The Palm Springs City Council voted unanimously Wednesday evening to initiate a legal process for removing a statue in front of city hall. That statute depicted Frank Bogert, a former mayor of Palm Springs, who ordered evictions of low-income people of color in the 1960s.
That eviction order, which effected an area known as Section 14, cleared a one-square-mile block of property in downtown Palm Springs occupied by working-class families of color, both Black and Latino.
Bogert's administration billed it as an "urban renewal project," but the effect was economically devastating to the residents removed, according to a City of Palm Springs Human Rights Commission report.
"We lost generational wealth, and not just from our residential homes, but also from our institutions like First Baptist Church, which was first located on Section 14," Deiter Crawford, whose grandmother Cora Crawford lived on Section 14, told The Desert Sun.
The HRC report authors have estimated that the destruction of Section 14 cost evicted families a total of $46 million in 2021 dollars.
The request to remove the statue came directly from families like the Crawfords, The Sun reported.
"As a ceremonial mayor of the city of Palm Springs in 2021, I truly apologize for those actions. They were wrong then, they are wrong now, they created devastation in our community and different outcomes for the Black community and Latino community that still exist today, and segregation that still exists today," Mayor Christy Holstege said, according to The Desert Sun.
Not all residents of Palm Springs have supported removing the monument to Bogert, however.
Doug Evans, a former planner with the city of Palm Springs who serves on the advisory committee of Friends of Frank Bogert, criticized the council's reliance on the HRC report, which he characterized as "loaded with errors."
"Tell the real story and ask the HRC to do their mission and not divide this city," Evans said.
"This is not about Mr. Bogert, this is really about a statue in front of City Hall that brings people pain," said Councilmember Dennis Woods. "And we can remove that statue to another location, and work with those people who have a passionate love for Frank Bogert on where that may be."
The process for removing the statue could take two to four months at minimum, according to Palm Springs City Attorney Jeff Ballinger. The council's decision would need to come before the Historical Preservation Board, as the statue is situated outside City Hall, a protected historic site.
The process could take longer than a few months if the board's decision is appealed, Ballinger warned.
The city council also voted to move forward with issuing a formal apology to the surviving families and descendants of those evicted from Section 14. City staff have likewise been ordered to develop proposals for a possible economic reparations program, likely in the form of community investment, over the next two months.
