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Honorary street name for slain grocer gets mixed support from Ogden commission

By Deborah Wilber - | Nov 9, 2021

TIM VANDENACK, Standard-Examiner

Super Grocery at 675 N. Monroe Blvd. is pictured Monday, March 8, 2021. Satnam Singh, the store owner and operator, was shot and killed on Feb. 28, 2021, and a supporter seeks to give 675 North an honorary designation, Satnam Singh Drive.

OGDEN — A motion to recommend approval of an honorary designation for a portion of 675 North to be named Satnam Singh Drive — so dubbed in memory of Singh, who died after being shot in his corner store Feb. 28 — resulted in a 4-4 tie by the Ogden City Planning Commission last week. Any motion resulting in a tie automatically fails.

Greg Montgomery, Ogden City planning manager, said the body forwarded the petition to the Ogden City Council with no recommendation after a secondary motion to deny it passed in a 5-3 vote.

Jesse Redden, Ogden city resident and petitioner for Satnam Singh Drive, spoke at Wednesday’s meeting in an attempt to understand the latest hurtle with his petition to have an honorary designation for the owner of Super Grocery.

A petition started by Redden received several thousand signatures nationwide and some from outside the country.

Both the current and a proposed honorary street name ordinance state, “Petitioner (is) to provide a statement regarding the public purpose to be accomplished by the change.”

Redden argues that there has never been a description or definition of a public purpose in the past regarding honorary designations, and claims City Attorney Mark Stratford and Principal Engineer Ian Frankland “just came up with one.”

“The types of public purposes served by other honorary street names include national civic contributions (such as Martin Luther King) and significant long-term community institutions (such as names associated with high schools),” according to city documents.

Beyond the ordinance, the city does not have an established guide as to when honorary street names should or should not be given and what constitutes a “public purpose.”

In past deliberations, commissioners cited an Ogden City Planning Commission staff report from Dec. 7, 1994, stating name changes should not be made just to honor someone, but that they should serve a public purpose that would outweigh any inconvenience the change causes.

The City Attorney’s Office has recommended 675 North not be given an honorary name after Singh, finding that his passing and the desire to recognize Singh by those who knew him does not rise to a level that would warrant such an honor.

Vague or confusing language is one of the reasons the current ordinance is under revision. Some of the biggest issues with the current ordinance under evaluation include ambiguous statements such as “any other good cause” and “public purpose.” “This can mean different things to different people,” the new ordinance proposal reads.

City Engineer Justin Anderson has not recommended the street name as he does not believe it serves a public purpose. Having expanded upon what constitutes a public purpose in the absence of a clear definition in the past, Redden wonders why the city is unwilling to expand on it once more.

According to Redden, the city only recently mentioned what constitutes a public purpose: “events or leadership on a larger scale than one one individual’s contribution to a single neighborhood.”

Montgomery said he believes that while Singh’s death was tragic, there are other ways to honor him.

“Put a plaque on the property,” he said. “You don’t need the city’s approval for that.”

The Council office has not received a transmittal or recommendation on the petition, as it has yet to be reviewed by the mayor’s office and the legal department.

The planning commission is recommending the City Council first adopt a policy guiding honorary street names before acting on Redden’s request. Should the Council adopt the honorary street name, planning commissioners have suggested applying the name to 670 North from Gramercy Avenue to 950 East.

Neither police nor fire personnel in Ogden have concerns with emergency services being affected by the honorary name change. According to the planning commission agenda, the proposed name is unique enough that it wouldn’t cause confusion with other streets, such as Signs Lane located south of Weber State University.

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