Liberty Park Renaming Proposal Delayed

Thu., Sept. 24, 1998

Amy Scribner Staff writer

Attempts to move forward on a proposal to rename Liberty Park stalled last week after a community group was unable to vote on the issue.

James Hamp has asked the Parks Department to rename the park after his late father, the Rev. Clifton E. Hamp.

The proposal found its way Friday to the community assembly, a group of representatives from the city’s neighborhood councils.

But the lack of a quorum meant the group couldn’t decide anything until its next meeting, on Oct. 8.

“For heaven’s sake,” sighed Neighborhood Services Director Molly Myers.

Since being introduced in July, the proposal has been considered by the parks naming committee and the lands committee. Neither group came to a decision, instead turning the issue over to the community assembly.

“This really is a communitywide issue,” parks spokeswoman Marion Severud told the group. “We brought this before you to see if we as a community could come up with a solution to this question.”

At issue: What should be the rules when it comes to park names? Although the department has a park-naming policy, it says nothing about renaming existing parks.

That has happened only once before, in 1991, when Harmon Park became Harmon-Sharpley in honor of neighborhood activist Elizabeth Sharpley.

The East Central Neighborhood Council voted against the Liberty Park proposal earlier this summer. Residents gathered about 400 signatures opposing the change but supporting some other tribute to Hamp.

“What we’ve heard from the neighborhood folks we’ve talked to is, ‘Don’t rename the park,”’ East Central council President Eric Johnson told the assembly. “We’re willing to sit down and look at just about anything besides renaming the park.”

Hamp said his father, a leader in the East Central neighborhood for decades, deserves the honor. He also gathered nearly 400 signatures.

He told the community assembly a compromise isn’t enough.

“If we settled for alternatives all our lives, where would we be today?” he said. “If we keep shuffling our feet … nothing’s going to happen.”

The community assembly agreed to study the proposal and decide at its next meeting whether to tackle the issue.

The group can either address the specific Liberty Park issue or devise a renaming policy to present to the Parks Department.

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