Bovee Park came one step closer to having its contentious name changed on Tuesday, when the city parks board took comments from the public for what its new title should be.

The park invokes thoughts of Bellevue’s first mayor, Charles Bovee, and allegations in 1959 that he molested children, which led to his arrest and eventual exile from the city to avoid prosecution. The city council decided in February to honor the request of one of Bovee’s alleged victims and change the park’s name, and Kasia Wilk had a few ideas as to what.

“I am so glad that you are renaming this park, you have no idea,” Wilk told the parks board on Tuesday. Wilk, 66, alleges Bovee molested her when she was eight years old. “This is very personal for me.”

Wilk said she liked the suggestions of other residents — many living in the Northtowne neighborhood where the park is located — who suggested Pioneer Park, Heritage Park and Holiday Hill. She said she didn’t like the idea of naming the park after another public figure from Bellevue’s past.

“Something may come up 40 or 50 years from now that says this person wasn’t a good person,” Wilk said.

East Bellevue Community Councilmember Steve Kasner supported naming the park after the first female mayor of Bellevue, Nan Campbell, who died in November 2013. Campbell became Bellevue’s first female mayor in 1988, after serving two terms on the city council. Kasner and others spoke of Campbell’s commitment to parks, particularly Downtown and Crossroads.

“She was not a friend to our neighborhood,” said Sue Herber, who lives north of the park in Northtowne. Herber said Campbell supported expanding the downtown central business district closer into Northtowne. “It is not a large park that serves the greater Bellevue area. It is a small park that serves the neighborhood.”

Herber supported naming the park after former citycouncilmember Georgia Zumdieck, whom Seattle Times writer J. Martin Mcomber described at the time of her death in 1998 as “the feisty neighborhood activist who defined Bellevue politics for nearly two decades.” Zumdieck played tennis at Bovee Park near her home and was supportive of the Northtowne neighborhood, said Herber.

Paul Brallier and others supported naming the park after Roland Burrows, grandson of Bellevue pioneer, Civil War veteran and state legislator Albert Burrows, who donated land for the city’s first school. Roland was a World War II veteran.

Rebecca Weister, medical director for the Child Protection Program at Seattle Children’s Hospital and a professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington, recommended renaming Bovee Park after colleague Dr. Naomi Sugar, who had been medical director at the Harborview Center for Sexual Assault and Traumatic Stress from 1994 until her death in 2013. Sugar specialized in evaluating child victims of physical and sexual abuse.

The parks board will discuss renaming options — the public has provided 50 — on May 12, and could pass a recommendation to city council by May 18.

From May 1-10, the city will host an online forum for residents to weigh in on a narrowed choice of names.