City Of Roseville Continues Work To Rename City Park

Press release from the City of Roseville:

February 11, 2022

At its January 31 meeting, Roseville City Council offered input to the Parks and Rec Commission on renaming Pocahontas Park to better reflect aspects of the City. The Commission began looking into the issue after residents raised concerns over the issue.

City policy states that City Parks be named after natural habitat, geographic location or appropriate nondescript terminology, such as acronyms or the joining of two words, names or activities. Only under “certain and exceptional circumstances” will consideration be given to the names of individuals, organized groups, associations or businesses. Pocahontas has no direct ties to Roseville or its current or past Native populations.

After a year of engagement on the issue, including brainstorming ideas on how to best honor Native Americans living in the city, the commission recommended to the council that the name be changed and offered several ideas for how to choose that name.

Parks and Recreation Commissioner Darrell Baggenstoss discussed one such idea to the council, offing that the commission could consider paying a stipend to a Native American representative who may act as a consultant with the group to offer their guidance on the issue.

He said the final product would be “a legacy that stands hopefully for 100 years or more, because we did it the right way this time, which was to bring a voice to the table.”

Roseville has 32 parks, two of which are named after police officers killed in the line of duty: Howard Johnson and Bruce Russell.

This press release was produced by the City of Roseville. The views expressed here are the author’s own.