1. Proponents of renaming Ross Avenue after Cesar Chavez cite his 20 or so trips to Dallas to protest, while opponents say the Ross brothers did a lot more to shape Dallas than Chavez. Both seem pretty weak arguments to me. No one cares about Chavez’s tangential relationship with the city, and trying to make local landowners into John Neely Bryan seems just as desperate. I think streets can be renamed every 50 years, and it’s no big deal. Get. Over. It. Non-issue.
2. The City Council is considering restrictions that would hurt a local commercial paper recycler, AbitibiBowater, because critics say it puts out too many bins and doesn’t empty them often enough. The company says it serves places like apartment buildings that the city doesn’t. Not discussed is how much worse a blow to civic pride that name is than Ross/Chavez Avenue.
3. Some Plano leaders say they don’t like the designation as the wealthiest city in the U.S. of its size. (Population more than 250,000 residents.) In fact, they dislike it so much, they say they will use all their money and influence to create technology that will strike it from our memory, Men in Black-style.
