Next up for Hollywood: Name game
Confederate monikers on 3 streets will come down; what to call them?
After months of intense debate, Hollywood will say farewell to controversial street names honoring Confederate war heroes. But don’t expect the signs to come down quickly. First, new names must be selected and new signs ordered and installed — a process likely to take a few months, Hollywood officials say.
As the clock approached midnight Wednesday, commissioners voted to find new names for streets named in the 1920s for Nathan Bedford Forrest, John Bell Hood and Robert E. Lee, all Confederate commanders during the Civil War.
Next week, commissioners plan to wrestle with the issue of what to call them now.
They’re hoping to get suggestions from residents Wednesday during an 11:30 a.m. workshop in Room 215 at City Hall.
Late Wednesday, Commissioner Kevin Biederman suggested renaming Forrest Street after Frankie Mae Shivers, a black Hollywood officer killed in the line of duty in 1982 while trying to rescue a mentally ill
woman from a burning car.
Commissioner Linda Sherwood argued residents should be given a chance to weigh in before commissioners rename the streets.
“If people on those streets don’t know about that name, we are going to be right back where we are today,” she said. “I want the people on the streets to be happy with the names we are going to choose.”
Laurie Schecter, the Hollywood activist who paid the $6,000 application fee to get the streets renamed, initially suggested the streets be named Savannah, Louisville and Macon as originally intended by city founder Joseph Young.
But several residents criticized the names, saying they had nothing to do with Hollywood. So on Wednesday, Schecter suggested new names: Orange, Liberty, Mahogany or Pine.
Commissioner Dick Blattner likes those options.
“They’re vanilla,” he said. “They’re not controversial. They’re easy to remember.”
Blattner says he plans to insist that the streets not be named for any person.
“We just spent a helluva lot of time discussing the names of streets that were offensive to us and we don’t want to name a street after a person that some people might not know,” he said.
Biederman says he’d like to give residents who live on the three streets a chance to choose the new name by mail-in ballot.
He, for one, is eager to see the old signs that caused so much controversy replaced.
“The sooner the better,” he said.
The new street signs will cost an estimated $29,000. As of Thursday, it was unclear who would pay for them.
Under Hollywood’s rules, Schecter may have to foot the bill, but commissioners have the option of waiving that requirement.