PITTSBURGH (AP) — An Italian heritage group in western Pennsylvania vowed to appeal a judge’s ruling that Pittsburgh officials can remove a 13-foot statue of Christopher Columbus from a city park.
Attorneys for the Italian Sons and Daughters of America have argued that the mayor doesn’t have the facility to override an ordinance passed by town council in 1955 that cleared the installation of the 800-pound statue of the explorer.
Common Pleas Judge John McVay Jr. ruled Friday that since the statue erected in 1958 is in a city-owned park, it represents government speech — citing a 2009 U.S. Supreme Court ruling on a Utah city rejecting a monument proposed for a city park by a non secular group.
The Italian Sons and Daughters of America filed the lawsuit in October 2020 after the Pittsburgh Art Commission voted to remove the statue. Then-Mayor Bill Peduto then also really helpful its removal.
McVay had for 2 years urged the 2 sides to work toward an answer, including its relocation to a special location. The statue has been vandalized quite a few times and is wrapped in plastic.
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“Based on the court’s ruling, the mayor can put up or take down any statue he wants on any city-owned property without regard for other branches of town government,” the Italian Sons and Daughters of America argued. “Obviously, this can’t be correct.”
The group also appealed a previous decision by the judge declining to recuse himself from the case.
Attorney George Bochetto said Pittsburgh’s home rule charter reserves some rule-making authority for town council. He said that because an ordinance was passed to erect the statue, that ordinance have to be repealed before it will possibly be removed, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported.
A representative of current Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey said officials are reviewing the judge’s ruling.
Supporters in Philadelphia, a city with a deep Italian heritage, say they consider Columbus an emblem of that heritage. Mayor Jim Kenney said Columbus was venerated for hundreds of years as an explorer but had a “way more infamous” history, enslaving Indigenous people and imposing punishments corresponding to severing limbs and even death.
After protests about racial injustice and the statue in Philadelphia in June 2020, Kenney ordered the removal of a Columbus statue in Marconi Plaza saying it was a matter of public safety. A judge last yr, nonetheless, reversed town’s decision, saying it had failed to offer evidence that the statue’s removal was vital to guard the general public.
Columbus statues have been removed in nearby Camden, Latest Jersey, and Wilmington, Delaware. In Richmond, Virginia, a statue of Christopher Columbus was torn down, set on fire and thrown right into a lake. In Columbia, South Carolina, the primary U.S. city named for Columbus, a statue of the explorer was removed after it was vandalized several times. One other vandalized statue in Boston also was faraway from its pedestal.
In June, a federal judge threw out a lawsuit filed by an Italian American in Latest Haven to return a Christopher Columbus statue faraway from a park within the Connecticut city in 2020.
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