On May 26 I posted The re-naming of Industrial Boulevard in Dallas. I wrote about the public poll/vote to rename Dallas' Industrial Boulevard as part of the Trinity River redevelopment project. The public opinion poll offered choices of 4 names that featured descriptive aspects of the redevelopment and 2 names in honor of famous Dallasites. Well, the question of the day around Dallas City Hall is "What if they threw an election and the people voted wrong?"
Over 20,000 votes were cast in the public poll which ran for a week. Of the votes cast, more than 52% voted to rename Industrial Blvd in honor of Cesar Chavez. The City Council seemed to think that certainly people would do the "right" thing and vote to re-name the road with a name that described the desired feel after the billion dollar Trinity River Corridor project. Surely the public would realize that naming it this way would facilitate marketing the project... right? Well, no. And now, to add insult to injury the Dallas City Council has postponed a vote so that a compromise can be reached to rename Industrial Boulevard as Riverfront Boulevard and rename another road in honor of Cesar Chavez. The Hispanic community is less than pleased with these developments and I can't say that I blame them. The poll was certainly not a formal or binding vote, but this well intended exercise (which obviously cost tax dollars to execute) has become unnecessarily divisive.
Maybe the City Council will learn that if they don't want to know the answer to the question, that in the future perhaps they shouldn't ask!
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