Judge blocks naming San Antonio street for Cesar Chavez

Reuters ^ | May 23, 2011 | Jim Forsyth

[Free ThinkerNY]

SAN ANTONIO — A judge on Monday blocked the city of San Antonio from renaming a street after the late labor activist Cesar Chavez.

The temporary restraining order from State District Judge Antonia Arteaga came just days after the City Council voted along ethnic lines to approve the name change.

The proposal to rename Durango Street, one of the city's main streets, has divided a city where 61 percent of residents are Hispanic.

"It is very important that we protect the integrity of our history, and that includes objecting to changing street names," said Bill Oliver, who represents the San Antonio Conservation Society, which sued to oppose the name change.

[BenLurkin]

No fan of Chavez here — but this is ridiculous.

[shelterguy]

Here in St. Paul they renamed a part of Concord Boulevard to Cezar Chavez Street. It is in an area we call Little Mexico.

[truthguy]

Pick an unnamed street. Changing street names is very expensive and controversial. It's also an in your face type of act. It was specifically designed to be provocative and anger people. This is big time trouble as these types of things are gonna become more frequent.

Multiculturalism my *ss. Every country that has gone down the multiculturalism route has destroyed itself. We will be no different. Just like two automobiles cannot occupy the same space at the same time, two cultures cannot occupy the same place at the same time.

[umgud]

When travelling in unfamiliar cities, I am always on the lookout for Martin Luther King Blvd or Ceaser Chavez Ave. If I know where these streets are, I know to stay away from the area.

[GeronL]

ridiculous pandering.

Name it Tortilla Street if its an ethnic thing.

Why name it after a crazy community organizer?

[tpmintx]

The funny thing here, is that Cesar Chavez was *not* a big supporter of illegal aliens. In fact he was quite the opposite. Cesar Chavez came to prominence thru his efforts to unionize farm labor in California, regardless of ethnic origin. The farm owners fought back by importing large numbers of illegal immigrants and overwhelming the farm laborers with large numbers of people willing to work for nickels.

Most of those supporting efforts to put Mr. Chavez' name on everything see him as a champion of Hispanic immigrants. This is not necessarily true. Yes, farmworkers in California were largely Hispanic; but they were also largely legal US residents. These were the people for whom Cesar Chavez was working.

Not the "Reconquista's"

Not the illegals.

More.

[JimmyMc]

OK, name it Jimmymc Blvd. It has a nice ring to it. And I have never killed any political opposites.

[StonyMan451]

For a judge to intervene in what is clearly a perfectly legal decision by the city is an outrageous exercise of raw judicial power. I may or may not like the decision, but there is nothing illegal about the city changing the name of a street to anything they want to. The right way to fight this is through the ballot box, and if you don’t get enough votes to change the decision, then tough cookies.

[octex]

A couple of years ago the Hispanic activists in Dallas pushed to have a major street renamed Cesar Chavez.

The road, Industrial Blvd., ran N-S along the Western edge of downtown Dallas and was several miles long. There are hundreds of businesses on that road.

All advertising, letterheads, business cards and telephone listings would have had to be changed and would have caused the businesses to expend a lot of money to effect the changes.

The effort to oppose the name change succeeded. Finally, a much shorter street North of downtown and in an old warehouse area with significantly fewer resident businesses was renamed Cesar Chavez.

[LonePalm]

Most New Yorkers still refuse to call 6^th Avenue the Avenue of the Americas even though it was officially changed in 1945.

Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Free ThinkerNY.

[laotzu]

there is nothing illegal about the city changing the name of a street

The city of San Antonio requires a multi-step process to name/re-name a street. This process is in writing, and has been enforced for years. San Antonio requires it of the county(Bexar), of private roads, and of real estate developers.

In this case, the process was ignored.

[StonyMan451]

If that’s the case, then I understand why the courts are involved.

[wardaddy]

It’s not ridiculous...it’s folks opposing naming streets in America after fantasy latino “heroes” who were of views anathema to what we were founded on

purge Chavez and move on to others...and some “snort” holidays too whilst we are at it