PEORIA, Ill. — The Peoria Park District is seeking public opinion about the future of the Christopher Columbus statue that sits in Bradley Park.
The district has scheduled a Facebook Live event for 6 P.M. on Wednesday, Aug. 5, during which time comments will be taken for board consideration.
The board plans to incorporate the comments into a proposal to be presented at a Sept. 1 PPD Planning Committee meeting.
“If there are some strong viewpoints that come out of that public meeting, potentially, those folks [who have strong opinions] could be a part of the Planning Committee so we could have a more robust dialogue,” said Executive Director Emily Cahill.
Comments and recommendations from that meeting will be incorporated into a plan to be presented at a full park board meeting on Sept. 23.
Additionally, comments may be sent to ppd@peoriaparks.org.
The statue was placed in 1902 in the middle of the intersection of Columbia Terrace and North Institute Place, before being moved in 1947 to its current home in Bradley Park.
Deterioration and vandalism have forced the district to restore and renovate it many times over the years.
The board has laid out a number of potential outcomes for the statue, which include leaving it as-is, leaving it and changing the signage around it, leaving it but modifying it to resemble a different historical figure, selling it, putting it into storage, removing it and leaving the pedestal for a future sculpture, and removing it completely.
Columbus has been a source of controversy in locales across the nation in recent months.
A statue in Boston was taken down after it was beheaded. Similar measures have been considered in Chicago, where Mayor Lori Lightfoot has said the statue in Grant Park will be “examined.”
Meanwhile, an online petition to change the name of Ohio’s capital city has garnered well over 100,000 signatures.
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