"Race is an everyday fact," the mayor said.

Brilliant. I hope he seeks higher office.

Potter should read the fortune cookie " Beware what you eat" before he orders Chinese. Of course now the city council can eat Chinese without fear.

Potter said the city's demographics are changing to become more diverse, and the community has to start having real conversations about race.

how about real conversations about City Council-imposed community-wide changes, like renaming a major avenue?

"Race is an everyday fact," the mayor said.

"and so is community", the mayor should have said.

here's a provocative thought: is trying to force the renaming of Interstate by ignoring the voices of a racially diverse community a racist act?

Oddly...when common sense prevails, there's not a whole lot to say about it. Except, perhaps, Happy Thanksgiving.

the community has to start having real conversations about race.

Why? Why does everything have to be about race? And besides, the only people having any issues with race lately seem to be in the city council.

[I]And besides, the only people having any issues with race lately seem to be in the city council.[/I]

You neglect to also mention the Portland Police Bureau ... lately and perhaps for the past few years as well....

What race problem? The problem is with the whole city council. That is one reason I will never vote for any of the present commissioners again, anyone else is better. Write in Dave Lister to oppose Sam, and vote for Amanda Fritz to fill Sam's old seat.

Wouldn't that be gangin' up?

I wonder if David Duke is avalible for Mayorship? Then we could make it about race. Funny, a race about race.

This isn't over, not by a long shot. Not with this crew and especially not with Maria (or was it Serena) talking about running for council. Be still my heart.

KISS says: Potter should read the fortune cookie " Beware what you eat" before he orders Chinese. Of course now the city council can eat Chinese without fear.

Fortune cookie say: "That wasn't chicken you ate."

The poll on KGW.com overwhelmingly says let it die.

Amen!

Finally! The whole adventure has been an exercise in mismanagment, arrogance and outright stupidity. And a complete waste of public money.

Thank God they stepped back and tabled this crap. There are other and better ways to honor Cesar Chavez, if that is a compelling issue in the City of Portland, than spending countless City resources on this failed venture. Sure, Mayor Potter, you're a 'uniter' not a 'divider'. Where have I heard that before?

Let us give thanks.

What, we go through all of this anger and bitterness and name calling, for what? Now the issue is dead. Great. Where do we go from here? Do we pretend this never happened. I feel for my brothers and sisters in PDX having such idiots running things.

Amen.

Now that we know for sure the irrelevance of city council, write in Sho Dozono (if he doesn't run) for Randy "The Enforcer" Leonard's position. We might be on our way to bringing sensibility back to Portland. We then would have three new commissioners (Lister, Fritz, and Dozono) that can ask the relevant questions and listen to the citizen responses, and maybe take a vote once-in-awhile to gauge if their thinking is relevant.

It's like that evil practical joke where you drag a wallet across the ground on a string...

...except in this case there turns out to be NO WALLET.

Everyone got scr@wed. Except, maybe, Potter.

If the City Council wishes, why not name a BUILDING or a PARK afte C. Chavez? That would not involve all the turmoil involved in renaming a street.

A review of the existing street-renaming ordinance, posted at Isaac Laquedam's blog, shows that there is a thorough and deliberative process in place for renaming any city street. A key part of that process is allowing abutting property owners along the street-to-be-renamed a chance to state their position on the name change.

In this case, if the Community Activists pushing for a name change had done some preliminary polling of property owners along Interstate, they might have realized the proposal was DOA.

On the "race issue:" as others have pointed out, I don't think its fair to say that anyone opposed to the name change is a racist. But that seems to be the thrust of the Mayor's comments today. I suspect this whole fiasco was, at least in part, a misguided attempt to court Latino/Hispanic support for certain politicians' political careers.

Regime change starts at home!

Nice try.

Any goodwill or relief that's been generated (by CoP City Council not taking this action) ...doesn't detract the public from the hidden fact that they've committed us to millions (oops, billions) in debt.

Per the article: The committee that had been pursuing the Interstate renaming said they would take a break and figure out what to do next.

So, is this thing really over, or not?

So, is this thing really over, or not?

No, if it's over, then everyone opposed to the renaming would be a racist.
Right Tommy?

Why don't they rename Division Street? Seriously; the symbolism is great, and it's a silly name anyway. (It would make more sense if it was the border between NE and SE.)

Lord knows, Adam, I spoke to that issue to the committee at Okley Green. I go back to my original post. This had nothing to do with Senor Chavez, honoring each other, upholding the lowest and fighting for those who are never heard,
Sorry about the typos. My son (no corpus callosum) can make my keyboard to weird things. He sets specific keys to code something other than what I type. Hence it takes about 5 times longer.
Why are we not worried about the famlies that have no home, or the families with parents that (and before any of you start the illegal bs, these are good people, people that if the plane was going down, they would help your sorry ass off after you made a true fool of yourself) that are legal but have a very real fear of the integrity and honesty of our government..

+---
after the Del Monte raid.

I smell a rat. A Rove-ian rat.

Yes, Karl Rove masterminded this misadventure, baiting the city leaders to do something dastardly liberal and progressive, knowing full well that they would screw it up as only the jihadists of Little Beirut could.

I expect more juvenile antics from the retired merry prankster of evil deeds.

Suppose it is the classic Rovian,
to stir up a fuss to have their subjects in a blind frenzy while insidiously performing truly dasterdly deeds out of sight under the smoke screen??

Isn't it interesting that the City Council decided to do this on a day when about half of Portland is leaving work early for the Thanksgiving Holiday?