Debate Over Re-Naming Richland’s Robert E. Lee Boulevard Resurfaces [VOTE]
Jim Stoffels, who was on the Richland City Council from 1972 to 1975, is asking the city to change the name of Lee Boulevard. It was named by the Army Corps of Engineers in the 1940s after Robert E. Lee who fought to defend the Confederacy. Some Americans view that legacy as racist and hateful.
Stoffels has also been in the local news for promoting progressive agendas and a quick closure of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. He is the chairman of a group called World Citizens for Peace, an anti-nuclear, anti-war group that helped a survivor of the Nagasaki atomic bomb in WWII visit Hanford.
He told The Tri-City Herald the country needs to grasp that such Civil War era names and honors are racist and the country needs to remove memorials that celebrate that war and its racism. Opponents say he's pushing a liberal interpretation of history and that Lee was an iconic American figure.
Critics are also saying Stoffels has not taken into account the significant cost that will occur were the city to redo all the signs and change all their maps. Citizens would have to change their address with every entity from which they need to receive mail and deliveries.
What area your thoughts on the idea?