FRESNO, Calif. (FOX26) — FOX26 News spoke to Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer on Wednesday after Councilman Miguel Arias held a news conference proposing to remove the name of Cesar Chavez from city streets.
Arias made the comments after civil rights leader Dolores Huerta released a statement that Cesar Chavez sexually assaulted her.
She was responding to the news the day before, alleging that Chavez engaged in inappropriate sexual behavior with women and minors during his time as president of the United Farm Workers of America.
“I am nearly 96 years old, and for the last 60 years have kept a secret because I believed that exposing the truth would hurt the farmworker movement I have spent my entire life fighting for,” said Huerta.
She also said that she had two children in secret because of the sexual assaults.
“I chose to keep my pregnancies secret and, after the children were born, I arranged for them to be raised by other families that could give them stable lives,” she said.
“First and foremost, I think the information is shocking to everyone that’s heard it,” said Mayor Dyer. “But what’s more shocking is who that information came from — an icon like Dolores Huerta who has the respect and admiration of everyone in our community, so much so that we named a park after her.
The mayor says he’s already had conversations with the council about renaming Cesar Chavez Blvd. back to what it was: California Avenue, Kings Canyon Road, and Ventura Avenue.
“I know the City Council members are having those discussions right now, and I would anticipate some type of an agenda item coming forward very quickly from the City Council, and I think that’s appropriate since they were the ones that,” said Mayor Dyer.
Dyer said he also feels for the Chavez family and the suffering they will have to endure.
But I also feel for Dolores Huerta, somebody I deeply admire. And for her to be able to come forward with this information, I know, took a lot of courage.
Dyer says the cost to remove the Chavez name will be minimal because the city kept all the old signs.
“Some of those signs will have to be repurchased, but the original cost was about $330,000 to to replace all of those signs on that street,” said Dyer.
Dyer said we don’t want to do anything that would change how we feel about farm workers.
“They have been the backbone of our Valley and California,” Dyer said. “They are the ones that have put food on our table, and we can’t take away what the treatment they had received at one point in time and the fact that.”
As a result of these efforts, farm worker benefits were provided to them. And so we have to remember that, but we don’t want any of this to take away from our farm workers.