Richmond removed in 2020 almost all of the city-owned Confederate statues that marred the landscape with their white supremacist message.

But getting rid of the statues is proving to be harder.

Seventeen months after the statues began coming down, the city is still mulling over the future of the statues.

“It’s a work in progress,” stated Joyce L. Davis, Richmond City Council’s interim chief of staff, who has been a key figure on a joint committee set up by the council and Mayor Levar M. Stoney’s administration to consider bids and offer recommendations for the statues’ disposal.

The city has 23 offers on the table from individuals and Confederate groups to museums like The Valentine in Richmond to take the statues but has yet to accept any.

A majority of the bidders who came forward in September 2020 are hoping that Richmond will donate one or more of them, according to information posted on the city’s website.

Ms. Davis indicated in an email response to a Free Press query that the slow pace for disposal could change in 2022.

“Recommendations are anticipated, possibly toward the early months of next year,” she stated.

The statues include four that once stood on Monument Avenue—J.E.B. Stuart, Jefferson Davis, Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson and Matthew Fontaine Maury—plus others from Monroe Park and Church Hill as well as several replica cannons.

The only city-owned statue still standing is that of Confederate Gen. A.P. Hill. Located in the intersection of Hermitage Road and Laburnum Avenue, the statue serves as a marker for his grave.

An apparent agreement between the city and Hill descendants to move it to a Culpeper cemetery has yet to make progress after the town’s council balked at having the statue there.

There also is still a question about whether the city actually owns the statue, which could be sitting on private ground in the middle of the intersection of public roads.

The question of Confederate statue disposal gained fresh interest after disclosure that former Richmond interim Police Chief William “Jody” Blackwell had filed a $5 million lawsuit against the city for wrongful termination.

The suit alleges that Mayor Stoney forced Mr. Blackwell’s resignation as interim chief on June 26, 2020, and then had him fired earlier this year by his replacement, current Police Chief Gerald M. Smith, in retaliation for Mr. Blackwell refusing to provide officers to stand guard during the emergency removal of the Confederate statues in late June and early July 2020.

Mr. Blackwell served as interim chief for about 11 days.

City Hall has denied any wrongdoing and is asking the Richmond Circuit Court to throw out the case. The city has countered that it is immune from suit and that Mr. Blackwell has failed to present sufficient facts to show that the mayor was responsible for Chief Smith dismissing Mr. Blackwell from the city police force on Feb. 2, 2021.

A hearing on the city’s motion to dismiss the suit had been scheduled for Nov. 22, but was canceled. A new hearing date has not been set.

Separately, City Council moved relatively quickly last December to rename Jefferson Davis Highway to Richmond Highway but continues to dawdle on its plan announced in 2020 to rename the Robert E. Lee Bridge to end the Confederate association. A renaming commission was to be set up, but no further information has emerged publicly, no public hearings have been held and no ordinance has been introduced to carry out that proposal.

Also, a monument to Richmond Confederate units located on the lawn of the Marsh Courthouse in South Side still sits there. There has been no public effort on the part of the city or the judges of Richmond’s General District Court system to have it removed.