Attorney’s Plan to Alter Street Name Resisted

To attorney Peter A. Goldenring, his request to the city seems reasonable.

But to his neighbors, what this newly arrived lawyer wants is pompous, ridiculous or downright outrageous.

Ever since Goldenring moved his offices to 3rd Street in Ventura about 1 1/2 years ago, much of his mail has been delivered to better-known 3rd streets in Oxnard, Fillmore and Port Hueneme.

Goldenring said few people know the relatively obscure 3rd Street in Ventura--a two-block-long strip just off Victoria Avenue with only four mailing addresses.

To avoid further mail delays that have caused him to miss court deadlines, the attorney has asked the city to change the street’s name to the more distinctive, slightly adventurous Nighthawk Street.

The proposed name is appropriate, city officials said, because most of the streets just east of 3rd are named after birds. What’s more, Ventura doesn’t have a 2nd Street or a 4th Street, so why should it have a 3rd?

On Tuesday, the Planning Commission will decide whether to grant the name change.

Most of Goldenring’s neighbors oppose the idea.

“Seems quite fancy to me for a short industrial street,” said Wayne Sampson, manager of Cal-U-Rent Inc. construction rentals, whose yard faces 3rd Street.

“If they change the name to Nighthawk, people looking for 3rd Street aren’t going to find it,” said Robert McCall, who just moved into 3rd Street’s only house.

“I have a 3-year-old girl and a 5-year-old boy,” he said Friday as he unloaded furniture from his pickup truck. “For the kids, it’s easier to remember 3rd Street if they get lost . . . Besides, I like 3rd Street.”

But nobody is as outraged by the proposal as Myra Jane Morton of Myra Jane’s Preschool, which is at 3rd and Grand Avenue.

“When I got that letter my hair stood straight up,” she said, referring to the city’s notification about the proposal. “I’ve been here 11 years and now they want to change my street!”

Morton, who plans to fight the name change at Tuesday’s meeting, said she was not surprised to learn that Nighthawk Street was Goldenring’s idea.

“I knew it had to be them lawyers,” she said. “They come in here and want to change the neighborhood. But they’re the new kids in the block, and they’re going to have to wise up.”

At first, Goldenring said, he wanted Calle de Oro, which means “Street of Gold” in Spanish, because it fit nicely with his last name. But city officials told him that only bird names would do.

Goldenring then came up with Golden Eagle, only to learn that it was already taken--as were most of the more common bird names. “Nighthawk” was suggested by the attorney’s wife and mother-in-law. “I wanted a name that was fun, and I didn’t have to spell over the phone a lot,” Goldenring said.

Goldenring, who had not contacted his neighbors about the street name change, could hardly believe that his proposal was causing such a ruckus.

“What, are they attached to the name 3rd Street?” he said. “Does it give them a sense of pride?

“I bet they won’t go to the Planning Commission meeting,” he said. “After I visit them, they’ll shut up and they won’t make trouble.”