SAN JOSE -- Two San Jose city councilmen, Dave Cortese and Sam Liccardo, are at the center of a compromise effort that has ended a hunger strike and looks to end the city's months long "Little Saigon" controversy.

According to several participants in the process, in December, Cortese proposed allowing a sign displaying the name Little Saigon to be erected along the Story Road area that is the center of San Jose's Vietnamese community if it was paid for by private money.

"A couple of months ago Dave Cortese suggested the idea," Liccardo said.

Cortese, the city's vice mayor, shared the idea with Liccardo and Mayor Chuck Reed. He believes Reed also shared the idea with Councilwoman Madison Nguyen, whose district includes the Story Road area and the city's only Vietnamese council member. However, the idea did not gain any support at that time.

"The circumstances weren't ripe to launch what was in essence a new proposal," Cortese said.

The ensuing months of regular protests at City Hall by Little Saigon supporters, a threatened recall of Nguyen and the hunger strike began Feb. 15 by prominent Vietnamese anti-communist crusader Ly Tong prompted Liccardo to reintroduce the idea over the past several days.

"A lot has happened over the past three or four months," Liccardo said. "None of us wanted Ly Tong's hunger strike to continue."

The compromise almost immediately began garnering support both within the council and among Little Saigon supporters.

"There was a very rapid confluence," of support for the idea, according to Cortese.

Cortese mentioned that a former general in the South Vietnamese army who now lives in San Jose and is a prominent member of the Vietnamese community called him after 2 p.m. Thursday to voice his support for the compromise.

On Wednesday, Liccardo went and talked to Tong. Tong and other Little Saigon supporters had an additional meeting with Cortese, Liccardo and Reed this morning and Tong agreed to end his hunger strike after being informed of the compromise.

Nguyen did not attend the meeting with Tong. She acknowledged that she has become a polarizing figure to some in the Vietnamese community issue because she did not immediately embrace the Little Saigon name.

"I just felt that it was really good for this compromise to take place without my presence," Nguyen said.

Nguyen supports the Cortese/Liccardo compromise.

"Today's a great day. It's a win for the Vietnamese-American community," Nguyen said.

Reed said he hopes to release the agreement later Thursday afternoon after speaking with several other parties involved in the issue who he would not identify.

Reed, Cortese and Liccardo agreed they underestimated the amount of passion the naming issue generated in the city's Vietnamese community.

"I'm a lot smarter, a lot more educated, than I was six months ago about the issues that got people so excited," Reed said.

The moniker "Little Saigon" is one of the symbols that unite all Vietnamese in America, most of whom came to the U.S. as refugees, because Saigon was the capital of South Vietnam until the communist takeover of the country in 1975, according to Barry Hung Do, the spokesman for San Jose Voters for Democracy, one of the main groups supporting the Little Saigon name.