EUSTIS, Fla. – A city commissioner is speaking out about what he said are Confederate monuments being thrown in the trash. He took to Facebook, telling people to instead donate the statues to the city of Eustis.
"I don't believe they should go into a garbage bin. I think they need to go somewhere," Eustis City Commissioner Anthony Sabatini said.
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It's a post on Facebook that Sabatini said has put him in the hot seat. It reads, "To any cities or counties that would like to donate their Confederate monuments to the city of Eustis, we will gladly accept and proudly display our nation's history. Thank you."
The post has now been shared more than 500 times.
"When I made that post, I was speaking specifically about the city residents. These subjects are initially divisive, but we become united once we speak about them," Sabatini said.
Sabatini said he's a veteran himself and the passion to write the post came from seeing last weekend's violence in Charlottesville Virginia, that has since fueled the debate about Confederate statues nationwide.
"I think they misunderstand what it is I'm trying to do. Some people have reached out to me asking, 'Do you want to put a Stonewall Jackson in City Hall?' Absolutely not," he said.
While Eustis currently doesn't have any historical monuments of that era, Sabatini said he's speaking out as a leader and not for the city. That right now, there isn't a proper place to preserve history anywhere in the country.
"I think these monuments when you see them, they're very powerful. I hope when I made this post that other cities would follow along and find a place to put these statues. Otherwise, they're going to be destroyed," Sabatini said.
News 6 reached out to the city to see how they felt about Sabatini's post and they said in part, "The city has taken no formal action regarding Confederate statues. Statements made by Commissioner Sabatini were as an individual. The post does not represent the commission as a whole."
The commissioner told News 6 he is not interested in preserving all monuments from the Confederate era, just the ones that honor people that died for our country.