OPINION
BY DAVE PRICE
Daily Post Editor
Onetta Harris, who died in 1982 at age 57, was a volunteer and activist who ran a teen program that kept youth away from drugs and booze. She was also instrumental in a nonprofit that rehabilitated housing and the Charles Drew Medical-Dental Center.
After she died, the city put her name on the community center at 100 Terminal Ave.
The community center is being rebuilt and expanded with money from Facebook parent Meta.
City Council saw this as an opportunity to strip Harris’ name from the facility.
The city’s Parks and Recreation Commission and Library Commission held hearings on naming the community center. Both boards recommended keeping Harris’ name on the new community center. But residents who spoke at those hearings came away with the impression that the decision to remove Harris’ name had already been made.
Then last Tuesday (Nov. 14), council voted 4-1 to name the new facility the Belle Haven Community Center.
Perhaps to quiet the critics, they put her name on the recreation area of the complex. But that’s a demotion.
The proposal to rename the center was made by Councilwomen Betsy Nash and Cecilia Taylor. Taylor represents the Belle Haven neighborhood. Taylor appears to be heavily influenced by her outspoken mother, Pam Jones.
We may never know what happened behind the scenes. But we know that there was no desire by the public to remove Onetta Harris’ name. This decision by council is a disgrace.
My guess is that Cecilia Taylor is clearing a spot for her name in a couple of years.
Funny as hell. Or, I’m afraid, it’s not funny, but creepy.
In the past, the Belle Haven/East Palo Alto area was avoided, relegated to a form of non-entityship. Local bold cultural pioneers, like Mrs. Harris were a stand for quality of life in the “minority” community. Her strength of character surmounted the dominant white cultural paradigm, end established some form of care and dignity for the people of the “East of Bayshore” community.
WE are seeing similar cultural appropriation in East Palo Alto. People who never showed up to help our combined communities when we were in need of assistance, now want to appropriate the achievements of people like Mrs. Harris, and seek to endow themselves with the credit for the difference Mrs. Harris made in the lives of thousands of others.
When will we ever see the day of true equality? When will the people who have access to the decision making process ever concede any similar circumstance to the residents “east if Bayshore”? There’s a reason it’s called the “Struggle”, and this is why.
This is the norm for the Menlo Park City Council. Let residents voice their opinions to a brick wall, because the council has already made up their minds. And it’s usually against the residents wishes.