Minneapolis Park Board leadership is discussing the renaming of a park in honor of George Floyd, the agency’s president said two days after a “Floyd” decal was mysteriously placed on a park sign and later removed.

“I do not know who put the decal up” on the George Todd Park sign, Park Board President Jono Cowgill told the Star Tribune late Monday afternoon, “but I commend whoever it was for their creativity and detailed work.”

Cowgill went on to say, “I am very open to a park name change for George Floyd, and have had a few preliminary conversations on the topic with other commissioners.”

He said that any decisions about such a move “must be grounded in black and brown community voices.”

The unauthorized alteration of the sign along the eastern border of the park occurred Saturday night and was spotted by a maintenance worker on Sunday.

Board spokeswoman Dawn Sommers said the agency had no immediate plans to peel off the “Floyd” decal and reveal “Todd” underneath.

Paul Walsh, Star Tribune
The sign had read George Todd Park until recently. The covered-over name remains faintly visible.

“I learned [Monday] that the decal is gone,” Sommers said. “On Sunday, we had issued the directive to our staff to not remove the decal. ... Unfortunately, one of our early morning weekday crew members was unaware of the directive and removed the decal [Monday] morning.”

As for the label, which was a good match to the sign’s design, “it was unsalvageable and could not be re-adhered.”

Sommers said maintenance workers routinely remove materials posted or displayed throughout the park system, “so it’s unfortunate the early morning staff that start at 6 a.m. were unaware of the directive ... to not remove the decal.”

The park east of Diamond Lake and along the 5600 block of S. Chicago Avenue sits about 2¼ miles south of where a police officer pinned Floyd to the pavement before he died May 25.

George Todd was a park commissioner from 1957 to 1963. The board named the park in honor of Todd. The World War I veteran had cancer at the time. He died in 1964 at age 71.