JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — (Note: The video above is from a related report.)
Mayor Lenny Curry's top administrator told City Council over the weekend he will file legislation for moving the Confederate monument out of Springfield Park at an estimated cost of about $1.3 million.
Curry had said in June 2020, hours after the overnight removal of a Confederate soldier statue from what is now called James Weldon Johnson Park, that "others in this city will be removed as well."
"We hear your voices," he said at a rally outside City Hall. "We have heard your voices.”
Curry ordered the removal of the Confederate soldier statue, but the higher cost for moving the much larger monument dedicated to the "Women of the Southland" would require City Council support.
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That margin for council support would be two-thirds of the council, or at least 13 of the 19 members, because it would necessitate amending the city's capital improvement project for adding the money.
Legislation typically requires a simple majority. As the vote over the proposed Lot J development in the sports complex showed in January, a two-thirds vote can be difficult to attain for a capital improvements amendment. The Lot J measure got support from 12 of 19 council members, but that ended up being a defeat because the margin didn't break the two-thirds threshold.
Chief Administrative Officer Brian Hughes sent an email Sunday to council members outlining the next steps for the monument in Springfield Park. He included an estimate from ACON Construction that it would cost $1.298 million to dismantle, catalogue, transport and off-load the full monument including statues, slabs and columns.
ACON said that figure is based on an assumption the monument will be moved to another site in Duval County.
"The materials will be removed as carefully and efficiently as safely possible, but will require significant restoral if and when the monument would be rebuilt," ACON's submittal says. "The finishes cannot be guaranteed to survive removal."
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The fate of the monument in Springfield Park has been debated for months within the Curry administration while protesters led by the Northside Coalition have held rallies outside City Hall that moved into the building twice in September.
Northside Coalition President Ben Frazier said the monument in Springfield Park is "an ugly example of how art has been used to support racial hatred. Art should be used to uplift the city's Black residents and not to belittle them."
"Mayor Curry should go beyond mere lip service and instead make a strong push to get the council to pass this legislation," Frazier said in a statement.
After Curry said on June 9, 2020, that other Confederate monuments would be removed, his administration convened a group of historians, art experts, and community members who evaluated what course the city should take with the monument in Springfield Park.
The group issued a report earlier this year that said the Civil War monuments "must no longer stand as they have in celebration of the Confederacy" but could remain as historic structures.
The report said the Women of the Southland monument at Springfield Park could be rededicated in a ceremony that celebrates "all women of the Southland" while adding a plaque "acknowledging the work's racist past."
“I think there was an appetite to try to keep things without destroying them — tearing them down or locking them up some place — but in doing that, to try to make sure they were presented to people who come to see them in full historical context," Jacksonville Historical Society CEO Alan Bliss said in May.
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Hughes referenced the group that did the report in his email to City Council members.
"The group that looked at our monuments and markers determined that this is a significant piece of public art that was done by an artist named Allen Newman," Hughes wrote. "Whatever your thoughts on the subject matter, it is believed to be a very valuable sculpture. In addition, it is massive in size and weight. So it was clear that removal would take a very intricate and well-planned process."
The park where the monument stands used to be called Confederate Park, but City Council unanimously renamed it Springfield Park last year.