Removal of the Vance Monument can proceed, after Buncombe County Superior Court Judge Alan Thornburg granted the City’s Motion to Dismiss a lawsuit brought by a group seeking to block the City’s planned removal of the monument.
Following Asheville City Council’s March 23 vote authorizing demolition of the 75-foot obelisk on Pack Square, The Society for the Historical Preservation of the 26th North Carolina Troops Inc., filed a lawsuit to stop the monument’s demolition. The suit alleged that the City of Asheville is in breach of contract after a 2015 signed agreement between Asheville and the 26th N.C. to restore the monument for which the group raised $138,447.
Buncombe County Superior Court Judge Steve Warren previously denied the 26th N.C.’s request for a temporary restraining order brought last month in the same case.
The City can now proceed with the contracts for removal, which include removal of the scaffolding, demolition of the monument this spring/summer and installation of landscaping in its place while the City conducts a community visioning process to consider what might go in its place.
Vance Monument Court Ruling 4.30.21
Related: Asheville City Council approves Vance Monument removal, visioning process for future of the site