Law Is No Obstacle In Renaming Park, Graham Says

D.C. Council member Jim Graham (D-Ward 1) says the city law prohibiting a public space from being named after a living person won't hinder his proposal to rename Girard Park in Columbia Heights Barack Hussein Obama Park.

Graham proposed the name change at last week's council meeting. If the council agrees, the recently renovated park at 14th and Girard streets NW will become the first city facility named after the president.

The city code states: "No public space in the District shall be named in honor of any living person."

After the issue of the code arose, Graham sent an e-mail to his constituents informing them that the council has the authority to override the law without having to amend the code.

"For years, the council has been naming public spaces after living persons," Graham wrote.

He pointed to a 2007 opinion from the council's chief legal counsel that he says clears the way for the council to ignore the law, which dates to 1983. "Although the council adopted a statute, prohibiting a public space from being named in honor of a living person, I am constrained to conclude that because nothing in the Home Rule Act or federal law prohibits the council from amending, repealing or superseding that statute, that the council is not legally bound by that prohibition, so long as the council's approval is in the form of an act," wrote Brian K. Flowers, the general counsel.

Graham said the council renamed roadways last year in honor of radio mogul Cathy Hughes and musician Chuck Brown, both of whom are living. Graham also noted that an alley next to Ben's Chili Bowl on U Street NW is named Ben Ali Way in honor of the restaurant owner, who is also living.

"What I propose will create an exception," Graham said in an interview. "Every legislature passes laws that change earlier laws. But the fact that the city code says anything at all about naming a public space in honor of a living person will surely give ammunition to critics of the proposal."

Enter the city's minority party: the Republicans.

The D.C. Republican Committee, not surprisingly, has come out against Graham's proposal.

Robert Kabel, chairman of the GOP committee, sent Graham a letter this week suggesting that the council instead rename the park in honor of former U.S. senator Edward Brooke, a District native who was the first African American elected to the Senate after Reconstruction.

Brooke, a Republican, represented Massachusetts from 1967 to 1979. Brooke is also still alive; he lives in the Watergate.