Dear Editor,
Last October, I submitted the following letter to Mayor Davis with copies to all City/County Commissioners. Since that time—Crickets!
Honorable Mr. Davis
Removal of Confederate Monuments Costing U.S. Cities Millions!
New Orleans. Early this year, the city began the process of removing the statues but initially insisted a private citizen was footing the bill for the removal. While some of those costs were supposed to be taken on by a citizen of the city, the city budget was also burdened with a whopping cost of $2.1 million, CNN reported in June. The extra costs came in city employee overtime costs, police overtime costs, and fees related to the court cases that the removal of the statues forced onto the city. New Orleans even had to shell out $50,000 to build a storage facility to store the four large statues.
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San Antonio, Texas, recently reported that it spent $258,680 to remove a Confederate statue from Travis Park. The price tag included $147,775 to tear down the monument, $103,809 for police overtime costs, and an additional $7,000 to cover landscaping costs after the statue was removed. But that cost, some city officials said, did not include the incredible $17 million previously spent on a police presence around the statue during the months the city was contemplating the monument’s removal.
Dallas, Texas, revealed a similar story with upwards to $450,000 spent to remove its Robert E. Lee statue. But Dallas is also eyeing the removal of another statue situated in Pioneer Park that will cost an estimated $800,000 to remove. Some of the costs in Dallas also include the removal of Confederate-themed street signs, with new signs featuring new names replacing them.
Charlottesville, VA, the costs are still not known, especially after a weekend of contentious rioting that incurred costs for policing. But before the riot that resulted in one death, the city was claiming that the removal of the statues could top $700,000.
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Certainly, other cities looking to eliminate statues that in many cases have stood for nearly 100 years will see similar costs passed onto taxpayers, and the final dollar amount is growing by the month.
Add to the above costs, presently there are numerous lawsuits in Georgia against the Cities/Counties and the individual politicians personally that have illegally removed these monuments. Do you, the Commissioners, and your Committee Members wish to be held liable for these costs?
Obviously, the decision has been made in many cases that the “cost be damned” and the feelings of the so called “offended class” are more important than those of other tax paying citizens and historical groups.”
Since that letter, Lawsuits have been filed against six Georgia counties, and individually against their Commissioners.
Respectfully,
Robert Green
Augusta, Ga.
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