Michigan Town Votes to Keep Veterans Statue as Leftist Group Leader Warns ‘We Know It’s Coming Down’

A township in Michigan voted on Tuesday to keep a statue depicting Civil War soldiers, and a leftist group is warning the issue isn’t over.

The Allendale Township met to decide the fate of the monument and took feedback from attendees.

Mitch Kahle (credited with bringing this controversy forward) told the board its not a matter of “if” the statue is coming down but “when” the statue is coming down. Kahle is a well-known civil rights activist from Muskegon County. @WOODTV pic.twitter.com/gxmyb7b2Wk

— Leon Hendrix (@LeonHendrix) June 30, 2020

“We all know. You know — everybody on this board knows, I know, everybody here knows. It’s not a matter of if that statue’s coming down it’s when it’s coming down. We know it’s coming down,” Michigan Association of Civil Rights Activists leader Mitch Kahle said.

He said it would be “the right thing, the moral, ethical thing” to tear it down.

“We’re here just to say to you it’s not a matter of if, but when it’s coming down. And if you want to keep repeating these meetings over and over and you want to have more and more protests with larger and larger crowds of people right here in your little town, then vote to keep it up,” he warned.

That’s exactly what the board did.

“It’s not over,” Kahle told his supporters after the defeat, WOOD TV reported.

“As people who live here peacefully we don’t appreciate this, coming here, and I do not appreciate the threats of its coming down, that is a threat and I don’t appreciate it,” Peggy Knight said in response to the out-of-towner, according to Fox 17.

“I know the artist and the statue was done with all good intentions and she is shocked that this is going on and she had intentions only to represent every war that we been in, to me the little boy sitting down there represents hope,” Knight added.

Township Supervisor Adam Elenbaas told Breitbart News, “A couple weeks ago part of the statue was spray painted and someone hit the statue with a hammer. The graffiti was cleaned off.”

Photos taken during a Monday visit show the damage:

Breitbart News previously reported that Kahle moved to the area in 2014 from Hawaii and has cornered the market on attempting to remove God and classic American values from the public square in the conservative region.

Kyle Olson is a reporter for Breitbart News. He is also host of “The Kyle Olson Show,” syndicated on Michigan radio stations on Saturdays. Listen to segments on YouTube. Follow him on Twitter, like him on Facebook, and follow him on Parler.