Monuments commission: No reason Savannah should be 'lagging behind' on Confederate busts

"I feel like there's so many forward thinking things that the mayor and city council are doing. This fits right in there with it and we're not we're not setting precedent here," Kris Monroe, chairman of the Savannah-Chatham County Historic Site and Monument Commission said Thursday during the board's monthly meeting.

“There's multiple other municipalities that have already taken these moves. And there's really no reason that Savannah should be lagging behind on this.”

There were no votes taken on Thursday, but a consensus was reached to set up a meeting with City of Savannah legal staff and the city attorney for the City of Decatur, to consider the next steps. A confederate monument was removed from the Decatur square last June.

Thursday’s discussion centered on an updated report by the Civil War Memorial Task Force, previously the Confederate Monument Task Force, which was completed last fall. The report recommends that the busts be removed from the park and placed in storage until a proper location can be found.

The recommendation builds on a prior one from 2017, which suggested the busts be relocated to Laurel Grove Cemetery. In 2019 the Georgia General Assembly tiightened restrictions with an updated law that prohibits the busts from being relocated to a cemetery, mausoleum or museum.

Monroe also noted the busts are not part of the original memorial, which was completed in 1875 after the Ladies Memorial Association of Savannah was granted permission by the city council to erect a memorial to the Confederate dead. Four years later, statues representing "Silence" and "Judgement" were removed and a Confederate statue was installed.

The busts of Bartow and McLaws were relocated from Chippewa Square to the north and south sides of the monument in 1910. During that time only white people were allowed in the park.

“This is absolutely disgusting that we have to sit here as a society and look at things that literally honor traitors,” said board member Sean Mannion.

Monroe said he didn’t believe the city’s inaction is rooted in opposition and asked the board to try to come up with a path forward so that they could work together on the removal.

“I think we're just dealing with inaction. So I think maybe the conversation here should be how can we help the mayor and city council get to a reasonable decision?,” Monroe said.

Chatham County-Savannah Metropolitan Planning Commission Executive Director Melanie Wilson said the financial component of the issue must also be considered.

“That very well may be why you don't have action regarding implementing the recommendations from that task force,” she said.

The busts in Forsyth have been vandalized multiple times over the last few years and that also comes with a cost, said Mannion, who also serves as chairman of the city's Park and Tree Commission. The cost to repair the most recent incident was more than $10,000, he said.

“It was not a cheap cost and that ‘s the second or third time that vandalism has occurred since the most recent the Civil War Memorial Task Force report was released,” Mannion said.

Wilson said city officials could also run the risk of legal repercussions should they move ahead with any sort of removal or relocation, which likely plays a part in their hesitancy.

“They individually would be liable, based on the way the law is written, so they don't get any coverage from the city. If this thing goes awry, then they can be sued. So there are a lot of issues that come with this,” she said.

Monroe said he respectfully disagreed with Wilson's notion, referencing the recent removal of a monument in Rockdale County. Following the removal a judge found that the city official who ordered the monument had sovereign immunity, he said.

“The courts have repeatedly found that all of these municipalities have worked within the law. And the law clearly states if it is in order to protect or preserve… it very clearly states that a relocation, ‘it shall not be prohibited’,” Monroe said.

“That’s a key phrase.”

Last June, DeKalb County County Superior Court Judge Clarence Seeliger ruled that a 30-foot obelisk Confederate moment that had stood in the downtown Decatur square was a public nuisance. It was removed shortly after Seeliger’s ruling.

That same month the Athens-Clarke Commission voted to remove a Confederate memorial monument that lists the names of Athens soldiers who died fighting for the Confederacy in the Civil War. The monument was removed in August.

The removal in Athens was done so in accordance with state law. The statue allows for monuments to be relocated if necessary for "the construction, expansion, or alteration of edifices, buildings, roads, streets, highways, or other transportation construction projects."

In Athens, the vote to relocate the memorial was done at the recommendation of a study that found that it should be moved as part of a $450,000 plan to reconstruct pedestrian walkways at Broad Street and College Avenue to improve the flow of foot traffic at the Broad Street-College Avenue intersection.

The Savannah-Chatham County Historic Site and Monument Commission members discussed presenting the report and their recommendations to the council during a future workshop. Instead, the commission will meet with legal staff and hear varying concerns and opinions.

“... Maybe from there a strategy could be developed on how to move forward," Wilson said of the impending meeting. "I think if the city attorney gets comfortable, that helps with moving forward with what the next steps would be."

Katie Nussbaum is the city and county government reporter for the Savannah Morning News. Contact her at knussbaum@savannahnow.com. Twitter: KmartSMN

This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Monuments commission: No reason Savannah should be 'lagging behind' on Confederate busts