Goodbye, Columbus.
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to remove Christopher Columbus' name from his commemorative day in October, and instead honor the indigenous people living in California long before it was discovered by European explorers.
The second Monday in October will now be known as Indigenous Peoples Day.
The 10-1 vote on the resolution sponsored by Supervisor Malia Cohen elicited cheers and jeers in the board chambers. It came after the board rejected Aaron Peskin's request that it be postponed.
Peskin, the lone dissenter, said he had been snowed with emails from Italian Americans in his district, which includes North Beach -- home of Columbus Avenue. Many of them mark Columbus day as part of their own ancestral heritage.
Peskin proposed that the board "try to figure out a path forward" that works for both groups. His colleagues shot down the motion to delay consideration of the resolution in a 7-4 vote, saying that Indigenous People's Day was long overdue.
Also on Tuesday, the board unanimously approved the sale of a crime-plagued McDonald's on Haight and Stanyan streets for $15.5 million. The city plans to build affordable housing on the site.
(c)2018 the San Francisco Chronicle
