César Chávez or Douglas Adams? The race is on (Jack Bog's Blog)

The self-proclaimed geeks who want to rename NE and SE 42nd Avenue in Portland after the late fantasy writer Douglas Adams (right) report that the city "approved" their "initial application" for the street name change. Now, they say, they have six months to raise $1,000 and obtain 2,500 signatures from Portland residents age 16 and older.

This is no doubt an unwelcome development at City Hall, where the City Council has been busy stacking the deck in favor of renaming an as-yet unidentified street after César Chávez (left). The city code plainly states:

Only one street renaming application shall be processed at a time, and only one street name change shall be implemented per year for a major traffic or district collector street. Additional applications shall be placed on a waiting list and processed in order of submission when this criteria can be met.

From the language of the pertinent sections of the code, it appears that the 42nd Avenue proposal has not yet reached the "application being processed" stage. At the moment, the proponents have submitted preliminary evidence that the renaming would be legal, but it seems that the "application" consists of the signed petitions and the $1,000 fee. As between the Douglas Adams and Chávez groups, whoever gets theirs submitted first will knock the other one aside until after the first one is "processed."

If both targeted streets were "major traffic or district collector" streets, a successful application submitted for one would bump the other one out of "implementation" until the next year. (No word on whether that means until the next calendar year, or until 12 months after the first one is "implemented.") However, to our untrained eye, 42nd Avenue is neither a "major traffic or district collector" street; parts of it seem to be a "neighborhood collector street," a lower classification. And so the one-year waiting period would not apply, but the "one application at a time" rule would.

That is, of course, unless the City Council throws out all the rules and passes new ones to guarantee the results it wants. Stranger things have happened, and recently. [Via Bean.]

Comments (12)

Sorry, but I still think we need to see the obvious, and start early on the SAM Adams Blvd idea. If we hurry we can have it ready for the coronation...

Posted by Stu | August 9, 2008 7:58 AM

I really don't want to wade into the politics and shoddy machinations, but I must say that I hope the group pushing Adams St. withdraws until the Chavez renaming either goes through or dies.

Douglas Adams was a very smart, funny man, a real mensch, and, were he alive, would be supporting some way to honor Chavez rather than himself.

That said, I stand with the millions astonished to find themselves in agreement with something David Reinhardt suggested: naming Delta Park for Chavez would be a much more prominent gesture AND more fitting.

Posted by George Seldes | August 9, 2008 8:13 AM

This is no doubt an unwelcome development at City Hall

That's what I thought too, until I played a little devil's advocate. Why not take a dry run through "the process" and see what bumps there are before taking another swing at the Chavez thing? They can take the Douglas Adams group all the way to the final vote, deny the application, then have the Chavez thing cued up and ready to go. Pretty smart, no?

Posted by Chris Snethen | August 9, 2008 8:24 AM

Does the $35,000 consultant now have to give advice to the Douglas Adams people? That would be too funny. Hey, Randy -- DON'T PANIC.

Posted by Jack Bog | August 9, 2008 8:53 AM

One things is for sure. This high priority will get the full attention of the brain trusts at City Hall. Setting aside less pressing matters to take care of this street re-naming issue will further demonstrate Portland's keeping it weird brand of municipal guidance.

Adams and company will be taking new strides in their race to the top of weird.

The good kind of weird,,,,,,,

Oh gimmie a bag.

A cloth bag of course.

Posted by Ben | August 9, 2008 10:08 AM

What Ben said. Theatre of the Absurd. Of course 'they' are going to rig the game and make up 'their' rules. That's Entertainment. The 'circuses' half of "bread and ...." Enjoy the slipshod slapstick -- a laugh riot, hilarity ensues; and we're grateful 'they' aren't screwing around with something important ... such as, the 'bread' half of the civilization formula. My condolence sympathies go out to the principals, Chavez and Adems.

An illuminating sidenote, (related to the sincerity of prevailing interest in recognizing Mexican-American dignity enriching the multicultural, kind of cosmopolitan, feeling enjoyed in city life), is presented in results showing that the largest radio audience (excl. KOPB), in Portland, during May ratings sweep, is all Spanish speaking, all the time.

Latest Arbs: El Rey Is King, Oregon Media Insiders blog, 08/04/2008.
Spring Arbitrons are in for Portland. And the market leader, for the first time, is a Spanish language station, El Rey 93.1. The top ten stations:

KRYP-FM Regional Mexican 6.4
KWJJ-FM Country 5.5
...

Who saw this coming? I sure didn't!

---

... yet to my point, speaking of levity. The typo in the cited City Code. It should be "these criteria;" or 'this criterion.' But it's like 'these data' and 'this datum' -- the conversational trumps the grammatical. Punch line: The plural of anecdote is NOT 'data.'

Posted by Tenskwatawa | August 9, 2008 11:57 AM

Tenskwhat needs his own blog...

Posted by dman | August 9, 2008 5:57 PM

Why waste money on changing a street name, its just an inconvenience to business owners, residents, and anyone trying to find the location on a map. Maybe we should spend money on more important issues.

Posted by steve | August 9, 2008 6:20 PM

More street renaming ideas for Portland:

Bill Walton Way
Rindy Ross Road
Joey Harrington Pass
Clark Gable Street
Courtney Love Lane
Tonya Harding Avenue
The Damon Staudamire Highway

...I'm liking this! The more City Hall wants to name streets to hide the fact that it caters exclusively to the West Hills and Pearl crowd, the more the average citizens can organize to name a street after their favorite famous Portlander. Yeah!! Keep Portland Weird!!!

Posted by Ted | August 10, 2008 8:33 AM

City policy ain't worth the paper it's written on.

City officials need not observe policy if it impedes whatever it is they want to do to waste taxpayer funds.

They made that clear. Whatever the politicians say about policy is pure s**t; it's nothing except what sounded good at the time to mollify the pissed off voters. After they've been mollified, then they can ignore policy to please their fat cat benefactors.

Posted by godfry | August 10, 2008 4:18 PM

godfry bridge

Posted by Tenskwatawa | August 10, 2008 9:12 PM

We know who our heroes are and we have decided to honor Cesar Chavez. This decision is community oriented and must come from the Latino community. We have decided on Ross Ave because of the significance it holds for us. Ross Avenue matters because of the Cathedral, DISD headquarters with 70% Latino youth. It is not about immigration, but about HONORING AN AMERICAN HERO of Latino descent. It is about diversity,inclusion, respecting, and honoring Latinos and our contributions to Dallas.

Posted by joey77 | September 2, 2008 2:04 PM

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Saturday, August 9, 2008

César Chávez or Douglas Adams? The race is on

Comments (12)

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