ANNALS OF DeSANTISTAN: Lake County set to pay $40,000 in lawsuit over Confederate General statue (Orlando Sentinel)

Confederate General Edmund Kirby Smith is still memorialized at our St. Augustine Historic Society Library. Lake County accepted then rejected lobbyists efforts to place General Kirby Smith's statue, which was removed from Statuary Hall at the U.S. Capitol Building and replaced with a statute of Mary Cloud Bethune. Litigation confirms there were Sunshine violations involving the lobbyists.  Violation remedied.  Case settled after appeal. From Orlando Sentinel: 

Lake County set to pay $40,000 in lawsuit over Confederate General statue

But the long saga of General Edmund Kirby Smith has at least one more chapter to be written

Proposed legislation in the Florida House of Representatives could bring the statue of Confederate Gen. Edmund Kirby Smith to Lake County despite once-fierce objections.

By STEPHEN HUDAK | shudak@orlandosentinel.com | Orlando Sentinel

PUBLISHED: December 15, 2023 at 6:29 p.m. | UPDATED: December 15, 2023 at 6:36 p.m.

The long push to bring a century-old statue of a Confederate general to Tavares is set to cost Lake County $40,000, as it moves to settle allegations that a private lobbying effort on the statue’s behalf violated Florida’s Sunshine Law.

But the saga of General Edmund Kirby Smith, in search of a resting place after his statue’s expulsion from the U.S. Capitol, may have at least one chapter left to be written. Although Lake County officials decided in 2020 not to accept the bronze figure, a new bill in the Florida legislature may saddle them with it anyway.

First up is a Tuesday county commission meeting, in which commissioners will likely ratify a settlement agreement with a citizen’s group called Lake County Voices of Reason, which describes itself as a nonpartisan, not-for-profit founded by citizens concerned about the transparency of their local government.

Its lawsuit alleged that in 2019, Bob Grenier, former volunteer curator of the Lake County Historical Museum, had privately lobbied Lake’s five commissioners ahead of a vote to back his plan to put the Jim Crow-era relic on display in the first-floor museum of the Historic Courthouse in Tavares.

Voices of Reason described Grenier in filings as a “facilitator” whose private, individual sessions with commissioners were “de facto commission meetings.” Grenier and the commissioners each signed sworn statements testifying they weren’t.

Grenier, now mayor of Tavares, did not respond Friday to emails or phone calls.

County lawyers recommended settling the lawsuit, which was set for trial in April, for $40,000 “to avoid further litigation and promote community unity,” according to a summary of the issue on the agenda for Tuesday’s commission  meeting.

The tale began in 2018, when opponents of all races had crowded into Lake County commission meetings to object to a plan hatched by Grenier and backed by state officials to bring the statue from the Capitol’s National Statuary Hall, where it had resided since 1922, to Tavares.

Many insisted it would re-open wounds from an era when schools and public restrooms were segregated. Others pointed out that Kirby Smith, born in St. Augustine and among the last confederate Civil War military leaders to surrender, had no strong ties to Lake County.

But Grenier excitedly dubbed the statue “our King Tut” in an interview with the Orlando Sentinel at the time. He dismissed criticism and suggestions that he should have discussed the plan with local Black leaders before forging ahead.

County commissioners initially voted to accept the statue in 2019, before reversing course the next year and saying they didn’t want it.

Nevetherless, the statue of the general was yanked from the Washington D.C. gallery in 2021 to make room for a marble figure of educator and civil rights activist Mary McLeod Bethune, the first Black citizen to be enshrined there.

Every state is represented by two statues. Many Southern states have figures connected to the confederacy.

Florida’s other representative is physician/scientist John Gorrie, inventor of mechanical refrigeration.

The general’s statue is currently warehoused at the Florida Museum of History in Tallahassee, and the state is trying to figure out where to put it.

 

The newest plan is contained in a bill to protect Florida’s historic monuments, introduced last month by Florida Rep. Dean Black, R-Jacksonville. It includes a provision requiring state authorities to make the statue available first to Grenier for free, public display somewhere in Lake County with “protection from the weather.”

According to the proposed legislation, “It is the intent of the Legislature that the state not allow a historical monument or memorial to be removed, damaged, or destroyed. Accurate history belongs to all Floridians in
perpetuity.”

Titled “The Historical Monuments and Memorials Protection Act,” it would would give the governor the power to remove any elected leaders from local office who “directs, permits, facilitates, or votes to remove or destroy a monument or memorial.”

When asked by a reporter for the Orlando Sentinel Friday why he included the provision specifically naming Grenier, Black said the bill will be amended, perhaps as early as next week, and that likely will be removed.

shudak@orlandosentinel.com