Sir Francis Drake Boulevard renaming should be an effort of addition
The movement to dual name Sir Francis Drake Boulevard with Miwok Way, Bolinas Road or similar is gaining steam.
Larkspur City Council just voted 4-1 (Mayor Kevin Haroff strongly dissenting) to retain Sir Francis Drake as the road’s official name and add a second as yet undetermined ceremonial designation to the street within Larkspur’s boundaries. As Council member Kevin Paulson said a few weeks ago, concluding this dispute will expedite the council’s ability to promptly address substantive issues of housing affordability, policing, education and inclusion.
Earlier this month, San Anselmo Mayor Brian Colbert boosted the notion in a Marin Voice piece.
It’s time to put this contentious dispute to rest. Though likely unacceptable to passionate ideologues, two names will have widespread public acceptance. To use a now out-of-favor concept, it’s a fair compromise.
The brouhaha is about banishing Drake’s name due to his serving as a junior officer on a slave-trading ship 500 years ago. That was well before 1579 when the worldacclaimed circumnavigator landed in Marin.
Co-naming has another advantage. According to Larkspur City Manager Dan Schwartz, it allows businesses and residences along the boulevard to retain their present addresses to avoid expense and much inconvenience.
Oakland followed the practice when it just added to Ninth Street,
“Dr. Huey P. Newton Way.” Both names appear on each street corner. Newton founded the Black Panther Party and was a civil rights pioneer, but he was convicted of killing a police officer — a verdict overturned on appeal.
Oakland demonstrated both flexibility and a refusal to condition place names on perfect lives, but instead on the totality of the namesakes’ life contributions. That’s a rule that should be applied across the board and not reserved exclusively for icons of the political left.
A better way of approaching society’s divide was inadvertently exhibited in a quote from Drake High grad Steve Dodge. A passionate proponent of relegating Drake to Marin’s dustbin, Dodge is a physics professor at Simon Fraser University in suburban Vancouver, British Columbia.
In an IJ interview about removing the Drake/Don Quixote sculpture from near Larkspur’s ferry terminal, Dodge suggested Marinites should look at Pacific Northwest Canada. There, many community entry points are marked by totem poles, a symbol of welcoming by Canada’s First Nation people.
Today’s Canadians are comfortable publicly honoring both the cultures of their indigenous communities as well those who migrated from Asia and Europe. That includes retaining places named for British explorers Simon Fraser and Captain George Vancouver plus Queen Victoria, the colonizer for whom BC’s capital is named.
Naming places, streets or schools with few exceptions — including jettisoning references to traitorous Confederates — should involve exercises in addition not of subtraction.
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This week, Novato’s Planning Commission faces an application to permit constructing a 14-pump service station at Novato’s Costco. Each pump services two cars allowing 28 cars to be fueled simultaneously.
Environmentalists contend any new petroleumrelated facility is counterproductive given fossil fuel’s impact propelling climate change. Others believe the pumps in Costco’s parking lot will generate taxes for city coffers.
The end of gas-powered vehicles is in sight. General Motors will exclusively sell electric cars by 2035 and high-end manufacturer Jaguar will dump the internal combustion engine by 2024. While American mobility is clearly in transition, allelectric won’t be universal for well over a decade.
A practical compromise arose when the IJ Editorial Board met with electric vehicle proponents. The thought was to allow a Costco fueling facility but reduce the 14 gas pumps to seven, then mandate adding seven new electric vehicle charging stations. In 20 years, remove the legacy petrol pumps and tanks and the site can morph into an allelectric quick-charging center.