Before Tuesday’s Brownsville City Commission meeting, members of the public voiced their opinion on the future of the Jefferson Davis Monument, which will most likely be relocated.
A site is still pending for the potential relocation of the monument but will most likely be a park or museum, according to Assistant City Manager Arturo Rodriguez.
Rodriguez led the discussion during a work session and showed results of a previous town hall held on Nov. 29, 2017, discussing the monument located at Washington Park in downtown Brownsville.
At the town hall, 117 people attended and 43 spoke. Attendee comments of all cities showed a majority wanting to relocate the monument to Veterans Park. In a “breakdown of comment themes” for all cities, the majority wanted the monument to be completely removed.
Rodriguez said the item was just a discussion to get direction from the commission.
“Actually, today was to follow up because it’s been quite a bit of time,” Rodriguez told The Rider in an interview after Tuesday’s City Commission meeting. “The guidance today is, if you saw the PowerPoint, we’re not going to destroy it. … Basically, they want us to move it.”
Rodriguez said discussions on the monument will continue in the future for locations, cost and logistics.
“We’ll go back, have those conversations and probably come back with an agenda item to see what the cost is going to be [and] what the logistics are going to be,” he said. “Logistics is a big one. Everything that’s required to get us from it being there to wherever it needs to be, and then the location.”
Mark Kaswan, a UTRGV associate professor of political science and co-founder of Frontera Progressive, said when the organization presented to the commission last year, moving the memorial to Veterans Park was the least favorite option.
“As we presented to the commission last year, as the options given among Brownsville residents, moving the memorial to the park was considered the absolute least favorite option,” Kaswan said. “People, including many veterans, feel that this would be an affront to the people who fought on behalf of the United States and the park should not include someone who many consider a traitor.”
Kaswan said they suggested the monument be moved to a museum, such as the Brownsville Historical Association, and place it in a “proper historical context related to the United Daughters of the Confederacy,” but felt that the Brownsville Historical Association has not been supportive of that. So, he presented three alternatives of what to do about the monument.
The first suggestion was to return the monument, both plaque and rock, to the United Daughters of the Confederacy with the “stipulation incorporated in a memorandum of understanding” that the monument not be displayed where it can be viewed by the public. The second suggestion was to return the plaque and keep the rock and commission it as a work of art. The last suggestion was if the monument is placed anywhere within the city, Frontera Progressive and Arte Cívico Circle would lead a community-based process to develop the descriptive text that would interpret and accompany the monument.
Eddie Padron, a Brownsville resident, spoke against the relocation of the monument.
“You can’t change the history. You can’t change who we were,” Padron said, referring to Brownsville being a part of the Confederacy.
He asked, “If you want to take the historical markers of Brownsville, are you going to stop at the rock?”
Padron explained that Elizabeth Street was named after Elizabeth Stillman, who was gifted a slave from her mother.
“Are we going to go and change the name of Elizabeth Street?” he said. “Are we going to change Saint Francis, Saint Charles? Are we going to destroy the Stillman House because there was a slave? … This is all the history of Brownsville. We can’t destroy the history because we’re angry at it.”
The memorial, which is owned by the city, was erected by the United Daughters of the Confederacy in 1926 and defaced in September 2017.
In other business, the commission:
–approved annual meetings between the city commission and its staff and the Brownville Public Utilities Board and its executive staff to exchange advice and recommendations for coordination and cooperation to achieve mutual objectives for the benefit of the citizens and to improve mandated financial objectives;
–authorized the city manager to execute an interlocal agreement between Brownsville Metro and Lower Rio Grande Valley Development Council Valley Metro.
The transition is a result of a program requirement to obtain a sustainable source of funds and engaging UTRGV as a partner. It increases capacity and frequency, and provides cost effectiveness throughout the RGV. BMetro received four new 40-foot diesel buses.
–approved expansion of the scope for work for a 2018 grant to include preparing a pavement management plan for the Brownsville/South Padre Island International Airport.
Christina Patiño Houle, a representative of Arte Cívico Circle, speaks before Brownsville City Commission regarding the Jefferson Davis Monument.
