Hello.

It was 8 years ago today — 12 September 2013 — that the California State Senate "sealed the deal" by voting 26–7–6 to approve a nonbinding resolution to name the western section of the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge — the section from Yerba Buena Island to San Francisco — the "Willie L. Brown, Jr., Bridge."

Reviewing the coverage from 2013 and 2014, it's worth noting that every local news organization — SFist, San Francisco Bay Guardian, San Francisco Chronicle, NBC/ABC/CBS affiliates, KQED — everybody — got it wrong and gave too much away by classifying the legislature's move as a "renaming."

The Willie Brown honor was not — and is not — a REnaming. It is simply an additional, honorary naming such as the state legislature since the 1960s has authorized for some 30 other state bridges.

The state continues to recognize "San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge" — which includes the Willie Brown Bridge — as the name of the larger bridge system connecting Oakland to San Francisco.

Caltrans has muddied the waters by trying to brand the new eastern section of the Bay Bridge as "the new Bay Bridge" — as though the original western section no longer were a part of the Bay Bridge. But, Caltrans doesn't have naming authority. The legislature does.

The Emperor Norton Trust is proposing that the larger Bay Bridge system get its own "additional, honorary" name — the "Emperor Norton Bridge" — leaving in place all existing names, just as the state legislature left "San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge" in place when it named the western section of the bridge for Willie Brown.

We want to see this done in 2022 — the 150th anniversary of the Emperor's three Proclamations, in 1872, setting out the original vision for the bridge.

We'll be ramping up our advocacy for this in the coming weeks and months.

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But, today, we note that our Emperor Norton Bridge naming petition stands at 6,391 — just 9 signatures shy of 6,400.

Do you know someone who still needs to sign this petition?

You know what to do.

Cheers!

JOHN LUMEA
The Emperor Norton Trust

For much more information about this project, go to EmperorNortonBridge.org