CRESTVIEW — The years-old controversy surrounding the Confederate battle flag fluttering above Confederate Park was resolved by a unanimous decision to transfer both the flag and the Confederate veterans memorial below it to a local family.
Crestview City Councilman JB Whitten moved to transfer the equipment to trustees of the Lundy family “who can do with it whatever they choose to do with it.”
William “Uncle Bill” Lundy, a purported Confederate States Army veteran who died in Crestview in 1957, is mentioned by name on the memorial.
The quick action in the opening minutes of Monday evening’s council meeting — which was moved to Warriors Hall to accommodate the large turnout — defused tensions that have surrounded the flag since the 1990s.
The council also voted 4-0 to have Mayor David Cadle meet with representatives of the Lundy family to arrange for the memorial and flag’s removal within 60 days.
“Immediately after the meeting, Greg Lundy and I got together and worked out a framework for discussions on the matter in the next few days,” Cadle said.
THE MEMORIAL
Lundy is great-grandson of Uncle Bill, who purportedly was the last Confederate veteran in Florida. Citing census records which indicate Lundy was 5 years old when he said he served, historians question the claim.
The Crestview Lion’s Club erected the memorial near the intersection of State Road 85 and U.S. Highway 90 soon after his death.
Later it was moved to its present site on a triangular city-owned right-of-way at First Avenue and S.R. 85.
Until the council’s vote, Greg Lundy was planning to request the family be allowed to purchase Confederate Park, however Public Works Director Wayne Steele explained right-of-ways can’t be sold.
“If it's never serving any public good that way in the future, it goes back to the original owners,” Steele said. “It's not sold.”
Members of the public represented both sides of the issue.
Kenneth Daniels, a Pensacola representative of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, decried the movement to remove the Confederate battle flag from public land as part of a “Marxist-socialist plot” to “create a socialist dictatorship.”
However, Crestview resident Sharon Brown Halmon praised the council’s decision.
“This has been a topic that has really been a thorn in our sides and it's just time to move on,” she said. “What’s right is right and we need to move on as a city.”
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Crestview to give Confederate flag, memorial to Lundys