After taking voluminous public comment on the matter, the County Commission voted late Tuesday night to give the county's controversial Confederate soldier statue to the Matheson History Museum.


The motion, made by Commissioner Robert Hutchinson, also called for the Matheson to display the monument in its public outside space; use private funding to move, install and maintain it; and the move would only occur after the county engineer approves the tools and techniques planned to move it.

The motion passed 3-2, with Commissioners Lee Pinkoson and Ken Cornell dissenting.

During the meeting Pinkoson said the monument is meant to honor the dead, and while he is not African-American and might not understand the tragedies that the community suffered in the past, he didn't support moving the statue but would support erecting a plaque at the site that would explain that many touched by the Civil War deserve to be remembered.

Cornell, the first commissioner of the night to speak, suggested creating a truth commission that would explore the issue further.

Hutchinson said the agreement with the Matheson, which has conveyed to the county its willingness to take the statue, would also include language that if something unforeseeable happened to the Matheson, the county would take back the statue. He said if that were to occur, perhaps the statue would be placed in a local veterans park.

County officials don't know how much it would cost to move the monument.

The statue of a soldier, nicknamed “Old Joe," stands tall near downtown Gainesville, just behind the County Commission building. He is poised clutching a gun and standing atop a piece of stone that says it is in memory of the Confederate dead.

More than 20 people spoke during the citizen comment section of the meeting, which lasted more than an hour and a half. Viewpoints were split down the middle with some calling the statue a symbol of enslavement and racism that still continues today. Others called the statue a piece of their history, proud or otherwise.

Anthony Sabatini, a first lieutenant with the Florida National Guard, said the statue represents the lineage of the unit he comes from. He said the statue is not meant in celebration nor is it political.

“It's about the people who died,” Sabatini said.

Margaret Simpson supported keeping the statue in place and connected it to a larger issue. “The issue of removing this statue is a part of an agenda that's been happening nationwide,” she said, adding that the issue reminds her of the cultural revolution in China or Nazi Germany, where there was a so-called “right way” to think about things.

Ryan Cox, who was born in Mississippi, also supported the statue remaining in its place.

“This is going to fuel a backlash and right now there's too many white Southerners that are scared to come forward to tell the truth,” Cox said.

City Commission Charles Goston spoke during citizen comment of a larger issue.

“Don't focus on the statue, focus on the symbolism of that statue and how it affects every last one of us,” he said.

Goston said the driving force behind the closing of Lincoln High School, the poverty east of Waldo Road and the fact that there is such limited African-American representation in local government is racism.

Commissioner Charles Chestnut, said as an African-American, he has felt offended hearing people discuss this issue and refer to their heritage, because during that time, “African-Americans were sold like livestock.”

“I teach my son and my daughter the history because I think it's important because if you don't know your history you're bound to repeat it,” Chestnut said.

Resident Jesse Arost supports moving the statue. Arost told the commission putting a plaque up to explain the history promotes a false knowledge of history and covering “the stench of rot with roses.”

Kali Blount also spoke against the statue, referencing one of the monument's inscriptions: They fell for us and for them should fall the tears of a nation's grief.

“Who is 'us'?” Blount asked, “It's not me.”

The other side of the statue states: They counted the cost and in defense of right they paid the martyr's price.

Blount said a martyr is someone who dies for a noble cause and the current saying “spits in the face of those who were in oppression at that time.”

After the commission's decision, citizens left the room and filed into the hallway, some exclaiming that the move was a long time coming.