The El Dorado Park West Senior Center could soon be named after former Long Beach Mayor Tom Clark as a City Council committee will begin the process of considering renaming the building after Clark at its Tuesday meeting.

The senior center is located within the portion of El Dorado Park located between Spring Street and Willow Street just east of Studebaker Road.

Councilman Daryl Supernaw, the chair of the Government, Personnel and Elections Oversight Committee, submitted the renaming request and the committee could forward it on to the Parks and Recreation Commission with a vote Tuesday afternoon.

Clark is the city’s longest serving council member (30 years) and served three terms as mayor during the 1970s and 1980s before the city had a dedicated mayor and the position was decided by a vote of other council members.

Clark represented the city’s 4th City Council district, the same district that Supernaw has served for the past six years.

Before that, Clark ran an optometry practice in Los Altos and served on the city’s Parks and Recreation Commission where he helped secure a bond for the purchase of the land that became El Dorado Park. After his retirement from the City Council he served on the Long Beach City College Board of Trustees for 16 years.

Supernaw’s request described Clark, who died in May 2020 at the age of 93, as “the consummate public servant.”

“No one in Long Beach history has given more for a longer period of time than the Honorable Tom Clark,” Supernaw wrote in his request.

Forwarding the request to the Parks and Recreation Commission could be the final step before the full City Council votes on the naming of the senior center after Clark.

The Government, Personnel and Elections Oversight Committee is scheduled to meet Tuesday Sept. 28 at 2 p.m. A link to the remote meeting can be found here.

Tom Clark, the longest serving councilman in city history, dies at 93

Jason Ruiz covers City Hall and politics for the Long Beach Post. Reach him at [email protected] or @JasonRuiz_LB on Twitter.