“We’re just here to help place a monument that was to have been in a cemetery where it needs to be,” Fort Smith City Administrator, Carl E. Geffken said. “There are more confederate soldiers buried in Oak Cemetery than there are in the National Cemetery here in Fort Smith and that was where the monument was initially going to be placed. We would donate that land to the UDC.”
“What Mr. Geffken has offered is a non-offer, a non-thought-filled offer and in fact it’s insulting,” said Joey McCutchen, an attorney who represents the local chapter of the UDC. “We would be fools to accept his offer.”
Geffken told 40/29 News he got an estimate of the cost to move the monument from the courthouse to historic Oak Cemetery. The bid came in at $90,000.
None of the money would come from taxpayers, Geffken said.
The plan would give the UDC a perpetual easement to the monument.
McCutchen told 40/29 News that’s not good enough, “Why would the UDC move from one government owned parcel to another government owned parcel so that the next time somebody’s not happy and when somebody wants to erase history they can move the monument again. We’re not interested in that, that’s never been part of the discussion. The discussions have always been regarding a private agreement, just like we just hammered out in Bentonville, which has taken over a year and a half.”