Barack Obama Boulevard in Milpitas? City considers renaming Dixon Landing Road to honor president

MILPITAS — Milpitas may become the first city in Silicon Valley to rename a street after President Barack Obama.

The City Council will take up the issue tonight after Councilmen Anthony Phan and Bob Nuñez suggested the city consider changing Dixon Landing Road’s name to honor the 44th president, and to send a message to the broader region about the growing city.

“I think it’s about what President Obama represents, and how his values, his virtues are reflected in Milpitas as it is today as a city and a community,” Phan said Tuesday when reached by phone.

“When I think of Obama I think of hope and change, and when it comes to Milpitas, I am very excited of all the opportunities that are coming to Milpitas and where it will be as a city in Silicon Valley moving forward.”.

But it’s not just about the name, it’s about the location.

“Dixon Landing Road is essentially the entry point into Santa Clara County,” Phan said of the highly visible road which passes over Interstate 880.

“I think that renaming it as President Obama, it supposed to frame Silicon Valley as an optimistic land of opportunities, if you will.”

Nuñez added that he thinks the name change could add cachet to the city, and show businesses, international travelers, and the average resident that the city is thinking about issues beyond its borders.

Both Phan and Nuñez, a Democrat and Republican, respectively, said the name change shouldn’t be taken as a partisan initiative.

The decision may not be finalized tonight, but the council will likely signal whether there’s enough broad support for the change.

Nuñez said he’d like Milpitas “to be first” to make the change in Silicon Valley, if possible, as similar efforts stemming from as far back as 2017 in San Jose have yet to become a reality.

Both councilmen said it’s unclear how much of the road would be renamed. After its crossing with Milpitas Boulevard to the east, Dixon Landing Road becomes Dixon Road, which continues into the working-class Sunnyhills neighborhood, one of the nation’s first integrated communities.

Phan said if possible he’d like to see the change in effect along the entire road, as Obama got his political start in organizing diverse, working-class communities like Sunnyhills.

Obama also stayed at the Milpitas Sheraton on one of his visits to the region in 2016, where the cooks whipped him up one of his favorite snacks — chips and guacamole.

And current Mayor Rich Tran was so inspired by the former president, that he lifted passages from Obama’s 2008 acceptance speech into his own inauguration address in 2016.

It’s unclear how much a name change could cost, or how long it would take to finalize.

The council meeting begins at 7 p.m. at Milpitas City Hall, at 455 E Calaveras Blvd.