Fiscal Note
The proposed resolution creates the City of Madison Honorary Street Naming Program. As proposed, this program will be funded though the Traffic Engineering Division Signs and Markings budget. It is anticipated that the cost of the project will not exceed $1000 annually, equal to about two streets, and can be paid for through the existing budget.
Title
Creating the City of Madison Honorary Street Name Program
Body
WHEREAS, The City of Madison is creating a new program to allow streets to have Honorary Street name to offer an opportunity to honor people or events that are part of Madison's hidden history and that have not traditionally been recognized.
WHEREAS, in July 2021, The City of Madison conducted a Racial Equity and Social Justice Initiative Analysis of the existing street naming program and found that there are very few City streets named after historically underrepresented or marginalized people including BIPOC, LGBTQIA+ people, women and people with disabilities, among others; and
WHEREAS, changing official street names is very expensive and negatively impacts many residents especially people with low incomes, or people who have barriers to updating legal documents, and people who have barriers to voting; and
WHEREAS, the existing APM on Honorary Street Names only speaks to the process of honoring a past official street name after it has been changed; and
WHEREAS, the City’s existing policy for official street names has also been proposed for updating to be more inclusive for the naming of new streets, however that does not address the lack of traditionally underrepresented street naming of existing streets; and
WHEREAS, the RESJI analysis recommends creating an Honorary Street Name Program to address the need for recognition and celebration of important people in Madison’s history from historically underrepresented or marginalized communities and to include input of Indigenous Nations when using their place names; and
WHEREAS, ...
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