Jacksonville City Councilman Matt Carlucci has filed new legislation to address the removal of confederate monuments and wants the price tag for the job to be less than previous estimates.
Action News Jax told you when Mayor Lenny Curry ordered all confederate monuments in the city to be removed. A plan was presented, but after the cost to remove the “The Tribute to the Women of the Confederacy Monument” in Springfield was roughly $1.2 million, the city council shut it down.
Carlucci said you can’t put a price on unifying the community and is looking to get the ball rolling with this newly filed legislation.
Carlucci said he wants to create a community conversation, and he’s requesting that the Mayor, his city administration, and city council create a new plan by July 26.
“The process of legislation taking 6-8 weeks, plus we have third weeks that kick in and plus community conversation, July will soon be upon us to put this process together,” he said.
Carlucci wants to cap the removal price at $500,000.
“$500,000 and possibly find other dollars from options, maybe private, maybe money from the feds, who knows,” he said. “I just think there should be a cap at some point, and I did feel like that was a lot of issues for the other council members.”
Carlucci says open transparency is needed, saying he hopes to address this civilly to move Jacksonville forward. Action News Jax also reached out to the Mayor’s office for comment regarding the newly filed legislation but haven’t heard back yet.
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