Advocates for renaming Interstate decried the switch. "It's very disturbing," said Maria Lisa Johnson, executive director of the Latino Network.

What's disturbing, that we will now have a major street downtown named after Chavez, a street that runs by city hall and many other important buildings ?

I think we ought to start assigning honorary names to each raw sewage spill into the Willamette during the rainy season. The first five can be named after the City Council, then the pet developers, then the state legislators, etc. "In honor of Dan Saltzman, avoid contact with the river for the next 48 hours."

By way of public outcry Interstate Ave remains as it is. However our wonderful all caring city council learned nothing by this, still going against the proper way of changing street names, they decide to change 4th Ave, again without citizen in put.

I wonder if they can dilute the Lantino-only focus by celebrating Filipino farm workers too? Many were located in our area and most of their descendants are just normal folks and are likely no more familiar with farm labor than your neighbor.

One need only look up NORPAC and PCUN for some of the more recent "farm labor" specific issues. (I tried reading PCUN newsletters for several years.) It is about state legislation that treats it as unique from all other labor, as unique as say public employment.

I too have experienced 72 hour work weeks, at minimum wage with no overtime, doing farm labor. (The boss still went belly up from debt, and from being on the weaker end of the vertical chain that leads to the retail consumer.) Should my immutable features matter?

There is more shared interest between the growers together with their workers against the retailers who exert a dominant control over the vertical chain. But I guess that issue has gotten all clouded by the politics of something else entirely.

Is what we are witnessing just "Official Graffiti?"

Saltzman's compromise seems like a good one to me. What are the objections?

It seems so crazy, to go from the frying pan into the fire with no public process again. It reminds me of the red faced Jack Nicholson believing it was OK to circumvent because "They can't handle the truth"

If they threw it open to ideas some others might come up. Like NE Airport Way East of I-205 is confusing for folks headed to the airport, and it winds through what used to be truck farms, now strip developments, but more likely where Chavez would have walked helping people in working the fields of the day.

Apparently it's not about Chavez after all.

It's about the egos of CECBC Chairman and Tigard resident Jose Romero and Marta Guembes.

I'm glad my street might possibly avert the chopping block, but I think city code needs to be tightened up so more neighborhoods don't have to endure what we've gone through the last two months.

Saltzman's compromise seems like a good one to me. What are the objections?

That they are side stepping the proper process for starters. But how about several hundred businesses having to fit the bill for changing the address on stationery, websites, phone books, etc. And guess who gets to fit the bill for all the City Hall address changes? And lets not forget Trimet. All the maps, schedules, etc.
The whole thing is just stupid.

Lessee, renaming streets, spray paint busts, doula training, buying parking spaces for developers - how important.

This is still a pop stand of a city. How about no assclown weeks at City Hall?

Enjoy what you have created voters of Portland . . .

it's a clever move, actually, for political and other reasons.

there's one thing that would make me feel more sympathetic towards Interstate Ave. name change proponents:

any formal recognition from them of the "civil rights" and wishes of the entire community of Black, White, Polish, Latino, Asian and other folks living, working and owning businesses there.

It is my view that the $ looking to be spent on these symbolism instead of substance projects should be re-routed towards charitable humanitarian real-results programs instead of empty talk-talk-talk. Up with the People!

The notion of mixing names and numbers seems weird. You'd go from 3rd Av. to Chavez to 5th, to 6th to Broadway, etc.

But as great as Chavez was, do we really want to name a street with many of the city's government buildings on it after him? Is our local history so bereft of outstanding public figures that Chavez is the logical choice?

Maybe there should be some kind of commission appointed to come up with the names of people to honor with street name changes, and then to prioritize them. Actually, there is an Oregon Cultural Heritage Commission that we could turn to for just such a job.

As far as I know, there's no street in Portland named for Linus Pauling (two time Nobel winner), Sen. Wayne Morse, C.E.S Woods, Gov. Oswald West or Abigail Scott Duniway (though there is a park named for her). Yeah, they are all white and mostly men, but I'm probbly missing some other notables, and there's no denying their greatness.

Once again Portland leaders outdo each other in their ignorance. After all is said and done, NOT ONE OF THEM understand that not only did the people not want Interstate Avenue's name changed, but that the ENTIRE PROCESS was screwed up.

How about redefining "terms limits" on these men. Two stupid mistakes and your out.

Two stupid mistakes and you're out.

You know, someone in my office had a good point. All this crap is just the City's version of "wagging the dog". To take the people's minds off of the real problems in this city.

This is just outrageous - on so many levels, it's hard to know where to start the rant. I'll simply leave it at this: There's no way in hell my company's letterhead will sport at Chavez address. I'll get a PO Box. Or simply move out of the city...which, I suppose, could be the real motivation behind the City's ever-increasing "screw you small business" attitude.

What I find interesting about the "Three Card Monty" act at city hall isn't the sleaziness of the operation. It’s the citizens who get taken in, yet insist they aren't rubes.

I emailed all the commissioners and Potter, asking to just "please stop."

Its beyond rediculous.

This getting so absurd that I wouldn't be surprised if the 4th of July is renamed "Chavez of July".

Maybe Gresham has it right; both "Birdsdale and 202nd" and "Hogan and 242nd" are interchangeable.

First we get juvenile ignore-the-rules crap from the mayor and then the rest of the council shows him the one true path by doing the same thing. Rules? We don't need no stinkin' rules! With instincts like these, city government needs MORE rules - ones that an actually be enforced.

Contrast these jokers with the stick-up-the-a** "process-based" behavior of the ODFW in the "Snowball" debacle and that of the mindless automatons at DHS in the "Baby Gabriel" fiasco and you wonder WTF is goin' on around here.

Isn't there a middle ground?

Should we care?

Throw the bums out!

Speaking of honoring Oregon history, does anyone think St. Mary's on SW 6th would mind changing their letterhead to Goldschmidt Blvd?

I like the Goldschmidt pickup lane they just constructed in front of St. Mary's.

About that litany of famous Oregonians: At least we have schools named after a couple of them: Pauling Academy of Integrated Science on the Marshall campus and Duniway Elementary School, both in Southeast Portland.

Right now we have several school communities working on new school names: the merged Hollyrood-Fernwood and Clarendon-Portsmouth K8 schools and the small schools at Madison. These namings can be unifying or divisive -- let's hope for the former in our schools. We have a naming policy and we plan to stick with it to get a recommendation before our School Board.

Sarah Carlin Ames

Where are the Native American activists? Certainly a local street should be named in honor of the Native Americans who lived here first rather than some 2nd tier labor leader. (If you want to honor a labor leader then Chavez isn't the place to start)