WMG Volume 6 • Issue 21 November 6, 2019
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City Approves Process for Naming Streets By Sallie James
If you want to rename a street to honor name changes. “I think Justin’s request that we name someone’s memory, or name a building, or a park after someone of note, the city a street after Harvey Milk kind of caught us by surprise. It wasn’t brought up by will soon have a formal process. City commissioners in October the community,” said Commissioner Gary reviewed and tweaked a set of standard Resnick. Resnick said wasn’t opposed to procedures and guidelines for naming, the idea of renaming a street after Milk. co-naming or renaming city amenities, He was opposed to renaming the street because the city had no policy including buildings, at the time. recreational areas, and “If your street name other facilities operated Mayor Justin Flippen changes you may have to by Wilton Manors. The had proposed renotify a lot of people who policy and guidelines send you mail. Some of these will be up for a vote at naming Northeast things have a lot of practical the November 12th City and Northwest implications, especially if you Commission meeting. are running a home-based The move comes 21st Court as business,” Resnick added. about five months after “Harvey Milk Flippen said he proposed the city designated May the resolution last May Court,” but after 22nd as “Harvey Milk because he wanted the city Day” in honor of the much discussion, to honor Milk because of late gay rights icon after commissioners his significant civil rights a proposal to name a residential street after declined to make the contributions. His colleagues agreed on Milk’s societal Milk fell apart because street name change. contributions but not on the the city didn’t have a renaming process. naming policy. “The members of the Mayor Justin Flippen had proposed re-naming Northeast Commission wanted to formalize the and Northwest 21st Court as “Harvey process, hopefully to streamline it and Milk Court,” but after much discussion, not make it more bureaucratic,” Flippen commissioners declined to make the said. “We unanimously agreed we were street name change in May, saying the comfortable with it coming back to us as a city first needed to establish a policy that policy resolution we will adopt.” The new policy: would outline a procedure for making
1. Requires an applicant, including city commissioners and city staff, to submit an application to the city for review. 2. Requires inclusion of written documentation of approval by next of kin of the person to be honored, if possible.
If the application pertains to a leisure services facility, the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board can review the application and make a recommendation to the City Commission. If the application is for a public street, property owners who live within 300 feet of the street or who live on the street must be notified by mail of the date of the City Commission meeting when the item will be discussed. Public input will be sought through no
less than two City Commission meetings. Notification will be made through the city’s weekly email blast, the city’s monthly newsletter and social media. The renaming will be confirmed by City resolution. The city shall have final approval and absolute discretion to approve or deny any request for any reason. In April, Commissioner Paul Rolli spoke against the street naming saying, “City property belongs to all the inhabitants of the city. It doesn’t belong to a couple of people. I think the first thing we do is create a process.” “When it first came up, my recommendation was that we develop a policy for naming of all public property. I wanted the process to be transparent,” Rolli said. WMG
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