PORTLAND, Ore. -- Some people who live in the Laurelhurst neighborhood of northeast Portland are organizing to keep the city from changing the name of 39th Avenue to Cesar Chavez Avenue.

The planning commission voted earlier this month to recommend the change to honor the labor leader, but the final decision is up to the Portland City Council.

The debate will likely be decided soon at a City Council meeting.

Some who live and work along 39th Avenue, which runs through Portland's east side, don't want a change.

Others said they think renaming 39th is an appropriate way to honor the late labor leader.

But opponents are organizing around a new Web site and what they're calling "a grassroots organization" to maintain the numerical name.

The group proposes that the city should honor Chavez by naming a park after him instead.

The group suggested that its plan will save money for the city and business owners on 39th Avenue.

One of the group members said it doesn't make sense for the city to go along with the process when it is so clearly opposed by so many people.

"What it does is a real railroading of the Portland people, when you have 88 percent of the residents along 39th, almost 90 percent saying they don't want the street renamed and you have the planning commission saying we're going rename it anyway," said Eric Fruits of Save 39th Avenue.

Portland neighborhoods have gone through the renaming exercise before when Portland Boulevard became Rosa Parks Way and 20 years ago when Union Avenue became Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard.

Group Fights To Stop 39th Ave. Name Change

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