"Leave Manchaca Alone," business owners say

AUSTIN, Texas - In October, the Austin City Council decided it was time to change Manchaca Road to Menchaca.

Before the vote, Fox-7 spoke to retired judge Bob Perkins with Justice for Menchaca. He said Manchaca was a misspelling, he noted the error in the Handbook of Texas. The misspelling also turned into mispronunciation, taking away the “a” at the end.

“I read in there about how the town of Manchaca is named after Jose Antonio Menchaca from San Antonio and kind of thought well if it's named for him why don’t they spell his name right?” said Perkins.

“I’m not trying to dispute whether it's right to name it after a certain person, the fact is this has been the road name,” said Alycen Lucy, owner of Alycen Lucy Insurance.

She is one of the business owners who have filed a lawsuit against the city of Austin, hoping they can leave Manchaca alone.

"It's not clear to us that the story about how the name came to be spelled is completely substantiated or accurate, there are multiple theories out there," said Roger Borgelt, their attorney.

In the lawsuit, they claim the city never told the stakeholders that the name would change, and they didn’t get a chance to weigh in.

"Just general notions of due process, would require, even if the city ordinance didn't require it, that the most affected people along the road receive some kind of notice," said Borgelt.

Another big worry they have, is costs to rebrand.

"I spend a lot of money on search engine optimization, $30-$40,000 a year on search engine optimization. When you start changing the names of roads, that's confusing," said Kyle Albrecht for Manchaca Metals.

"With the changing of signage, the road on the building, uniform embroidery, marketing materials, event materials, the costs go way up,” said Robert Amoroso, Manchaca Village Veterinary Care.

With the name change taking effect on Thursday, the business owners felt it was time to act now.