Town plans to remove Ten Commandments slab

BLOOMFIELD — Kevin Mauzy, the founder of Four Corners Historical Monument Project, said the Ten Commandments monument outside of the Bloomfield City Hall will be moved to another prominent location within the city limits.

The monument is owned by the Historical Monument Project, which also owns the other monuments on the lawn, including the Gettysburg Address, the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence. The monuments were intended to recognize important documents that influenced the governing of the city.

The Bloomfield City Council went into closed executive session Monday to discuss what the best time frame was for having the monument removed from the lawn.

Mauzy said the monument will be removed within 30 days and placed on private property. He said the Historical Monument Project has several sites in mind but has not selected one.

A judge in 2014 ruled that the monument violated the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause and ordered the city to have it removed. The city appealed the case. Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court declined Bloomfield’s petition to hear it. While the city was appealing the case, the order requiring it to remove the monument was placed on hold.

In 2012, two Bloomfield residents sued the city and asked for the monument to be removed. When reached by phone Tuesday, Janie Felix, one of the plaintiffs, said she is pleased that the monument is going to be moved off government property. She said in her opinion, the monument is harming the First Amendment rights of Bloomfield residents.