FORT 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 or risk losing millions of dollars in funding.
The Department of Transportation under Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis ordered communities to remove the crosswalks and other street art by early next month. Many of the painted crosswalks celebrate historically marginalized groups such as the LGBTQ+ and Black communities.
Critics say it's the latest attack on the LGBTQ+ community by the DeSantis administration and Republican-controlled Legislature, including restrictions on gender-affirming care and Florida's so-called Don't Say Gay law, which banned classroom discussion about sexual orientation and gender identity in certain grades.
“It is just one more attempt to wipe away our existence as if we don’t even belong here,” said Robert Boo, the CEO of Pride Center Florida in the Fort Lauderdale suburb of Wilton Manors.
Jason Osborne, a Fort Lauderdale local who visited the Sebastian Street mural with his boyfriend on Wednesday, said the state's mandate is meant to intimidate people and make them afraid.
But he predicted that it will have the opposite effect, and that for every one step backward, "we’re going to take five steps forward. Because now we are going to paint buildings. You’re gonna see people that are going to do more because people love each other.”
DeSantis explained his administration's rationale at a Wednesday news conference in Orlando: “I think the street art got out of hand. I think it’s much better that we use crosswalks and streets for their intended purpose.”
Not all of the projects tapped for removal pay tribute to historically marginalized groups. One of them, a “Back the Blue” mural on the street outside Tampa police headquarters, is also slated to go, city spokesperson Joshua Cascio said. Also on the 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. A racing themed crosswalk in front of Daytona International Speedway was painted over overnight late Tuesday and early Wednesday.
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.
Among the first crossings to be removed was a rainbow 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. Critics of the move restored its rainbow colors, but a Department of Transportation crew repainted it black and white last weekend.
Removal of the Pulse crossing put the dispute in the 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.
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,” he said recently on X.
The state Department of Transportation said 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.
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.
Local officials who challenge the governor’s interpretation of state law do so at their own risk. DeSantis has used his executive authority to remove multiple local leaders from office, and his administration has leveraged the threat of suspension to compel compliance, especially from Democratic-led cities, counties and school boards.
“We're going to get it done,” DeSantis said Wednesday. “So you can do it the easy way or you can do it the hard way.”
In Key West, state transportation officials said that if pavement markings in its historic downtown aren't removed by next Wednesday, the state will do it for them.
In St. Petersburg, officials looked at all possible options for keeping their street murals but saw no path to saving them, Mayor Kenneth Welch said. At a recent news briefing, the mayor mentioned having new flags, banners and installations that he called “new, even more powerful expressions of who we are, expressions that cannot be erased.”
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Martin reported from Atlanta. Associated Press reporters Mike Schneider in Orlando and Kate Payne in Tallahassee contributed to this report.
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