Santa Maria City Councilman To Meet With Residents of Cesar Chavez Drive

SANTA MARIA, Calif. (KEYT) - Santa Maria city councilman Richard Batalla met with residents of Cesar Chavez Drive this evening.

The sunset gathering yielded a productive discussion.

Cities and organizations across the country are removing Chavez's name from streets and schools in response to recent sexual misconduct allegations against the late farmworker rights leader.

“Any sort of thing related to him, it’s been beginning to get like erased, so to speak,” says Brandon Felix-Villarreal, who lives on Cesar E. Chavez Drive. “And it just seems like a knee jerk reaction.”

The city council voted unanimously in June to rename the street.

“They sent out a survey, like asking all of us whether we wanted to go ahead and change the street name,” says Felix-Villarreal. “And pretty much it was a near unanimous no. We're going to have to change all our bank account stuff, credit, people have trusts, shipping addresses for everything. You know, like I have a medication that's delivered biweekly.”

About sixty homeowners who live on the small street next to Tommie Kunst Junior High are protesting the name change, and Councilman Batalla took the time to meet with them personally.

“I believe district one lacked leadership for, for a while,” says Richard Batalla, District One Supervisor for the City Of Santa Maria. “And you can notice it when you're talking to people that live in this area. It was a great conversation. They took out a lot of their anger of what's going on. And I'm just here being the best public servant I can be.”

The residents say the $26,000 price tag will be added to their taxes, and they’d rather see the money spent on safety enhancements around the junior high school instead.

“I almost died down the road because somebody T-boned me,” says Felix-Villarreal.

The councilman listened and acknowledged their concerns.

“I did hear them out. I do agree with them. There needs to be some transparency here,” says Batalla. “This street name has been changed three times, and I think as a city overall, we need to focus on bigger issues that we're currently facing rather than the street name.”

Batalla says he plans to relay the meeting and the concerns of his constituents to his colleagues on the city council.

“That's why I applied for this position to begin with,” says Batalla. “I’m from this town. I want this town to succeed. I want this town to give back to my kids when they're old enough.”

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