City of Austin starts community engagement process on renaming Cesar Chavez Street

AUSTIN, Texas - The City of Austin is starting the community engagement process for renaming Cesar Chavez Street. 

Cesar Chavez was a labor leader and civil rights activist who co-founded United Farm Workers. In March, allegations of sexual abuse came out against him. 

Several council members asked city departments to come up with a plan for renaming the street. 

The backstory:

The street was originally Water Avenue in 1839. It became Water Street or First Street in 1887 and became Cesar Chavez Street in 1993.

In a presentation to City Council on Tuesday, several city departments said they're starting community engagement. Changing a street name means the majority of property owners there have to support it. There has to be an emergency services review, and City Council has to approve the name change. 

Community suggestions for the name change include East First Street, Dolores Huerta, who co-founded United Farm Workers, and Jorge Pastore, an Austin police officer who died in the line of duty in 2023.

Some council members mentioned in the meeting that the Dolores Huerta Foundation would prefer farmworkers to be honored instead of Huerta's name specifically. 

The whole renaming process could take a year and a half.

Dig deeper:

The Texas Department of Transportation has jurisdiction over the part of the street from Lamar to I-35.

Cost estimates for the process and changing all the street signs could be between $423,700 — $1,223,700.

City officials say TxDOT could use stickers instead of replacing whole signs, which will be cheaper.

Businesses would also have costs in terms of changing addresses and marketing materials.

A community engagement report will be released in September.

Austinites react

Local perspective:

"I don't think they should have changed it in the first place. I think it should be what it used to be. First Street just makes so much more sense. Everything's numbered north of that. I don't think we need another name for someone in history that might have done something bad. First Street's pretty innocuous," Lolly Harrison said.

"In light of the allegations, First Street is just what it was," David Collier said.

"I don't really feel strongly about it. Either way, I guess now that I know that, they should probably rename it. But what it gets renamed to, I think they should just pick three options and put it to a vote," Mike Shield said.