More than a year after Dallas leaders voted to remove the Confederate Memorial from Pioneer Park near the downtown convention center, the monument will "finally" be dismantled, Dallas City Council member Omar Narvaez wrote in a Facebook post.
The 5th District of Texas Court of Appeals dissolved an order from October that temporarily barred the removal of the monument, according to an image of the order Narvaez posted.
A spokesperson for the city said they are working to develop a plan for removal, but nothing has been determined yet.
"I think the time is now," City Council member Casey Thomas told WFAA. "These monuments are a tribute to white supremacy. I would love to see them come down by Friday, Juneteenth if not sooner."
Removal and storage costs of the memorial were previously priced at approximately $480,000.
The monument was finished in 1897 and moved to Pioneer Park in 1961 because of the construction of Interstate 30.
After the violence in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017, Dallas mayor Mike Rawlings created a task force to examine all Confederate markers and monuments.
The Dallas City Council passed a resolution in September 2017 to immediately remove the Robert E. Lee and Confederate Solider monument in Oak Lawn.
The task force made final recommendations later in the fall which included renaming Lee Park back to its original Oak Lawn Park name before the 1936 dedication of the statue.
The task force also recommended to add more explanation and context to Confederate markers at Fair Park and the removal of the Confederate memorial at Pioneer Park.
In April 2018, city staff recommended the Pioneer Park memorial not be removed, but instead preserved with the addition of plaques for historical context.
But in early March 2019, Dallas’ Landmark Commission voted 10-5 to remove the Confederate Memorial from Pioneer Park near the downtown convention center.
The move came two weeks after the city council voted to do the same. The Landmark Commission vote was required because the monument sits in Pioneer Park, which is a historic overlay district.
In June of 2019, a group filed a petition for a writ of injunction to the Court of Appeals to prevent "any alteration or demolition of the Confederate Monument in Pioneer Cemetery" while they appealed a decision from a trial court judge.
The court granted such a temporary injunction in October 2019.
The group was appealing a decision from April 2019, when Judge Eric Moye had dismissed the group's claim that the city had "failed to follow state law while pursuing its goal of removing the Robert E. Lee and Confederate Soldier statue disregarding its statutory duties under the Texas Open Meetings Act and the Texas Antiquities Code. CR 17-54," according to court documents.
On June 10, 2020, the city of Dallas had filed an emergency motion asking the Court of Appeals to dissolve the injunction, according to Narvaez's post. On June 12, 2020, the court granted that dissolution.
The city can now place the monument in archival storage, the court's order said, while the appeal moves forward.
