Abe Kwok: Street-renaming rule is well-intentioned, but bad policy.
A year and a half after Phoenix pushed a policy to change derogatory or controversial street names, the city has yet to change any.
And in not doing so, the City Council actually has demonstrated good horse sense.
The policy was hastily drawn up and pushed through. It supplanted the longstanding practice of notifying homeowners and residents who live on such a street and securing approval for change from 75 percent of them.
Then-Mayor Greg Stanton sought and got the policy change, ostensibly to address two streets whose names he, and activists who lobbied him, deemed offensive — Squaw Peak Drive and Robert E. Lee Street. (At the time, fervor was high as activists in parts of the country targeted statues and memorials honoring Confederate figures such as Lee for removal.)
Except no one had bothered to alert or consult the actual people who lived or owned homes on those streets. Stanton has since departed for Congress. Two of the three council members who voted for the policy change are presently out of commission as mayoral candidates competing in a runoff election in March.
And, according to Republic reporter Jessica Boehm, interim Mayor Thelda Williams, who opposed the policy change, has no plans to pursue what her predecessor had sought.
That the Phoenix City Council hasn’t acted to rename the two streets isn’t a surprise. As far as anyone knows, no one has yet consulted or conferred with residents there. To do so would actually be putting the horse back in front of the cart.
Beyond the heavy-handedness of the new policy, renaming residential streets seems like small potatoes for a city that faces budget constraints and higher demand for services.
To be sure, “squaw” is considered a derogatory term to Native Americans, and there are legitimate arguments to be made about why Lee should be recognized in Phoenix, of all places.
But those so-named streets are not main thoroughfares — could Indian School Road, an arterial street, be deemed offensive given the history behind its namesake? Nor are they huge public spaces the likes of a Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport or Margaret T. Hance Park.
Do we really need an actionable item on the two streets now, especially given that a majority of residents there oppose a name change? And resent the way the council rammed a policy that effectively took away their voice?
Not every statute or policy on the books makes sense or needs to be enforced. This is Exhibit A.