Governance and Ethics Committee approves naming-policy changes, removes donation criterion

The Governance and Ethics Committee approved revisions to Council Policy 35 governing the naming of city streets, parks and other facilities, voting unanimously to accept staff recommendations while removing the policy's donation-based naming criterion.

The changes, presented at the committee's May meeting, add streets explicitly to the policy title, ask advisory bodies to submit two to three name options for consideration, consolidate the Historical Landmarks Commission's (HLC) process into the policy, and clarify naming criteria. Committee members also agreed to delete the clause that allowed property donations to determine a name and asked staff to gather the city's donation policies for a separate review.

The amendments aim to create a consistent, documented process for naming and renaming city assets and to reduce ad-hoc or last-minute decisions. City staff said the draft clarifies how HLC, the Parks and Recreation Commission and governance would interact and that HLC would maintain an annually updated master list of approved names to use when appropriate.

City staff presented the proposed edits and background. Maria Le, assistant to the city manager, summarized earlier work on the policy and the plan to fold HLC's practice into Council Policy 35. Damon Sparacino, director of parks and recreation, explained the operational change: “We would like to require 2 names be submitted to this body. So whether it comes from, HLC or, the Park and Rec Commission in order to give the body options.”

Committee members debated several topics during nearly two hours of discussion: whether HLC recommendations should continue to go directly to council or be routed through governance and ethics for additional vetting; whether naming rights or sponsorship agreements (for marketing purposes) belong in this council policy or should be handled by separate contract procedures; and how, if at all, donations of land or property should affect naming.

City staff proposed and the committee accepted removing item 9 (the donation-based criterion) from the naming policy; City Manager (title used in meeting) told the committee, “My recommendation is we simply delete item 9 as a allowable criteria in this policy and allow that to be vetted and discussed through the city council and donation, policies.” Staff committed to compiling existing donation policies and returning them for separate committee review. The committee also agreed that HLC recommendations should provide 2'3 options and that those recommendations will now be vetted by the Governance and Ethics Committee before proceeding to the full City Council.

Committee members raised additional clarifications they want added before final council action: stronger language preferring historically significant or geographic names over corporate names, clearer separation of short-term commercial naming contracts from permanent public-naming policy, and an explicit route for urgent items (staff said urgent requests can be brought to leadership or a special meeting).

The motion before the committee, moved by Committee Member Chahal, accepted staff recommendations with the amendment to remove the donation criterion and to exclude long-term business contract naming from this policy; the motion passed unanimously. Staff said the revised policy and related ordinance clarifications will be forwarded to the City Council for final action and that staff will gather and report back on existing donation policies.

Background: Council Policy 35 (Naming of Facilities) was last reviewed by this committee in March 2023 and previously authorized by the City Council in October (year stated in staff materials). The proposed amendments also formalize practices HLC has followed informally and add new guidance intended to reduce confusion when similar names exist in the city.

The committee requested staff return with redline language to: (1) remove the donation clause from Policy 35; (2) confirm that short-term commercial naming contracts (for example, negotiated naming rights for revenue-generating venues) are governed by separate contract policies; and (3) clarify how urgent naming requests are handled.

Votes at a glance: The committee approved the amended Council Policy 35 with the deletion of the donation criterion; the motion passed unanimously.

The policy changes will appear on an upcoming City Council agenda for final consideration. Staff will also prepare a package of existing donation policies and options for how the council may wish to govern donations tied to naming.