Daviess County Fiscal Court on Thursday officially appointed a five-person Confederate Monument Relocation Committee that will have six months to decide a new place for the statue currently erected on the Courthouse lawn.
The committee is made up of Board Chair Aloma Dew and members Wesley Acton, Kenny Bar, Anne Damon and Tim Kline.
On Aug. 6, Fiscal Court voted to have the Confederate statue removed from the courthouse lawn.
“We decided that we would come up with a committee to help advise us, to help us interface with the public, to take public comment and bring us back some recommendations,” Mattingly said. “We said we’d name the committee in six weeks — I think it’s actually been four.”
Mattingly said Fiscal Court wants to make sure the committee takes public input during their decision-making process. To make sure that happens, Fiscal Court will be accepting public comments at daviessky.org.
Those who want to make public comments about where the statue is relocated can also email committee members or send letters postmarked to the Daviess County Courthouse, Mattingly said.
“I think I can say for all of these folks — the ones I appointed didn’t call me, I called them. I asked them and there was a little hesitancy there because they know that this is a controversial issue and we have a lot of passion on both sides,” he said. “But in the end, I think this committee is made up of a good cross-section of folks in our community.”
Fiscal Court Communications Director Jordan Rowe will be facilitating committee members as they receive public comments and emails. The committee will be given their own email addresses in the near future.
Mattingly said he would be stepping back from the Confederate statue’s relocation process, leaving all decisions to the committee.
All emails sent to or from the committee will be made available to the public, according to County Attorney Claud Porter. Any correspondence between citizens and committee members is subject to open records the same way all discussion within the committee will be subject to open records requests.
“Because it is a court-appointed public entity, they will need to comply with open records and open meetings,” he said. “All of their meetings when called must have at least 24 hours notice. They may not discuss individually or serially any decision. That must all be done in public. Any documents they produce will be subject to open records and disclosure.”
