Tuesday, October 6, 2015

Monument On Hiatus: Why the secrecy?

Monument removed from state property in dark of night.    News9 aircraft captured this image at the capitol grounds.
The work crews showed up at the Oklahoma capitol in the dark of night.
Last night a private monument company sent a work crew to the state capitol. Security teams were in place and a barrier fence was all in place for a quick extraction. The privately donated monument to civil law was being torn down. This followed a very public and controversial legal fight that has been in national news over several years.
  KWTV news was there to capture the event.
Construction crews started removing the heavily disputed Ten Commandments monument Monday night off the state Capitol grounds. 
The 6-foot-tall, granite sculpture was ordered to be removed by Oct. 12. A heavy duty crane was used to lift the 4,800-pound monument around 10:30 p.m.  
Monument workers install the monument at the offices of a
political think tank, just blocks away from the capitol

The state paid a private contractor $4,700 to remove it, but the cost to reinstall it was paid for using private funds.
The Oklahoma Highway Patrol provided increased security at the Capitol during the process out of concern of protesters, but even that sparked opinions from a number of people. 
“Nothing about this surprises me. I don’t know if they thought there were going to be massive protests,” said former State Representative Mike Reynolds. “Just because the Supreme Court acted incorrectly that doesn’t mean the citizens will act incorrectly.”
The monument still belongs to the state of Oklahoma, but any costs related to it are the responsibility of the Council of Public Affairs.
  The state did not pay any money to receive the monument or maintain it. But the courts have spent a vast sum to resist the gift. Now, the state paid over $5K in expenses to reject the gift and extract it from it's designated slab of concrete.
  The empty slab now serves as a monument of the state courts' rejection of this symbol of civilization and governing laws.
Follow the event at News9: http://goo.gl/DHvqmR
David Van Risseghem

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"The state paid a private contractor $4,700 to remove it"

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