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Confederate soldiers' memorial feud bound for trial Date published: 8/10/2010
By CLINT SCHEMMER Fredericksburg's legal battle over the location of a memorial to Confederate dead can go to trial, a judge decided yesterday. Circuit Judge Gordon F. Willis rejected the city's motion for summary judgment to dismiss a lawsuit by the Sons of Confederate Veterans' local camp, saying the court must decide some of the facts disputed by both sides. The City Council wants the SCV's Matthew Fontaine Maury Camp No. 1722 to remove a granite-and-bronze memorial it erected in early 2009 to honor 51 Confederate soldiers who were buried nearby on what is now the Maury Commons condominiums. The small monument sits on one corner of the grassy triangle at Barton and George streets that's better known as site of the much-larger Fredericksburg Area War Memorial. Last fall, the City Council said the SCV monument must move. It enacted an ordinance declaring the triangle the exclusive site of the War Memorial, donated by the Fredericksburg Area Veterans Council, that honors local military personnel killed in World War I and later conflicts. The Maury camp contends that state law bars the city from moving its monument, and that the SCV had city building and zoning officials' permission to put it there on municipal property. It claims that elsewhere on city land, markers and monuments to the Union's Irish Brigade and the 7th Michigan Infantry were recently permitted by the same process. But City Attorney Kathleen Dooley argued in court yesterday that staff weren't authorized to allow the SCV memorial. Permission must come expressly from the City Council, she said. The SCV camp obtained a building permit for the monument's base from the city zoning administrator. Since it has that document and the memorial is built, the council cannot retroactively move or alter the monument, the group's Richmond attorney, Patrick McSweeney, told the court. "After the fact, the city can't change the rules," McSweeney argued. Judge Willis said he wants to hear testimony on why Roy B. Perry Jr., the SCV camp's first lieutenant commander--who obtained the building permit--believed he had the city's approval for the monument. And as he did last spring when the case arrived in his courtroom, Willis urged the two sides to settle the issue out of court, through mediation overseen by a retired judge.
Why doesn't the paper ask the tough questions like why the
city is hiring an outside atty when they are already paying
for one on staff? How much they're spending in staff time &
court costs? Why isn't the mayor or council asked why they
are wasting time on this when they should be looking for
ways to generate revenue? Good grief!
waste of time and money. The war is over and the South lost.Get over it.
If you knew history you would know that.
The Fredericksburg War Memorial honors those who died fighting FOR the United States. The SCV's intention is to recognize individuals who warred AGAINST the United States. Why should these groups share the same memorial site?
As we speak the races are melding and very few blacks are pure blacks and fewer and fewer 'whites" are white. Look around you. The loudest "black"voices denouncing racism are at least half white. THAT PERCENTAGE IS MOVING UP. They are using their bi or tri-racial status to make big bucks. After all, America is founded on innovative ways to make a fortune.
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