Street renaming opponents say Atlanta City Council ignoring the law

By Steve Visser

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The Atlanta City Council has been circumventing the law in renaming streets to honor business elites, politicians and civil rights leaders despite neighborhood opposition, a coalition of opponents said Wednesday.

"They have been renaming streets at will," said Wright Mitchell, a lawyer representing the Atlanta Preservation Center. "Now they have Cone Street and Harris Street in their sights."

The City Council is set to vote on the renaming of Cone and Harris streets as Xernona Clayton Way and John C. Portman Boulevard at its meeting Monday despite questions about whether the renaming will be in line with city law and over the objections of the Urban Design Commission.

City Councilwoman Carla Smith said the council routinely waives the requirements of a 2003 law she spearheaded to make it difficult to rename streets.

The law requires 75 percent approval from businesses and residents on the street; that the entire street be renamed and not simply sections of it; and that the group wanting to rename the street pay a $2,500 fee up front to cover expenses and post a bond with the Department of Public Works to pay for future maintenance costs involving the name change -- such as for new signs. It also requires input from neighborhood planning units, historical preservation groups and an appearance before the Urban Design Commission.

The requirements slowed down street renaming for several years but recently have been routinely ignored, Smith said. She said the committee that she created to honor former Mayor Ivan Allen by renaming a street for him also didn't follow the proper procedures.

“There is a new trend that is going on to waive the code and it’s been for people who I thought needed to be honored,” said Smith, who supports the renaming of Cone and Harris streets despite neighborhood opposition. “I am author of the legislation that made renaming streets hard, and I am guilty of breaking my own law and waiving code."

Smith said she headed a task force to ensure rigorous requirements for  street renaming because of public backlash to a series of renamings before 2003. Many of those renamings were for members of the African-American community who were part of the Civil Rights movement. The majority-black council was almost unanimous in its support for the tough legislation.

The council now has a proposal to rename Cone Street for Clayton, a Turner Broadcasting executive, civil rights pioneer and founder of the Trumpet Awards honoring black achievement, and Harris Street for Portman, the architect who helped shape Atlanta's skyline.

Some neighborhood advocates, preservationists, small business owners and descendants of Judge Reuben Cone, a founder of Atlanta, object to the renaming because they say it rides roughshod over the law. Others say the renaming creates public safety problems because GPS mapping systems often aren't updated, and also creates problems and costs for businesses and residents on the streets.

Ron Shakir of Adams Park in southwest Atlanta said the council needs to quit ignoring its own ordinance when it proves inconvenient.

"This is a community voice," he said Wednesday at a news conference. "All of the NPUs are against these name changes."

Councilman C.T. Martin, who is proposing the legislation to rename Cone Street, said the council should waive the law if it finds it necessary to honor a meritorious person. He said the appointed Xernona Clayton Commission has now secured more than 75 percent of the necessary signatures, as has the commission appointed to honor Portman. There are few businesses or residences on either street, he said.

Martin said some neighborhood planning units, such as the one for downtown, have taken a firm stance against street renaming, which he suggested marginalized their opposition. He acknowledged he and other council members had told Clayton last February that they going to establish a commission to honor her with a street.

“There is a lot of politics that is involved in street naming," Martin said in dismissing the brouhaha. “That is why waivers are put in there. The council can waive things. Sometimes we waive stuff that is good and sometimes we waive stuff that is not so good.”

Rashid Muhammad, vice chair of the downtown neighborhood planning unit, said the commissions established to find ways to honor Clayton and Portman only came to the neighborhood group after they had decided to rename the streets.

"It is very difficult for us to feel that this isn't being rammed through," Muhammad said. "It is hard for us to believe our input was taken seriously."

The neighborhood planning unit voted unanimously against the street renamings and suggested the city find better ways to honor Clayton and Portman than naming two nondescript, short streets after them, Muhammad said. The neighborhood group doesn't want longtime street names changed for both public safety reasons and because it erases history.

"What is so galling is that the council thinks it can do whatever it wants," attorney Mitchell said. "I think what has got people here so upset is they feel the city is trying to pull one over on them by going around the process. People don't like their statutory rights trampled on."

Councilman Kwanza Hall, who represents the downtown area, said he will try to persuade the council to postpone voting on the renamings in hopes of coming up with a compromis that still honors  Portman and Clayton.

“We need to set rules and live by them," he said.

Hall said he only grudgingly went along with the street renaming proposal when he and other council members told Clayton about it at the Trumpet Awards in February. He said he later suggested a plaza to honor her but only got lukewarm support from the commission and other council members.