After several years of discussion and months of council debate, the Bonney Lake City Council Tuesday night renamed the stretch of Sumner-Buckley Highway through the city in honor of veterans.

By a 4-2 vote, the council officially designated the road “Veterans Memorial Highway East.”

“I’m happy,” said Councilmember Mark Hamilton who led the effort to change the name. “I think it’s a great addition to the city of Bonney Lake.”

The idea of renaming the road in honor of veterans began in 2008 with a proposal from the Greater Bonney Lake Veterans Memorial Committee, but it did not gain much traction until Hamilton rejuvenated the idea in the wake of the tenth anniversary of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 and the invasion of Afghanistan.

Hamilton hoped to pass the change before Veterans Day, but the move prompted a backlash from businesses on the road worried about confusing customers and changing advertising, as well as from longtime residents who told the council changing the name would destroy part of the city’s history.

The Council tabled the motion in September to gain further public comment before bringing it to a vote Nov. 22.

Hamilton, whose family moved to the city in 1963, said the original name of the road, which was established first as the Naches Trail to bring settlers over the mountains and later became the main route between the cities of Sumner and Buckley, no longer reflected the region or Bonney Lake’s role in it.

“We were simply something they just drive past,” Hamilton said of Bonney Lake, which was incorporated well after both Sumner and Buckley. “Now we’re a city of 17,300 people and we’re bigger than both those cities.

“We need to take ownership of it,” he said. “For our history it needed to be changed.”

Hamilton also said the road is a good choice for renaming in honor of veterans because of its status as a military road in the 1850s, used as the primary route between Fort Walla Walla and Fort Steilacoom.

“It is the only military road int he city,” he said.

Councilmembers Laurie Carter and Dan Decker were the two dissenting votes on the council (Councilmember Jim Rackley was absent due to illness).

Carter said while she supports naming a road in honor of veterans, this was a case of right idea, wrong road.

Carter said she voted against the measure because though the city no longer uses a ward system, she was originally elected to represent Ward 3, which includes downtown, and many of the business along the road were opposed to the idea.

“I’m all for naming a street, but not that one,” she said.

Greater Bonney Lake Veterans Memorial Committee Chairman David Colbeth called the change “great.”

Colbeth said though he originally proposed the change in 2008, the Memorial Committee backed off the idea due to the controversy over the change and the fear that it might distract from the goal of building a memorial, but speaking for himself and not the committee, he said he was pleased to hear the news.

“Personally, as a vet, I think it’s great,” he said. “In 50 years, I think people will look back and say it’s a good thing.”

But not everyone was happy by the name change.

Connie Swarthout, who grew up in the area and now owns a business located on Sumner-Buckley Highway, called the change a “slap in the face’ to longtime residents as well as business owners.

“That’s too bad,” she said upon hearing the news. “I’ve had so many people upset about it.”

Swarthout said there is already confusion over the name of the road, which is known as the Old Buckley Highway and the Old Sumner-Buckley Highway, as well as its official name, and this would only add to it.

She also said the council should not worry about changing the names of roads and instead focus on other matters in the city.

The name will officially be changed in 30 days. The city expects a minimal cost for creating new street signs.