Talk about "tokenism": The drive to name a street after Cesar Chavez, having been rejected for Ross Avenue and Industrial Boulevard, now is moving to a relatively small, multi-block portion of Central Expressway downtown, according to Rudy Bush with the DMN.

Mayor Tom Leppert reportedly supports this latest effort — after crashing and burning with the aforementioned two ideas, along with a brief flirtation with Young Street near City Hall, the new convention center hotel and the DMN building — so it looks like he’s going to keep agreeing with every suggested alternative until the council finally approves renaming just about any old street for Chavez. (I imagine this is another one of Leppert’s to-do list items that will look good during his Senate campaign.)

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Anyway, the affected area is between Pacific and Grand downtown, so the street running north of Pacific will remain Central Expressway. The whole thing is just confusing enough to satisfy politicians while confounding drivers and costing the few businesses along the strip a bunch of money to change letterhead, websites, etc.

At this point, really, what’s the point of this whole charade? The portion of Central they’re talking about renaming means nothing to anyone right now, which is precisely why the politicos have settled on it. But if it means nothing now, what benefit is the "honor" of renaming these blocks for Chavez — except for all of the political resumes involved?