STAPLETON PROP. OWNERS VOTE AGAINST NAME CHANGE
Stapleton property owners voted against changing their neighborhood’s name, despite its connection to a former mayor who was a Ku Klux Klan member.
More than 65% of voters wanted to keep the name Stapleton, while almost 35% recommended change, according to results released Monday by an accounting firm. Voting ended July 15.
The vote was taken on behalf of the Stapleton Master Community Association, which is responsible for operating Stapleton’s special districts, and the change would have affected legal documents for the community established in 2002. The parameters for the referendum were set in conjunction with the advocacy group Rename St*apleton For All.
The community is named for former Denver Mayor Benjamin Stapleton, who served as mayor from 1923 to 1931 and 1935 to 1947. He was a member of the KKK and appointed KKK members, including the police chief, according to a Facebook post by former Mayor Wellington Webb.
“In 2019, we cannot diminish the impact of the KKK or disregard the history. In today’s society, we have to take a stand and where we stand,” Webb wrote on Facebook last week. He said even if the vote is to keep the name, the issue won’t be going away, though he hoped residents would do as residents of Swastika Acres, a Cherry Hills subdivision, did in April.
Rename St*apleton For All said in a statement that the group was disappointed and saddened by the results but that its members were not surprised.
“That said, we are grateful to those in our community who did reach out to their neighbors and had patient, honest, and brave conversations about whether our community name should continue to honor a Klansman,” the group wrote on Facebook.
It urged for continuing to build on the effort.
The original campus of the Denver School of Science and Technology changed its name in May to separate itself from the KKK ties. A similar effort to change the name of neighborhood organization Stapleton United Neighbors failed last year, according to Denverite.