Columbus encircled

Activists to pols: Save statue

An Italian-American activist who demands New York City politicians state their positions on preserving the city’s Columbus monuments is calling on members of Mayor de Blasio’s PC panel on statues to resign.

“The level of pretension by the mayor’s ill-advised and divisive commission has created an atmosphere of ethnic tension and division . . . Alienating ItalianAmericans and Catholics is not a healing gesture. The only honorable thing for commission members to do is resign,” said Philip Foglia, of the Italian American Legal Defense and Higher Education Fund.

Foglia and 40 other groups consider it a litmus test for “all elected officials and those seeking public office” whether they “support the retention” of the Columbus Circle statue and others like it or “would remove” them.

The coalition on Monday overnighted 143 letters. As of Friday, member Angelo Vivolo, president of the Columbus Citizens Foundation, said he had gotten 14 responses — all in support of keeping the statues.

Public Advocate Letitia James and mayoral candidate Sal Albanese were among the respondents.

The group is giving the remaining officials until Thursday to respond. The activists consider a nonresponse a “lack of support.”

There are at least five statues on city land dedicated to Columbus, long hailed as the sailor who discovered America, but reviled by some as an imperialist colonizer who slaughtered indigenous people.