[Posted Friday, May 20, 2022]
The results are in following the process conducted by the volunteer Rename the Wilson Pool Committee: 65% of 365 votes cast favor Hillsdale Pool as the new name for the pool, currently named Wilson Pool.
The pool renaming committee will recommend to Portland Parks and Recreation and the Portland City Council that the seasonal swimming facility, located on the Ida B. Wells campus and owned and operated by the parks bureau, be renamed Hillsdale Pool. The parks department has recently begun forming its own committee to recommend new names for the pool as well as A Park (formerly named Custer Park), as required by the process laid out in the city's official naming policy.
In the recently completed community-led process, suggestions for new names were solicited over a two-month period in which 21 names were proposed, followed by a one-month online voting process to choose the top contenders. Hillsdale Pool was the clear winner.
Here are the results:
Name | No. of votes received | Percentage of total votes |
Hillsdale Pool | 241 | 66.03 |
The Well | 20 | 5.48 |
Carolyn Wood Pool | 18 | 4.93 |
Wells Pool | 16 | 4.38 |
Wilson Pool | 16 | 4.38 |
Ida B's Well | 15 | 4.11 |
Ida B Aquatic | 10 | 2.74 |
WellsDale | 7 | 1.92 |
Brian Wilson Pool | 5 | 1.37 |
Kim Payton Pool | 3 | 0.82 |
Maritza McClendon Pool | 3 | 0.82 |
Zimmerman Pool | 3 | 0.82 |
Cocytus | 2 | 0.55 |
Raz Pool | 2 | 0.55 |
Josh Butts Pool | 1 | 0.27 |
RGB Pool | 1 | 0.27 |
Seraw Pool | 1 | 0.27 |
Well Best | 1 | 0.27 |
Gerald H. Williams Jr Pool | 0 | 0 |
Gertrude Ederle | 0 | 0 |
Kallesse Pool | 0 | 0 |
--Valeurie Friedman
Names create a sense of community and place. Is it better to choose names for our public spaces that honor specific individuals, or should we consider instead names that reflect geography or names that invoke characteristics that we want to encourage in our community? Let us know what you think about names.