Birmingham could face $6 million fine for covering Confederate monument

The plywood covering of a Confederate monument in Birmingham’s Linn Park is at the center of an ongoing lawsuit. Photo courtesy of BirminghamWatch.

The black plywood cube encircling a Confederate monument in Birmingham’s Linn Park could end up costing the city millions of dollars, BirminghamWatch reports.

State attorneys have sued the city over its August 2017 covering of the monument, which stands in the park in front of City Hall. Then-Mayor William Bell ordered the monument covered in response to racially motivated violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, though he stopped short of ordering its removal because he wanted to “comply with the law.”

The law in question is the Alabama Memorial Preservation Act, signed into law on May 17, which prohibits the “relocation, removal, alteration, renaming, or other disturbance of any architecturally significant building, memorial building, memorial street, or monument located on public property which has been in place for 40 or more years.”

State attorneys argued Friday that the plywood covering is a violation of that act, calling for a $25,000-per-day fine, which Jefferson County Circuit Court Judge Michael Graffeo noted would cost the city over $6 million. City attorneys, meanwhile, claimed that the plywood structure doesn’t touch the monument and therefore does not alter or disturb it.

The case is still ongoing. Read the full report at BirminghamWatch.