Rawlings says process will play out for Confederate monument review

Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings said Wednesday he stands by his decision to study for three months whether Dallas should take down its Confederate monuments.

More monuments around the country are being removed each day, with The University of Texas at Austin and Baltimore opting to bring their monuments down overnight to avoid clashes like in Charlottesville.

After Saturday night's protest in Dallas, the mayor made the outcome sound inevitable. On Facebook he said, "We will take these statues down and we will do so soon."

His statement created confusion about his task force and the 90-day review process unveiled last week. Rawlings said Wednesday the timeline hasn’t changed, but he does believe the Confederate statues will ultimately be removed.

“The city council has to take that action. We've got a great task force in place that we will be announcing the members of. Going to talk about how we're going to do it, but I predict that is what's going to happen,” Rawlings said.

City Manager T.C. Broadnax says it will cost more than $1.6 million dollars just to remove the monuments.

“He's throwing around some big numbers, I'm going to get into it,” Rawlings said, adding that he doesn’t doubt the estimates since the sculptures are old.

Council member Philip Kingston gathered enough council member signatures to force a vote on the issue. It's expected to be on the agenda at the end of next month.

The task force will study the various options of what to do with the monuments -- from destroying them to preserve them.

The next scheduled movement on the issue is on September 27. It will be a mostly symbolic vote by the council to declare that it does not support Confederate monuments on city property. However, there will likely not be any action until November 8 after the mayor's task force makes its recommendation.