Rule would restrict street names to dead

— Muhammad Rasheed wants Little Rock to recognize the positive effect Annie Abrams, a 79-year-old community activist, has had on the capital city by renaming a section of 19th Street in her honor.

Rasheed would like to do it while Abrams is alive and can feel appreciated by the recognition, but his request is at risk of being derailed byan ordinance making its way to city directors that would limit street name changes to individuals who have already died.

“People are just coming out of the trough to name streets,” said City Director Erma Hendrix who last year asked for an ordinance specifying how an existing street’s name could be changed after back-to-back requests were made to rename roadways for living people.

The ordinance, expected to be discussed tonight at the Board of Directors’ agenda meeting, would not apply to names of new streets.

The Planning Department has basic guidelines they now follow - 50 percent plus one of the property owners on a street must agree to a change for the Planning Commission to even consider it - but there’s no limitations or process set forth in city code for renaming a street.

Since 2007, 14 applications have been made to rename city streets. Of those, four involved people, including Abrams. Ten applications were approved, two were denied, and the other two were withdrawn.

One of those denials was an attempt by Rasheed to rename Wright Avenue for Abrams. Planning commissioners weren’t willing last June to toss aside Morehead Wright, a prominent banker and developer who died in 1945, for Abrams.

“I can’t support erasing history, whether it’s the past or living history,” Commissioner Billy Rouse said last year. “Our history is our history. It’s not up to me to replace Mr. Wright.”

And, in December, 2009, planners also rejected renaming 60 blocks of 12th Street for 94-year-old Bishop Leodis Warren, a longtime leader of the Greater Christ Temple Pentecostal Church. Supporters, however, succeeded on their second attempt in September, getting the city to sign off on renaming a section of Lewis Street for Warren. The city could not find any evidence of Lewis Street being named for an actual person.

Over the past two weeks, residents in the 19th Street area have been e-mailing back and forth their opposition to the latest suggestion of renaming a section of 19th Street between Main and Woodrow streets for Abrams.

Since the mid-1990s, Little Rock has signed off on eight name changes for streets between the Arkansas River and Roosevelt Road and from Heifer International headquarters west to Broadway. All but two were done to honor one-time residents, including a street renamed for Charles Bussey, the city’s first black elected official since Reconstruction and later the capital city’s first black mayor, and another for former President Bill Clinton.

Bussey, who died in 1996, was honored by the city in 2004 with nearly 70 blocks of 20th Street renamed for him. Fourteenth Street was replaced with the name of another well-known resident, Daisy Bates, a year after her 1999 death.

While there’s been some support for Abrams on the neighborhood listserv, most have written that renaming streets has gotten out of hand.

“Each number changed to a name confuses thousands of folks. I know and respect Annie Abrams but ... ,” wrote Robert Johnston on the Downtown Neighborhood Association listserv.

“I oppose any renaming of streets,” also wrote Wayne Simpson, because “(1) It is unnecessarily costly. (2) It is absurdly confusing. (3) Once you start renaming where and when do you stop.”

Residents pointed to the confusing President Clinton Avenue, which then becomes Markham Street, which then dead-ends only for the name Markham Street to pick back up on Third Street.

They’ve suggested naming a new street after Abrams or a tree or a park instead. Some wrote that only deceased individuals should have their names on street signs.

City planners are hesitant about naming streets after the living. There’s no guarantee the person won’t turn out to be a criminal or commit an offense that would leave the city embarrassed to have a street named after them, Planning Commissioner Bill Rector said.

At-Large City Director Joan Adcock agrees.

“We have no idea what turn a person’s life might take, and we have lots of wonderful people who do wonderful things,” she said, adding that she would support the ordinance “100 percent.”

At-Large City Director Gene Fortson has no strong feelings on the idea. He would likely support renaming a street for Abrams.

“I think if we want to honor somebody who has been extraordinary is OK. I think the danger in doing it when people are still living you end up renaming half of the city. There are a whole lot of people who are still living who have made contributions,” Fortson said.

The proposed ordinance would also require petitioners to mail property owners on an affected street notification of public hearings before the Planning Commission and City Board through regular mail and by certified mail. An applicant would also have to post notice on the street and turn in a platted survey of the street in question.

Petitioners would have to justify their request by explaining why a person should be honored with a street name. And they would have to research the existing street name to show who or what it was named for originally. Once a street name is changed, it could not be changed again for at least five years.

If the proposal goes to the city board this month and passes, planning officials say Rasheed’s latest efforts to name a road for Abrams will be thwarted.

Rasheed doesn’t agree with Hendrix’s proposed ordinance.

“We had done everything we needed to do. We did the legwork, and even members of the board [were] ready for this,” he said about the 19th Street renaming.

Abrams, a former president of the Coalition of Little Rock Neighborhoods and a participant in many groups and activities, has set an example for city residents, Rasheed said.

People like her, he said, “they deserve their flowers now.”

Arkansas, Pages 9 on 02/08/2011

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