Removal of Confederate Monuments Costing U.S. Cities Millions

The Associated Press
The Associated Press

The costs are mounting for removing Confederate monuments in cities across America, the tab costing taxpayers millions.

A recent review of costs from just a few cities across America that began the process of removing Confederate statues from public property shows the extreme expense involved. Costs include both the actual removal costs and the police and public safety costs as cities send out police officers to keep protesters at bay while the destruction of the monuments commences.

One of the first cities to indulge the left’s desire to destroy Confederate monuments was New Orleans. Early this year, the city began the process of removing the statues but initially insisted a private citizen was footing the bill for the removal.

While some of those costs were supposed to be taken on by a citizen of the city, the city budget was also burdened with a whopping cost of $2.1 million, CNN reported in June.

The extra costs came in city employee overtime costs, police overtime costs, and fees related to the court cases that the removal of the statues forced onto the city. New Orleans even had to shell out $50,000 to build a storage facility to store the four large statues.

Fox News reported about another group of cities that incurred similar costs.

San Antonio, Texas, recently reported that it spent $258,680 to remove a Confederate statue from Travis Park. The price tag included $147,775 to tear down the monument, $103,809 for police overtime costs, and an additional $7,000 to cover landscaping costs after the statue was removed.

But that cost, some city officials said, did not include the incredible $17 million previously spent on a police presence around the statue during the months the city was contemplating the monument’s removal.

Authorities in Dallas, Texas, revealed a similar story with upwards to $450,000 spent to remove its Robert E. Lee statue.

But Dallas is also eyeing the removal of another statue situated in Pioneer Park that will cost an estimated $800,000 to remove.

Some of the costs in Dallas also include the removal of Confederate-themed street signs, with new signs featuring new names replacing them.

In Virginia, the costs to the city of Charlottesville are still not known, especially after a weekend of contentious rioting that incurred costs for policing. But before the riot that resulted in one death, the city was claiming that the removal of the statues could top $700,000.

Certainly, other cities looking to eliminate statues that in many cases have stood for nearly 100 years will see similar costs passed onto taxpayers, and the final dollar amount is growing by the month.

Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston.

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