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Hollywood Commissioners Agree On Proposed Names For Confederate Streets

Woman holding sign at meeting
Caitie Switalski
/
WLRN
Dara Hill held up a sign during the workshop with suggested names of her own for the commission to consider.

"Liberty," "Freedom" and "Hope" are   expected to be the new names for the Hollywood streets currently named after Confederate generals.

Hollywood's city commission voted at the end of August to rename the three streets that currently bear names that honor the Confederate Gens. Robert E. Lee, Nathan Bedford Forrest and John B. Hood.

But what the new names for Forrest Street and Drive, Hood Street and Lee Street, should be was yet to be decided. Not anymore.

The commission met again on the subject Wednesday to discuss name ideas. The roundtable discussion was open to the public to attend, but not for any public comment. 

Hollywood Mayor Josh Levy moderated the discussion between his vice mayor and a handful of city commissioners. The suggestions for new names came from residents who live on the affected streets, from emails and Facebook, District 5 Commissioner Kevin Biederman said.

"Some of them were ludicrous ideas, or sarcastic ideas, while some of them were really positive," Biederman said.

Biederman also brought the ideas of "Peace,""Love" and "Harmony" to the table, and even suggested honoring fallen Hollywood police officers with the new street names. But, he and fellow Commissioner Richard Blattner of District 4 agreed on Liberty, Freedom and Hope.  

"I like the aspiration of it," Blattner said. "I like the fact that it speaks to what we want to be, and I have no problem at all with Liberty, Freedom and Hope." 

Initially,  commissioners talked about changing the streets to those of flowers, trees and other nature-themes. Then they came to the consensus that it would be too difficult to find unused names, and the nature theme wouldn't fit in well with the historical street names in the rest of the surrounding Liberia neighborhood.  

Debra Case, the commissioner for District 1, thinks the new names shed more light on the city's positivity.

"It gives us more of a Hollywood feeling," she said. "You know, light and lively."

Though Commissioner Linda Sherwood, District 6, ultimately agreed on the new names — she had originally wanted to name the streets after different people with the same names, (Lee, Hood, and Forrest), which would have prevented as much change for the residents living on them. 

The workshop was not a city commission vote, so the new agreed upon names still have to be made official. The next step is that the names Liberty, Freedom and Hope will be put on the meeting agenda in the form of a resolution. 

Levy said, this could happen as early as the Nov. 1 meeting or the following one on Nov. 15. 

The commission was scheduled to hold a regular meeting later on Wednesday, but commissioners were  not allowed to discuss the new street names before a formal resolution is presented. 

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