PARKS STREET NAMING MOVES AHEAD. RESIDENTS
CIRCULATE PETITION AS MLK DEBATE RAGES
Amid the fury over renaming
Willow Street after Martin Luther King Jr., two residents have quietly collected
signatures from their neighbors to rename their street after another civil
rights leader, Rosa Parks.
Parks, who died in October at 92, is considered the mother of the modern civil rights movement for refusing in 1955 to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Ala., bus to a white man. Her arrest launched the civil rights movement.
Helen Livings and Ambroise Constantine collected signatures from 26 residents of Gilman Road and Alemeda Street who support changing the name of their streets to Rosa Parks Drive.
The streets would become one, running from University Avenue to the frontage road along Evangeline Thruway near Wal-Mart.
Livings said she was inspired by Rosa Parks when she was a young girl. Parks' arrest "really, really upset me," she said.
"The next day, I got on the bus. I sat in the front of the bus. No one said a thing to me except for an old black lady," Livings said. "She told me not to do that again."
Councilman Chris Williams said Friday he was unaware of the petition drive. Just like with the Martin Luther King Drive issue, residents must be certain the street chosen is befitting Parks, he said.
"Is it a street that exemplifies the magnitude of the mother of the civil rights movement? In my mind that again should be a major arterial in the city of Lafayette," Williams said.
Councilman Bruce Conque commended Livings and Constantine for taking the street name change movement into their own hands and circulating a petition.
"That's one of the ways in which a street name change can be accomplished," he said. "If they're successful, they will accomplish it without going through the council."
Livings and Constantine submitted the petition to the department of planning, zoning and codes on March 3, but they will have to go back and collect more signatures, said Rebekka Raines, development manager.
In order for the department to consider the name change, residents must collect signatures from 51 percent of the property owners along those streets, Raines said.
Many houses on Gilman Road have addresses on side streets abutting Gilman, Raines said. They must be included in the petition drive.
If the pair successfully collects signatures from 51 percent of the property owners - not residents - the planning department will survey property owners asking if they favor or oppose the name change, Raines said.
The department then will place it on the agenda for the next available planning commission meeting. If the commission approves the change, residents will be notified by mail of their new addresses, she said.
The 911 department already has approved the change, Raines said.
Livings and Constantine have avoided the conflict and controversy sparked in 2005 by attempts to rename a street after Martin Luther King Jr.
For months, black Lafayette City-Parish Councilman Louis Benjamin, with support from Williams, has offered motions to change the name of Willow Street to Martin Luther King Drive, saying the slain civil rights leader deserves a more prominent street than the two-lane street that currently bears his name.
The council four times rejected the request, setting off a firestorm of debate, name-calling and picketing.
Benjamin said earlier this week that he will not submit any more requests to name a street after King and will not be part of negotiations. The next step, he said, may be to file a lawsuit.
An item is listed on Tuesday's agenda to afford residents the opportunity to address the council about the King street name change, Williams said Friday.
The Daily Advertiser
Article published Mar 25, 2006
Claire Taylor