The statue of former mayor Frank Bogert that’s stood in front of Palm Springs City Hall for more than 30 years is going to move.
That was decided by the city council in a public meeting late last month. So the question now should be where it goes.
There are surely people who won’t let go of the council’s vote to move the bronze statue, but we think it was the right call.
That’s true regardless of where you come down on the complicated questions of Bogert’s legacy and forced evictions from Section 14, which came during his time as mayor and included bulldozing and burning of homes, mainly those of poor people of color.
Even if you think Bogert’s legacy is strong and find the concerns over Section 14 mistaken or exaggerated, city hall grounds are not the place for this statue.
It lacks context and is probably barely glanced at, if at all, by the majority of people coming and going from the building.
If the goal of having the statue is to ensure people remember Bogert and his accomplishments, the current location fails. It’s in the middle of a lawn visitors have no reason to walk through. And most people come to city hall to attend meetings or do business with the government, not gaze at statues and read plaques.
It’s time to move on, metaphorically and literally.
Supporters of Bogert’s legacy can either keep seething over the decision to move the statue or help decide where it should go.
We think its new home should be a place that puts his public service and 99 years of life in perspective with the rest of Palm Springs’ history.
If the statue goes there, it should have other exhibits or displays around it so it doesn’t wrongly imply Bogert is the only important figure in Palm Springs history.
Bogert lived from 1910 to 2009, a period when Palm Springs went from frontier town to movie-star playground to world-famous vacation spot.
Like most people then who were not Native Americans, and a lot still today, he came here from somewhere else: Colorado in his case.
He arrived before Palm Springs was a city and then became its mayor for two stretches, totalling 14 years over the 30-year span from 1958 to 1988.
The recent debates over Bogert’s statue have sometimes bordered on hysterical. Moving it doesn’t mean erasing him, any more than taking down or moving any other statue means tearing pages out of history books.
If there are other ideas for where the statue should go, let’s hear them.
Wherever it lands, it would be good if there’s an exhibit that lays out Bogert’s accomplishments, but also mentions he was mayor during the Section 14 removals and the debate over his role in them.
The current plaque calls him “a Palm Springs legend” and includes the phrase “a lifetime of dedication” — pretty words that tell you almost nothing.
It’s been lost in the recent emotional back-and-forth that like most of us, Bogert wasn’t all good or all bad.
His likeness shouldn’t sit alone on a symbolic pedestal in front of city hall. Nor should it be discarded in a scrapyard.
