Mayor Tom Potter walked out of a City Council meeting Thursday night after being overruled on a decision about renaming Interstate Avenue after Cesar Chavez.

Potter, who strongly supports the renaming proposal, became visibly upset.

"I am irrelevant," he announced before walking out, leaving city commissioners stunned.

On Friday, Potter said he had no regrets about the way he acted, which has sparked immense criticism from the public, according to comments on a kgw.com survey.

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"No, I'm not ashamed of it. I think I did what I should do and that is not stay there when they're doing that kind of behavior. I was embarrassed and thought that they acted very poorly," Potter told KGW.

He said it was shameful for a majority of commissioners to disregard the work of the Latino community in the effort to rename Interstate.

Commissioners maintain that since the majority of businesses and neighbors are against the renaming, it's time to consider other streets.

For the past eight months, a citizen's committee has been advocating the change, but many businesses and neighborhood groups reacted negatively to the idea.

City leaders admitted they didn't handle the name-change process well and said they wanted to slow it down, consider other streets in addition to Interstate and get the public involved.

The re-naming process will open up to other streets in other parts of the city under the Randy Leonard proposal. Through the move, the council overruled the mayor, who wanted to vote next month.

Potter said he thinks starting from scratch is fruitless, because there'll be controversy no matter which street bears Chavez' name.

“This will become a stepchild because if it wasn't good enough for Hawthorne or 82nd or Southwest Broadway or any other street in Portland,” Potter said shortly before leaving the chamber, and stunning council members.