While Mayor Catherine Pugh is trying to figure out how to remove all of the Confederate monuments around Baltimore, Councilman Brandon Scott and his fellow councilmembers want these monuments to be destroyed. Councilman Scott introduced a measure on this a short while ago. Monday, Baltimore’s City Council decided to make a very clear statement.
xCiting events in #Charlottesville#Baltimore City Council adopts resolution calling for immediate destruction of confederate monuments #WBALpic.twitter.com/9IiiGpfr99
— Vanessa Herring (@VanessaWBAL) August 14, 2017The city council room burst into applause after the resolution was adopted. WBAL TV reported on some of the monuments in question.
The monuments include a Confederate women's monument in Bishop Square Park, a monument for soldiers and sailors on Mount Royal Avenue, the Lee Jackson Monument in the Wyman Park Dell and a statue of Roger Taney that sits just north of the Washington Monument.
[...]
But the process includes legal and procedural requirements, and a big price tag. It could cost between $1 million and $2 million to remove the monuments.
"We're continuing to move forward because we believe that the monuments should be removed," Pugh said.
The monuments are already being removed, and Mayor Catherine Pugh has made that clear. However she is working through a set of legal and procedural steps, while Councilman Scott wants to have them obliterated.
Other municipalities have used the terrible events over the weekend in Charlottesville, Virginia, to put the removal of Confederate statues and memorabilia at the top of their lists of things to do. Lexington, Kentucky’s mayor announced on Saturday that Kentucky would do away with their Confederate monuments as well. The Baltimore Sun explains that there are relics who will likely put up a fight.
Carolyn Billups, former president of the Maryland chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, argued the city should spend its limited money elsewhere.
“Where is the city going to get the money, hello?” she said. “What about the crime rates? What about schools? Don’t you think the money would be better spent?”
I think we can do both, Ms. Billups. Shortly after. History called.
x— SusanS (@Schaibly) August 14, 2017