FT. LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Fort Lauderdale city leaders will host an emergency meeting Wednesday to discuss how to respond to the state's order to remove rainbow-colored crosswalks and other street art throughout Florida, with deadlines to comply looming.
The Department of Transportation under Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis ordered communities to remove the crosswalks and other street art by early next month or risk millions of dollars in state funding. Many of the painted crossings celebrate gay rights and LGBTQ+ pride, while others are tributes to Black people and the police.
DeSantis' critics said it was just the latest attack by his administration, as well as the Republican-controlled Legislature, against LGBTQ visibility, including restrictions on gender-affirming care and Florida's so-called Don't Say Gay law, which prohibited classroom discussion about sexual orientation and gender identity in certain grades.
In Tampa, a “Back the Blue” mural on the street outside police headquarters remained in place Wednesday, but is on a list for removal, city spokesman Joshua Cascio said in a statement. Plans call for it to be removed in the next couple of weeks.
Also on the target list are painted bike lanes outside an Orlando elementary school that were designed by two fourth-graders who won a Florida Department of Transportation art contest.
Miami Beach was given a Sept. 4 deadline to remove its rainbow crosswalk on Ocean Drive — a time frame similar to those given to other Florida communities.
"They can't strip away our pride and they can’t strip away our values of inclusivity,” Miami Beach Commissioner Alex Fernandez said in an interview this week.
Fernandez plans to suggest appealing the mandate during a meeting next Wednesday, one day before the state's deadline. He sees the crosswalk as a symbol of safety for not only the LGBTQ+ community, but other residents as well.
“When the gay community is safe, the broader community is safe as well,” he said.
Among the first crossings to be removed was a rainbow-colored one marking the 2016 massacre outside the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, where 49 people were killed. It was painted over in the middle of the night last week by work crews, angering community members. A Department of Transportation crew last weekend repainted it black and white a second time after opponents painted it back in rainbow colors. A squad of Florida Highway Patrol and Orlando Police Department officers earlier this week kept an eye on the crosswalk, even as people used chalk to color it in.
Removal of the Pulse crossing put the dispute in a spotlight. It happened several weeks after a July 1 directive from U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, who gave the country's governors 60 days to identify what he called safety improvements.
“Roads are for safety, not political messages or artwork,” Duffy has said.
Duffy “has made every state receiving federal dollars responsible for identifying hazards on their roads,” the Federal Highway Administration said in a statement to The Associated Press.
DeSantis is the first governor to aggressively carry out the federal guidance.
“We will not allow our state roads to be commandeered for political purposes,” DeSantis said recently on X.
The state Department of Transportation said in a statement that it has a duty “to ensure the safety and consistency of public roadways and transportation systems.”
“That means ensuring our roadways are not utilized for social, political, or ideological interests,” it said.
Efforts to remove the artwork are “clearly an anti-LGBTQ push on behalf of both the federal government and the copycat version from the state government,” said Rand Hoch, founder of the Palm Beach County Human Rights Council.
“They’re basically blackmailing municipalities, counties and states by saying ‘if you don’t do this, we’re going to withhold funding,’” Hoch said. “It’s absolutely ridiculous.”
Despite the directive from the U.S. transportation secretary, there's no indication of any widespread actions to remove rainbow crossings outside of Florida. The Sunshine State is often the vanguard nationwide in fights over what some call the culture wars of politics. Those include battles over the removal of library books deemed inappropriate by DeSantis and other Republicans.
In Key West, state transportation officials said that if pavement markings in its historic downtown aren't removed by Sept. 3, “the Florida Department of Transportation will remove them by any appropriate method necessary without further notice.” In a letter to Key West’s city manager, federal authorities also threatened the “immediate withholding” of state funds if it finds “additional violations.”
In Ft. Lauderdale, artist Robin Haines Merrill's street scenes are targeted for removal.
She said the city hired her in 2016 to create a design that features water meant to represent the aquifer beneath the pavement. Merrill said on social media this week that she retains legal rights to her artwork, and that “no one is allowed to alter, damage or remove my artwork without express approval from me, and with my involvement."
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