Industrial to Ross to Chavez: This is going to get messy

There was some discussion here yesterday about the whole Industrial Boulevard-Cesar Chavez-Ross Avenue controversy, and — even though it rarely happens here because we like to believe our readers are a more civilized, level-headed lot than those who post on some other blogs around town — the discussion took a bit of a nasty, name-calling turn.

Suffice it to say that Mayor Tom Leppert has really screwed this issue up big-time, and he's going to take a lot of people down with him — including his likely aspirations for higher political office — if he doesn't get out in front of this thing immediately.

A quick review of the situation to date: A few council members decided to have a little fun promoting the idea of renaming Industrial Boulevard to something more reflective of the grand Trinity vision, so they set up a vote-online and by-telephone survey asking Dallas residents to vote for prospective new names for Industrial. Then, in what I imagine was a clear bow to being "inclusive", one of the possible names listed was Cesar Chavez, the late California migrant worker organizer whose Dallas and Texas links are imaginary, at best. Clearly, the council members had a couple of new names for Industrial in mind, figured their opinion was representative of anyone who would vote in their little poll, and didn't even contemplate the fact that a vote might not go their way.

This one didn't, with Chavez the clear winner of the poll, which was quickly labeled by the same council members as unofficial and nonbinding. Naturally, city Hispanic leaders — perceiving pressure on a sensitive topic and not want to look toothless to the Hispanic voters in their districts — dug in and said the council needed to follow the vote and rename Industrial in honor of Chavez.

Yesterday, a Solomon-like solution was put forth at the council's Trinity subcommittee meeting — we're not changing Industrial's name to Chavez (Riverfront is way better), but how about changing the name of Ross Avenue, since a few Hispanic-dominated businesses and organizations have offices on that street? And in a pathetic display of city leadership, that proposal — simply a desperate attempt to satisfy a small but vocal group in favor of the Chavez name change — passed the council's subcommittee unanimously.

In a nutshell, that's where we are today. As the DMN noted, there are literally weeks of obstacles on the road to changing the name of Ross Avenue to Chavez, including (but not limited to) a City Plan Commission vote, a survey of businesses and organizations with Ross Avenue addresses right now, and an eventual council vote on the whole thing. A whole lot of innocent people are going to be forced to take a stand on this issue, thanks to council subcommittee's "leadership".

It's pretty clear where this is going to go, isn't it? Name calling among city leaders, demonstrations fit for the TV screen, handwringing editorials in the DMN on both sides of the issue, and — when it's all said and done — a lot of angry and unhappy people who, but for the lazy leadership of the city, would never have even raised an eyebrow about the whole idea.

The main question in all of this: Where's Tom Leppert? He has been vocal in the DMN, insisting that Industrial won't be renamed to Chavez, and he apparently has been spending quite a bit of time meeting behind closed doors with the people who have locked-in on the Chavez change. But he's not demonstrating any public leadership, and into that vacuum is about to step a small but loud mob. Remember those DISD meetings a few years ago when there was more action in the crowd than behind the horseshoe? That's what we're looking at here, thanks to the mayor's horrible political miscalculation and his inability to keep the whole thing behind the closed doors where he has been hanging out.

Bottom line? This will be the issue where the grand coalition of the council, eerily strong up to this point, will break down, and this will be the issue that shatters Leppert's Teflon image. I don't think he's going to get this one put to bed without angering a whole lot of people, including a bunch of the people who paid for his campaign. This whole thing is going to be very interesting, but even worse, it's going to be very damaging for the city because we're likely to experience a few months of free-for-all name-calling on a city-wide basis.

We're interested in your thoughts, but please keep it clean here. And cross your fingers that the politicians will come up with some reasonable alternatives — or just do the right thing and drop both name changes, leaving Industrial and Ross intact and Chavez disenfranchised until a new street in a new development comes along. But does anyone think that will really happen?

Comments

[JD]

How about renaming Marilla to Cesar Chavez instead? This all started at City Hall, it is only fitting and proper that the resolution should involve their own door step.

[JKR]

If you look at the reasons the committee (self-appointed?) gives for renaming Ross, one is because that is where the protest march demanding illegal alien rights was held.

This is not going to bring forth a civil discussion, it's going to attract the sane and the crazies from all over the country.

This is an equal political miscalculation.

Mr. Salazar is saying anything else "is unacceptable" and Dr. Garcia asking longtime Dallasites to disrespect history in order to "show respect" for her community. Their districts do not include Ross and therefore they broach a challenge to the 'respect' tradition from and for each councilperson for decisions in his/her district.

[Dallas Diner]

If the Dallas City Council wants to honor a Hispanic hero by changing the name of an important downtown street, it would make more sense to pick someone either born in Texas or who made a significant impact in Texas. Caesar Chavez was born in Arizona and did most of his significant work in California. The list of Texas heroes with Hispanic ties is not so short that the City Counsil has to go to Arizona or California to find someone to honor.

[James]

Having lived in Austin, where you can date someone's time in the town by what he calls certain streets (I'm in my 30's, as evidenced by the fact that I still call 26th Street "26th" and 1st Street "1st," but call 19th Street "MLK"), I don't have any particular aversion to renaming streets.

But if we must rename a street to "show respect" for the Hispanic community, and if it must be Ross to be renamed, why should we import a name from California? It's not as though Texas has a dearth of great Hispanic figures in its history (e.g., Juan Seguin, Lorenzo de Zavala, Henry B. Gonzalez). Why not rename Ross after a Texan?

[david s]

What about General Santa Anna Blvd instead of Caesar C… Santa Anna, now there is a Mexican who made a difference in Texas.

[Dallas]

I think we need a close look at why this is an issue at all. The problem is that Caesar Chavez was Hispanic. That is the 20 ton Elephant in the room. Why is that so hard to say. If the vote was for a Black leader, like Eddie Bernice Johnson, it would have gone through. If it was for a Jewish leader, it would have gone through. So what is the difference? Why does Caesar Chavez Blvd not market the city? It is because Caesar Chavez was Mexican, and Dallas does not want to be marketed as a Mexican City. I guess City Council figures that San Antonio already has that market. There is some pretty deep seated racism here.

[James]

I would argue that the primary problem with calling Industrial or any other street "Ceasar Chavez" is not that Chavez was Hispanic, but that he was a California socialist labor agitator--three things the Citizens Council doesn't like much. I think there would have been a whole lot less pushback if they had tried to name it Seguin Blvd or Guadalupe Ave rather than Ceasar Chavez Blvd.

[Desert Rat]

All of this is just more much ado about nothing. This city has MAJOR problems/issues to deal with & what is the City Council spending way too much time on: 1) renaming streets for no logical reason other than "image" &, 2) where the zoo is going to send Jenny the elephant. This is so typical Dallas & is just more evidence of the City Council fiddling while the city burns. This City Council will not be around when the infrastructure falls apart. It's just another legacy that our children & grandchildren will have to deal with. Now that's responsible leadership.

[Alfredo]

The moral of this story is don't have a poll unless you are prepared to live with the results. I think the plan was always to name it Riverfront and I disagree with one of the other comments if Marcus or Johnson had won it would have been named after them. I agree the Mayor doesn't look good over this but it is my understanding that Councilman Neumann really pushed for the poll so a special Bronx Cheer needs to go to him for helping to create this stupid situation and the costs to all the businesses on Ross to get new stationary ect.

[Alex]

You all realize this is just a distraction to work you up so you don't notice when the city and Leppert have to renege on their pledge to keep the costs of the project at 2007 levels, right?