At a public debate during the City Council meeting Monday night, Charlottesville residents exercised their right to speak about the controversial monument to free speech proposed for the Downtown Mall.
The design of the monument submitted to the City Council by the Thomas Jefferson Center for Protection of Free Expression calls for the construction of a slate wall nearly 65 feet long across from City Hall. A panel at one end of the monument will feature the text of the First Amendment.
The proposed "community chalkboard" would be located at the end of the Downtown Mall.
"This monument invites rather than simply tolerates free expression," said J. Joshua Wheeler, associate director of the center, who represented the organization at the forum.
Charlottesville residents and visitors could use chalk to express their opinions on politics and current events, write poetry, or draw pictures, according to the group's proposal.
The chalk will be erasable, and if a passerby objects to messages left on the wall, he can respond with his own views or erase what he finds offensive.
Wheeler said the center envisioned "works of art, jokes and even brainteasers" that would entertain pedestrians visiting the shops and restaurants of the Downtown Mall.
The center, headed by former University President Robert O'Neill, proposed the free expression monument last November.
University students already are familiar with the concept of a community forum. Anyone with a message and a can of paint can advertise his club or memorialize a special day on Beta Bridge, where messages traditionally are left up for a day before being painted over.
At Monday's forum, third-year Law student and Charlottesville resident Hunter Burns noted the "importance of the first amendment to our society," praising the design of the monument.
"And as a taxpayer, the price is just right," he said, noting that the cost of the monument would be borne exclusively by the center.
But not everybody was enthusiastic about the monument's virtues. Barbara Ronin, a Charlottesville resident and 17-year City Hall employee said the monument would become a "graffiti wall" and forum for "hate speech."
Ronin suggested that the center put up an temporary chalkboard to "see what people do" and then remove it after six months.
But at Monday's meeting supporters of the monument outnumbered detractors.
The Council has not yet set a date for a vote on allowing the monument to be placed on city property.
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