to improve it, the perspectives of the people who are dealing with it in the real world can be very useful. I've personally found the details of this particular example very informative so far.

My only further comment about process is that if you really want to improve it, the perspectives of the people who are dealing with it in the real world can be very useful Good, I'm glad we've found more to agree on through these comments. I know from land use issues that there's no substitute for having dealt with something on the ground, in the real world. That's one reason why I said that if I were to work on the process, I'd want to talk with people on both sides of all the renamings of the last decade. Perhaps in an improved process, there would be listed options for renamings - streets and other things - so that offering a different suggestion during public debate wouldn't be seen as "bad idea, here's what you should be doing instead". You're probably right that at this stage, there's no way to make an alternative suggestion without coming across as dissing the proposal on the table. Sorry, I intended to make this comment shorter, to leave "the last word" as yours. You've made some excellent points through these exchanges, which I appreciate and will continue to consider.

An interested reader sent me information from the Mayor's web site, that "Two community meetings have been scheduled in the proposed area to provide for community input regarding the proposed renaming of N. Interstate Avenue to César E. Chávez Boulevard: October 3rd and October 9th, from 6:30 – 8:00 p.m., locations to be determined." See the Mayor's page on PortlandOnLIne.com for updated details. Remember to do the PortlandOnLine survey while you're there :) Also, today Amy J. Ruiz at the Mercury has another article on the topic.