Lake Macquarie Council will this week decide on whether or not they’ll change the name of Coon Island.
There’s a motion going to Monday night’s Council meeting to change, or keep, the names Coon Island and Coon Point.
The name was slammed as racist earlier this year that originally came about either from a miner who didn’t wash at the mine and when he came home from work he had dust on his face, or he spent so much time fishing out on the lake he was always darkly tanned.
Council has undertook community consultation in May asking what the community thought of a change – of the 2120 responses received by Council, 56 per cent were against a name change and 44 were for a name change.
There was also a list of preferred names and those who completed the survey were asked to rank the names. Pirrita Island was the most preferred name for the island, followed by Purramai Island, Heaney Island, then Miners Island, with Keep Clear Island the least preferred name for the island.
Council said that reviewing the name forms part of an upgrade to the site, including a new boardwalk, public art and interpretative signage, proposed to start in 2021-2022.
Image credit: Lake Macquarie Council