News - Local

Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2009

Rebuilt Gulfport center could switch names

Proposal upsets some in Lyman, Orange Grove

GULFPORT — Patrons of the old Orange Grove-Lyman Community Center are upset because the city administration is considering a name change, a move it says is aimed at promoting unity.

Mayor George Schloegel and officials with the Leisure Services Department have discussed changing the name to the Highway 49 Community Center when the building is dedicated in January.

“When I heard about this, I broke down and cried because this is our community center out here,” said Ann Stewart, who lives in Lyman and helped establish the center.

To add insult to injury, Stewart said, nobody discussed the potential name change with residents.

“We just heard about it through the grapevine,” Stewart said. “I just asked George.”

Stewart was referring to Mayor George Schloegel, who campaigned in the spring for a unified Gulfport.

City spokesman Ryan LaFontaine said Wednesday that Schloegel wants to put to rest the separation between Gulfport and Orange Grove, which was annexed by the city in 1994.

Annexation caused bitter feelings in Orange Grove. In fact, many residents long referred to their community as Occupied Orange Grove.

“The idea behind considering a name change is to help build unity in our city,” LaFontaine said in an e-mail. “To make us one Gulfport, not Orange Grove or Lyman or Gulfport or Old Gulfport, but just Gulfport.”

LaFontaine said a final decision “will likely be made at the City Council level.”

He said name changes are not being considered for other centers named after their communities — for example, Gaston Point and Handsboro, where the mayor grew up and still lives.

Comparing those centers with Orange Grove, he said, “is apples and oranges.”

The folks in Orange Grove and Lyman felt strongly about their center’s name from the start. The center originally was named the Orange Grove Community Center.

Stewart, who lives in Lyman, said residents protested, so a new sign was ordered bearing the name Orange Grove-Lyman Community Center.

The city decided to rebuild the busy center after a fire badly damaged it in 2007.

A temporary Orange Grove Community Center sign went up. Then-Councilwoman Barbara Nalley, who represented Ward 7 where the center is located, received numerous complaints.

The administration, then headed by Mayor Brent Warr, assured her the Orange Grove-Lyman sign would return when the building reopened.

Nalley objects to a name change.

Her successor, Councilwoman Cara Pucheu, did not return a telephone call to comment.

“At least it will go before the City Council and be out in the open,” Nalley said.

She believes the name would have been changed without public input had residents not brought the proposed name change to the newspaper’s attention.

“If you change one,” Nalley said, “you need to change them all. But again, take it to the people. I’m just a citizen. Don’t let me find out this is going on behind closed doors.”