The organization arguing loudest that the Hillsborough County Commission not remove a controversial Confederate monument from in front of the county courthouse in Tampa has filed a lawsuit to keep the statue in its current location.
Save Southern Heritage, along with Veterans Monuments of America and five other individuals, filed a suit in Hillsborough Circuit Court on Friday afternoon. They claim the decision to move the statute is unconstitutional. The defendants are Hillsborough County, the Hillsborough County Commission and the County Administrator.
The Commission had voted in July to remove the 106-year-old statue, named Memoria en Aeterna, to a cemetery in Brandon.
However, commissioners backtracked on the proposal last Wednesday, declaring that unless the public could come up with $140,000 to share the costs of removing the monument in 30 days, the statue would remain. Those funds were raised on Thursday.
