Title
Consideration of Citizen Petition Requesting the Names of Indian School Road, Steele Indian School Park and Robert E. Lee Street Be Changed
Description
This report provides the Land Use and Livability Subcommittee with information in response to a citizen petition submitted by Ms. Susan Steinberg in which she requests that the names of Indian School Road, Steele Indian School Park and Robert E. Lee Street be changed (Attachment A).
THIS ITEM IS FOR DISCUSSION AND POSSIBLE ACTION.
Report
Summary
The petitioner requests that the names of the park and the two City streets be changed due to their "offensive and derogatory nature."
On July 1, 2020, the City Council gave approval to begin the formal process for the proposed renaming of Robert E. Lee Street, as requested by Mayor Gallego and Councilwoman Williams. After the completion of an extensive public input process and technical review, the City Council will consider officially renaming this street at the September 16 Formal Meeting. Mayor Gallego and Councilwoman Williams requested the name change consideration under a 2017 update to the Street Naming Policy that allows the mayor or three council members to request formal consideration to change a street name that is deemed offensive or derogatory based on City Code Section 18-1 (Attachment B).
The Parks and Recreation Board has the authority under the City Charter to name City parks. Indian School Road was named for the Phoenix Indian School, which operated at a 160-acre site at 3rd Street and Indian School Road from 1891 to 1990. City Historic Preservation Office staff found Indian School Road formally listed in city directories as early as 1919. According to a brief history from the Arizona State Library, the Phoenix Indian School opened in 1891 as the only Bureau of Indian Affairs-run school in Arizona. The Phoenix Indian School and others like it throughout the country originally were operated as boarding schools for Native American children to force assimilation to Anglo-American Christian culture. By the 1920s, attitudes toward Native American education evolved and the schools discarded assimilation to focus more on technical and vocational skills. By the 1930s, the school shifted to teaching only high school-age children as the education of children in lower grades was shifted toward on-reservation schools. Through the 20th century, tribes continued to build schools to meet the educational needs of their children, which led to a decline in enrollment and eventual closure of the Phoenix Indian School by 1990.
In 1987, before the final closure of the school, national, state and local agencies began efforts to document the history of the site and preserve the three most significant historic structures from the original school site, according to a 1992 staff report for the Phoenix Historic Preservation Commission (Attachment C). Eventually, a 1996 land swap between the federal government, the City of Phoenix and the Barron Collier Company enabled preservation of the three buildings and additional acreage from the original school site for the creation of a new City park. The park was opened in 2001 and is named after Horace C. Steele, who donated $2.5 million through the Steele Foundation to begin the park's development.
The 72-acre park's design and master plan was created with the collaboration and input of Tribal communities throughout Arizona and pays homage to the site's history by incorporating Native American concepts of life, earth and the universe into its design. Of the three buildings remaining from the original school, Memorial Hall and the Phoenix Indian School Visitor Center are available for public use. The third remaining building, which served as the school's Dining Hall, is not yet open to the public. The Phoenix Indian School Visitor Center, located in what was the school's Band/Music Building, is operated through a collaboration of the Local Initiative Support Coalition, the Phoenix Indian Center, Native American Connections and the City of Phoenix.
In addition to the mayor/councilmember-led process mentioned above, the city's Street Naming Policy includes an avenue for property owners of a street to request a change of a recorded street name. Details of that process are available in the attached Street Naming Policy (Attachment B). The Parks and Recreation Board has a process and oversight for the naming of parks that should be utilized to explore any potential name changes.
Location
Indian School Road is a major arterial street approximately 21 miles long that runs east to west roughly from 60th Street west to North El Mirage Road. Steele Indian School Park is located at 300 E. Indian School Rd. Robert E. Lee Street, located in northeast Phoenix, runs east-west roughly from 52nd Street to State Route 51, and contains a small non-contiguous section just east of Cave Creek Road.
Council Districts: 2, 4, 5, 6 and 7
Department
This item is submitted by Deputy City Managers Mario Paniagua and Inger Erickson, and the Planning and Development, Parks and Recreation, and Street Transportation departments.