AUSTIN, TX — A recent official review of municipal property in Austin with direct or indirect ties to the Confederacy, aimed at removing Southern symbols of the Civil War, yielded an immutable fact: The man for whom the city is named, Stephen F. Austin, worked against efforts to abolish slavery.

The finding has given rise to some support to rename the city. Dubbed "The Father of Texas," Austin was at odds with the Mexican government's effort to abolish slavery at a time when the Lone Star State was but a province named Tejas. At the time, Austin was arguably the region's most successful businessman, bringing in farmers and ranchers seeking to secure unsettled land.

Even though Austin in 1831 proclaimed slavery to be the "curse of curses," he saw it as something of a necessary evil. If freed, he added, slaves would become "vagabonds, a nuisance and a menace." And so, he found loopholes in maintaining the unpaid, forced labor forces as a necessary piston in the economic engine of the times. The city's Equity Office last week recommended, as a high priority, renaming seven streets and removing three historical markers honoring figures of the Confederacy. In a second enumeration of items without recommendations but with suggested review, officials asked for light to be shed on other lingering vestiges of the past that — while not connected directly to the Confederacy — were indisputably tied to racism, segregation and slavery.

On a list of places the Equity Office merely suggested for reconsideration are Pease Park, the Bouldin Creek neighborhood, Barton Springs and 10 streets named for William Barton, a slave owner nicknamed the "Daniel Boone of Texas." who was a slave owner. Warranting more immediate action are several streets named after Confederacy figures, including: • Littlefield Street

• Tom Green Street

• Sneed Cove

• Reagan Hill Drive

• Dixie Drive

• Confederate Avenue

• Plantation Road

In the Equity Office reckoning, one name jumped out among all of them: The name of the city itself — Austin. The surname is among those for whom places are named that is, shall we say, problematic given recent resurgence in banishing Confederacy-era homages.

City officials have telegraphed to various media outlets there are no plans to rename the city, despite of its namesake's checkered past as it relates to slavery. In its list, the Equity Office placed the cost of renaming the targeted streets at $5,956.23. Not included was an estimate to completely rename the city itself — a scenario that would undoubtedly come at a cost of untold millions.