People don’t like it when you mess with their icons.
Public fury over a proposal to rename an iconic seawall park after a snack chip led Frito-Lay to ask Galveston County commissioners to halt the renaming process, a Frito-Lay spokeswoman said Wednesday.
Galveston city officials had asked commissioners to recognize a $1 million donation by Frito-Lay to help remodel Fort Crockett Park by changing its name to Sun Chip Park at Fort Crockett.
The seawall park is best known for the statue dedicated to the thousands killed by the 1900 Hurricane — a man holding a child in one hand and the other reaching skyward.
Frito-Lay spokeswoman Aurora Gonzalez said the company asked officials Monday to halt the 30-day comment period required for a name change but would not renege on its offer to assist in the Hurricane Ike recovery.
County Parks Director Dennis Harris said he would formally ask the commissioners Tuesday to discontinue the public comment period.
“Just to be absolutely clear, there is no connection between how the brand is recognized and the funding,” Gonzalez said. “The unfortunate part is it’s sort of a distraction from the larger intent and what the larger need is.”
Gonzalez said Frito-Lay would discuss another way to recognize the company’s contribution, for instance placing its name on a plaque.
I’m thinking the plaque is probably the better idea. We name parks after donors all the time, and I’m sure that there are plenty of examples of parks named after corporations out there now. I don’t have any problem with that, but that’s usually done when the park is first being opened. It’s another thing to change the name of an existing, well-known park to honor someone or something’s largesse. Put up a plaque to tell the story, maybe call a subsection of the park Sun Chip Plaza or something, and leave it at that.