Panel Wants to Name Convention Center for King

The city’s new bayfront convention center should be named for slain civil-rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., a committee of community and business leaders has recommended.

The vote, taken Thursday after eight poorly attended public hearings held throughout San Diego, reflected “the people’s choice,” said the Rev. George Stevens, a committee member. The recommendation will be forwarded to the City Council for consideration.

Stevens and another committee member, Howard Owens, said that the convention center recommendation was not among the top nominees of members of the committee, which was created to find a fitting memorial to King.

“This idea of naming the convention center after Dr. King was the overwhelming choice of the people, especially schoolchildren who wrote to us and attended some of our meetings,” Stevens said.

Owens said the committee vote to recommend naming the convention center for King was 8 to 4.

“We decided to avoid the controversy that occurred before,” when a City Council decision to change Market Street to Martin Luther King Way was overturned in November by San Diego voters, Owens explained, “by not recommending renaming of any street or building.”

He said that the committee, which was chosen by Mayor Maureen O’Connor and the City Council, will make a formal presentation to the council sometime this summer, perhaps delaying it until after O’Connor returns from a trip to the Soviet Union.

Stevens said that, although he had not at first championed the naming of the $143.5-million convention center now being built on Harbor Drive, “it would be a fitting action.”

“San Diego made negative news nationally,” Stevens said of the November action, “and this would be a chance to erase that image. Because it will attract national bookings, the naming of the convention center after Dr. King will make a positive statement nationally.”

At its final decision-making session Thursday, the group--the King Tribute Advisory Board--recommended to the council that the annual King Day parade be moved from Market Street to Broadway, where it would receive more exposure.

Also approved, Owens said, was a Chamber of Commerce-sponsored proposal to erect a statue or monument to King in Balboa Park and to sponsor a citywide scholarship awards program. Fund raising for the projects has already begun.

A final decision on the convention center name will be made by the City Council, Owens said.