`James Brown' Bridge Spurs Community Soul-Searching

STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, Colo. - Building the new 328-foot bridge in this staid cowtown-turned-zippy-ski resort was a snap. Naming it was the sticky part.

Try this on: "The James Brown Soul Center of the Universe Bridge."

That's James Brown as in The Godfather of Soul, the hardest working man in show business, he of the flying feet and sweaty sex appeal. Remember those classics?

Well, Papa's got a brand new bridge.

A bridge named not after the usual Western stuff - a Native American tribe or a longtime ranching family or a snow-fed stream - but after a black guy from Georgia with a prison record to go with his phonograph records urging kids to stay in school, have pride and avoid drugs.

What should have been a simple dedication ceremony, set for Sept. 15 and featuring Brown himself, has turned bitter, exposing the deep social chasms in a once-sleepy town that, for better or worse, is awakening.

It is a tale of rampant ballot-box stuffing, of vacillating politicians and of feelings so hard that city officials are afraid that if they erect a plaque with the new name, some angry opponent will rip it down.

"It's been a real mess," said Maybelle Chotvacs, a grandmother of 10 who battled the James Brown name. "They have just split us. We are dead serious about this. We are not Detroit or Los Angeles. We like to keep our Western heritage."

Others, such as Ashley Winters, sales manager of the All That Jazz record store on the city's main street, find humor and creativity in the new name. Winters, whose store is enjoying a modest boom in sales of James Brown recordings, said she was puzzled by all the fuss.

"It's just a bridge," she said.

The weirdness began three years ago.

Steamboat Springs held a contest to name a city park. Most of the entries were respectful. And boring. A young city employee named Craig Poff decided to do something about it.

Poff suggested the James Brown Soul Center of the Universe Park.

Why? When Poff was growing up in Albany, Mo., he had a neighbor who just loved James Brown. Poff, now 26, moved to Steamboat Springs in 1989.

"Steamboat was my soul center of the universe," Poff said in a telephone interview. "James just gave it a little oomph."

The contest winner was Ski Town Sports Center Park. Yawn.

But Poff's wacky entry charmed some local reporters and public officials in a town that was breaking away from its rawhide roots.

Then, construction began on a replacement for the old Stock Bridge, so-called because ranchers once drove livestock across it.

Another naming contest was in order.

In January, the city asked for suggestions, which board members of the Tread of the Pioneers museum would sift before recommending finalists to the City Council.

Poff by this time had left Steamboat Springs, but his goofy idea lived on. Someone added James Brown Soul Center of the Universe Bridge to the 60 or so suggestions City Manager Harvey Rose submitted to the museum.

The museum board deliberated, chose five safe candidates with local significance and, just for grins, gave James Brown an honorable mention. In a state where the town of Avon made headlines for naming a bridge Bob and starting a "Bobfest" that attracts thousands, it didn't seem that strange.

In April, the City Council members looked at the list and, feeling frisky, chose James Brown. Chotvacs cried foul and a five-month frenzy began.

Council members backed off and put the matter to a public ballot. Brown won. Again the council voted to name the bridge for him and, as written comments to the council demonstrated, the town truly became polarized.

"Our City Council must be on drugs," an opponent said.

"Yes! Rock on!" a supporter said.

Chotvacs and others collected 1,100 signatures in opposition. Council members decided not to name the bridge at all. Then, rallied by a local radio station, KFMU, 1,500 people signed a petition supporting James Brown.

It was time for the politicians to punt this one to the people.

The council called for a no-holds-barred popularity contest in which anyone in Routt County could vote as often as he or she cared to.

There are 14,500 people in the county. There were 26,381 ballots submitted. James Brown won by 258 votes.

Brown said in an interview with KFMU that he was pleased and honored. He said he felt good. Like we knew that he would.

Not everyone felt that way, however.

Gary Miner, who grew up two blocks from the garage where he supervises vehicle maintenance for the city's high school, said naming the bridge after Brown would continue the loss of what he called "the innocent life" in Steamboat Springs.

It has not escaped attention that Brown recently served two years in prison for threatening police officers and resisting arrest. While on parole, which he completed in August, he was required to take treatment for substance abuse.

"Then they turn around and make a hero out of this person," Miner said.

Yet Brown is a hero to many who tapped their toes to the incredible 44 hit songs he had between 1960 and 1986. Long before it was trendy, his songs preached against drugs and violence and for black pride.

Although the official name of the bridge has been decided, the tension lingers. Opponents are vowing to call it New Stockbridge or Twenty Mile Bridge, two of the names selected by the museum board, and are urging the city to forgo a ceremony and a sign.

"People say this is a silly thing, that we need to lighten up," said Chotvacs, who plays violin in the town orchestra and will take country crooner Randy Travis over James Brown any day. "But if they get this name on the bridge, it will stay there until the bridge falls down."

Actually, it might not last that long - unless the name plate is very, very well-secured.

"Country people kind of take care of their own thing, and sometimes it's not the legal way," Miner said. "Ah, you never know."