About five and a half miles of Alamo City road is named for the late civil rights leaders, freshly accused of sexual misconduct and abuse.
SAN ANTONIO — Renaming the San Antonio street that currently bears Latino civil rights leader and alleged sexual abuser Cesar Chavez’s name could cost about $205,000, according to city documents.
And it likely wouldn’t happen for a few more months.
Within hours of the publication of a bombshell New York Times report accusing Chavez of sexual misconduct, Councilwoman Teri Castillo sent a memo to city staff requesting that they gather input from residents on what Cesar Chavez Boulevard should be renamed. The city has since launched a survey open until April 2 for residents who live along the roughly five-and-a-half-mile corridor that slices from the east side through downtown and into the west side.
According to correspondence between city officials, staff are also planning “listening sessions” in the four City Council districts that would be impacted by the name change, targeting early April for those forums. Specific dates haven’t been announced.
From there, City Council members and Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones would be briefed on the feedback sometime in April ahead of a “technical review” and another community meeting, possibly to be held in late April. The Planning Commission would then have to discuss the item..
City staff have targeted mid-to-late-May for a possible City Council vote on moving ahead with renaming. That means the signs reading “Cesar Chavez Blvd” likely wouldn’t be replaced until late spring or early summer at the earliest.
The city arrived at the estimated $205,200 price tag “based on comparable past projects,” according to records. That’s more than twice as much as the roughly $99,300 that it was estimated to have cost to rename the former Durango Boulevard to pay tribute to Chavez—a move that City Council approved with a 7-4 vote in May 2011.
Nearly 300 San Antonio addresses would be impacted by another renaming, city staff estimated. It’s expected they would have to pay anywhere from $26 to $51 to update their records. Staff floated an allocation of $200,000 to the Cesar E. Chavez Legacy and Educational Foundation as a possible source of funding, but the current status of that allocation is unclear after the foundation’s leaders decided to dissolve in the wake of the allegations against Chavez.
Then-Councilman Philip Cortez, the representative for District 4, initially proposed renaming Durango Boulevard to Cesar E. Chavez Boulevard, framing it as a way to recognize a “great American.”
Fifteen years later, that legacy has been shaken amid allegations that Chavez abused multiple young girls. Dolores Huerta, an ally of Chavez’s in the farm labor movement, also said last week that Chavez assaulted her and she secretly carried two of his children.
The news has reverberated throughout the country, with busts of Chavez taken down and park names covered up in various communities. In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott said he would work with lawmakers to remove mention of Chavez and the associated holiday from state law, and the TEA directed schools to halt teaching about him.
The City of San Antonio previously said it wouldn’t recognize Cesar Chavez Day on March 31, his birthday and the day historically designated for marches and celebrations in his honor.