Item 6: PH - Ordinance Renaming 3rd/4th Connector

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Mr. Belcher said that the Commission had received letters from two individuals requesting that the name change not proceed because of concerns about the inconvenience of having to change letterheads and stamps. He said given that the name Shelton was originally associated with the street, that both the Shelton and McMurphey families seemed deserving of recognition and that most of the residents along the street did not oppose the renaming he was supportive of the proposal to rename. Mr. Lawless said he was in favor of renaming the street. Mr. Hledik said with respect to the City code regarding street name change approval criteria he did not think it was in the best interest of the City to impose cost or confusion on residents or businesses or duplicate street names; however, the road had historic value and a name rather than a number was a more symbolic way to recognize the road and its historic significance, and the renaming of the street was noted in the Whiteaker neighborhood plan. He was inclined to support a name change. Ms. Colbath called for a straw vote on enacting a name change from 3rd/4th Connector to something else. She announced that the straw vote was unanimous and called for discussion of the name itself. Mr. Lawless appreciated and liked the clarity of naming the street for a single individual. However, in recognition of public safety needs he was inclined to combine the Shelton and McMurphey family names into the street name. Mr. Hudspeth agreed with Mr. Lawless about combining the names and was in support of Shelton McMurphey Avenue as a name. Mr. Hledik stated that he was also in support of combining Shelton and McMurphey and was leaning toward boulevard. He said initially he thought the street was not "boulevardesque" enough but after hearing testimony about the different types of streets that were named boulevards and the fact that there was a road named Shelton Boulevard on old maps of the Skinner's Butte swayed his opinion toward retaining the boulevard nomenclature. Mr. Belcher commented that while the name of the house was Shelton-McMurphey-Johnson, in the interests of clarity he would support Shelton McMurphey over Shelton McMurphey Johnson as a street name. Ms. Colbath stated that she supported Shelton McMurphey because Shelton Me Murphey Johnson was over the number of characters allowed for a street name and she wanted to recognize the relationship between the Shelton and McMurphey families. Mr. Belcher clarified that the name Shelton Me Murphey would not include a hyphen. Mr. Carroll expressed a concern because the house was named Shelton-McMurphey-Johnson House and he thought the inconsistency of not including Johnson in the street name was a slight problem. He did not want to exclude the Johnson family offhand. He remarked that the commission might not need to pick a specific name to recommend to the Council and could perhaps choose two names and prioritize them or inform the council about the discussion of options. He gave examples such as Shelton Family Way, Drive or Boulevard. He noted that Alberta Shelton was the first lady cyclist in Eugene and mentioned the name Alberta Shelton for the street as a possiblity. MINUTES - Eugene Planning Commission Public Hearing March 14, 2006 Page 4