JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The future of Confederate monuments in Jacksonville is again up in the air after Jacksonville lawmakers decided against a plan to put the issue before voters.
On Tuesday, the City Council overwhelmingly voted to deny one council member’s bill that would have allowed voters to choose whether to remove all historic statues from city property, including Confederate monuments.
Northside City Councilman Al Ferraro, who is running for mayor, wanted voters to decide the future of city statues.
“I had two things I wanted to do, one is to be able to have the voters have their say on that either if they agreed or disagreed, and put that aside because the second thing is that most important is that we have crime and we have all types of issues that the city is facing," said Ferraro.
If voters approved his proposed referendum, it would mean removing controversial statues like the women of the southern Confederacy in Springfield park but also beloved statues, like the winged figure “life” in memorial park.
“I thought it personally was too broad of a bill because we basically are concentrated on the confederate monument and it was just too broad and would’ve been bad for the city of Jacksonville," said City Council President Sam Newby.
Newby says the city’s plan now is to start a community discussion about if the confederate monuments should stay up or be taken down.
“Because I believe that the community should be involved because all the stakeholders in Jacksonville, all the community leaders, and just every day people should weigh in about the confederate monuments," said Newby.
Ferraro agrees with the plan for conversations, but is also eager to move past the debate.
“I wanted to bring this to where we put this down so that we can go ahead and move on other more important issues that I believe that the citizens are interest in," said Ferraro.
Newby says the community discussions are expected to take place in a couple of weeks.