{"id":313611,"date":"2026-05-29T07:08:30","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T07:08:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/313611\/"},"modified":"2026-05-29T07:08:30","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T07:08:30","slug":"it-could-cost-1-2-million-to-rename-austins-cesar-chavez-street","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/313611\/","title":{"rendered":"It could cost $1.2 million to rename Austin’s Cesar Chavez Street"},"content":{"rendered":"

Audio recording is automated for accessibility. Humans wrote and edited the story. See our AI policy on our About page<\/a> and give us feedback<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The City of Austin estimates it could cost up to $1.2 million to rename Cesar Chavez Street.<\/p>\n

The cost includes paying for new street and highways signs, and the public engagement process. It does not include helping businesses deal with the name change. Businesses would be responsible for those costs once the change happens.<\/p>\n

Cesar Chavez Street stretches from MoPac through downtown and to U.S. 183. The road is home to hundreds of businesses and homes that would be affected by the change.<\/p>\n

In March, Austin City Council members said they wanted to\u00a0rename the street<\/a>\u00a0after a\u00a0New York Times\u00a0investigation included allegations from women that Chavez sexually assaulted and abused them as young girls.<\/p>\n

Before the city can change the name, it must hold community input meetings. Some Austinites\u00a0have said they have conflicted<\/a>\u00a0feelings about renaming the road.<\/p>\n

During a City Council work session this week, city staff said they plan to host three public meetings, one of which will be virtual, throughout July and August.<\/p>\n

Jessica King, director for the city\u2019s communications and engagement department, said the city has already received suggestions for a new name. She said the top three contenders are East First Street, Dolores Huerta Street and Jorge \u201cGeorge\u201d Pastore Street. Pastore was a senior police officer who died in the line of duty in 2023.<\/p>\n

Huerta has\u00a0publicly said<\/a>\u00a0she doesn\u2019t want her name to be used as a replacement. She said she prefers landmarks and public spaces be named after other people associated with the farm worker movement.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere has been some public objections to reverting to another individual from the farm workers movement,\u201d Council Member Mike Siegel said. \u201cHuerta\u2019s foundation asked that if we are going to rename it in that spirit it be of honor in of farmer workers generally.\u201d<\/p>\n

King said the survey has not been developed yet, and the city still plans to go through that process for other street name suggestions.<\/p>\n

The street has borne Chavez\u2019s name since 1993 to honor the work he did with the United Farm Workers, a labor union that helped win rights for farm workers, migrants and working-class Latinos<\/p>\n

Following the public input sessions, city staff will present their findings to council in September.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Audio recording is automated for accessibility. Humans wrote and edited the story. See our AI policy on our…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":313612,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,1501,134,133,15804,97614],"class_list":["post-313611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-city-council","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-cesar-chavez","tag-roads-and-streets"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=313611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313611\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/313612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=313611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=313611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=313611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}