LAKELAND — A multipronged attempt to keep the Confederate monument in Munn Park, a reversal of an earlier commission decision, failed Tuesday as Commissioner Michael Dunn was rebuffed at each attempt.
Dunn's bid came at the end of the regularly scheduled commission meeting after an organized group of pro-monument activists made their pitches again to the City Commission, this time hoping to secure purchase among the new majority that joined the board earlier this month.
First, Dunn asked Commissioners Phillip Walker and Justin Troller, who had voted in December with the four-member majority to move the monument from Munn Park, to re-open the issue.
Under the city charter, issues cannot be reintroduced until one year after the original decision unless reintroduced by a member of the winning majority.
"I would ask that based on the fact I do believe a greater percentage of our citizens wants it to stay right where it is," Dunn said. Dunn, who secured his commission seat in December's run-off election, had been a vocal supporter of leaving the 1910 statue of a Confederate soldier at its central spot in Munn Park.
Walker and Troller declined.
Dunn then proposed a "monument protection ordinance" that would supersede the earlier decision. The motion died without a second from another commissioner.
Dunn continued, asking for support among his colleagues on the commission to order city staff to produce a detailed matrix of potential sites for the monument, cost analyses and a funding model.
City Manager Tony Delgado said the city's staff was working on those elements except for funding, which he said would be a decision by the commission. The rest of the commission declined to adjust the staff's current direction on that front.
Last, Dunn proposed a monument-protection ordinance for all monuments other than the Confederate statue, which he said could be based on an ordinance passed in Lake City, but ultimately withdrew the motion as other commissioners were unfamiliar with the ordinance. The discussion was tabled to a future date.
The discussion Tuesday represented newly elected commissioners' first take on the issue that has had a major presence in the City Commission chamber for two years.
During the debate, Dunn also said he supported a public referendum on the topic, a rare move for the commission for topics that do not explicitly require a public vote under state law.
"I believe the previous commission and what is left of the previous commission was just not really listening to what the people in general are saying," Dunn said. "The majority of folks I've talked to have expressed a very big interest in having it go before a public referendum. Normally I wouldn't say a statue is worthy of a public referendum ... I've never seen any other incidents like this."
Mayor Bill Mutz, who had expressed his belief the monument should be moved from the center of the city during the campaign, said his opinion had not changed, even if the issue was supported by the majority.
Describing the responsibility of elected representatives in a republican government, Mutz said, "That means many times you have to listen to voices that aren't the majority and represent those voices.
"Sometimes the greater good is not represented by a majority vote," he added later.
Mutz said he does not see moving the monument elsewhere will denigrate the sacrifice represented in the monument dedicated to the Confederate war dead, but will also recognize the residents impacted by a heritage in bondage.
Commissioner Stephanie Madden said she was sympathetic to the stereotypes applied to Southerners, and with a son at West Point, sympathetic to arguments the statue honors soldiers who fought for their country.
But, she said, she agreed that the commission should continue with relocation in the spirit of unity.
"If we move forward with the relocation, I'm happy at least in the spirit of unity the side who wanted to move it is talking about relocation rather than removal or destruction. If it was destruction or removal, I don't think my heart would have been moved at all."
Commissioner Scott Franklin said he was disappointed with the tone of the arguments while this issue has played out in Lakeland as it has in other cities around the nation.
But the City Commission should stay the course and not "slow roll" the next decisions in the process until the end of the year. Franklin, noting his 14 years as a naval officer, said he thought Monument Park would be a suitable place of honor for the statue.
He added that he was curious to see what cost estimates come out of the city staff's analysis.
Several steps will precede moving the monument. As the statue is described as part of the city's downtown historic district, a decision may fall to the Historic Preservation Board, an independent body appointed by the commission for multi-year terms. Otherwise, the commission would need to change the laws that govern decisions in the historic district.
The commission also will need to decide where to move the statue and how to fund it, then appropriate money to a qualified company to do the work.
Pro-monument activists, most or all of whom live outside Lakeland's corporate limits based on property records and their testimonies, argued for the commission to reverse the earlier decision, saying it was the product of radical outside activists.
Included in the group was H.K. Edgerton, of Ashville, N.C., who has been a prominent and popular supporter of the Southern cause and has attended meetings throughout the country decked in Confederate grays and armed with a big-tent preacher's elocution.
Edgerton, who is black, blasted former City Commissioner Don Selvage, who had led the late push to remove the monument last December. He said Selvage, a native Ohioan who chose Lakeland after retiring from the U.S. Marine Corps as a colonel, "should have recused himself, as a Yankee, for the biases he carries."
Christopher Guinn can be reached at Christopher.Guinn@theledger.com or 863-802-7592. Follow him on Twitter @CGuinnNews.