Sunday, May 24, 2026, 11:53 p.m
4217 readings
Daniel Băluță, mayor of Sector 4 – PHOTO Hepta
The online consultation launched by the mayor of Sector 4, Daniel Băluță, to determine the new names of the Tudor Arghezi Park extension and the ice rink in Berceni ended with an unexpected result. Although “Maia Sandu” had led by far in the voters’ preferences, the name of the American president Donald Trump he recovered spectacularly at the end and won with 28,071 votes.
Thus, the extension of the park will be named, at least for now, after the leader of the White House. As for the Berceni Arena ice rink, the citizens’ option “Doru Tureanu”, the option that collected 21,648 votes.
The vote was organized on an online platform made available by the local administration, and the participants had to choose from a predetermined list of names, with the possibility of proposing new variants.
For the expansion of the park, the options included personalities such as Francois Mitterrand, Helmut Kohl, Vaclav HavelJacques Chirac, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Emmanuel Macron, Angela Merkel and Maia Sandualongside Donald Trump.
At the ice rink, the list included names such as Ivan PatzaichinIon Panturu, Mihaela Peneș, Mircea LucescuElisa Leonida Zamfirescu, Dan Grecu, Argentina Menis, Vasile Dîba, as well as the winner Doru Tureanu.
The mayor’s initiative came after a controversial first attempt. Daniel Băluță had initially announced that he wanted to name the expansion of the park “Donald J. Trump”, but, following strong reactions from the public space, he changed his mind and decided to submit the decision to a community vote.
“We decide, together, what name both the Tudor Arghezi Park extension and the Berceni Arena ice rink will receive. Starting tomorrow morning, we will have an online platform where we can vote, and in the end, the decision we will implement will be the one that the whole community will choose. I will come back as soon as possible with the name of the platform and the time when it will be available”, announced the mayor Daniel Băluță on the page Facebookat the beginning of the voting.
Although the vote has ended, it remains to be seen if the winning name will actually be implemented or if this consultation will remain just a democratic exercise, given the political sensitivities generated by the former US president’s name. The local authorities have not yet communicated a timetable for the formalization of the new names.
