Palm Springs Human Rights Commission recommends removal of Frank Bogert statue
The Palm Springs Human Rights Commission voted to recommend to the city council the removal of the statue of former Palm Springs Mayor Frank Bogert.
The monument to Bogert was installed in front of city hall on March 31, 1990, to honor and recognize his decades of service to the community.
Bogert is known as one of Palm Springs' most famous cowboys. He served as the city's mayor from 1958 to 1966. He served as mayor a second time from 1982 to 1988. He died in 2009 at the age of 99.
Calls for the removal of the Bogert statue have ramped up over the past year due to his role in the "slum clearing" of section 14. This refers to the removal of many low-income and people of color from that area of the city to make room for hotels and further tourism.
About 200 structures were demolished and burned. The city did not have a plan to relocate the residents, forcing many of them to move to the north part of town and throughout the county.
The demolition of Section 14 was described in a later California Department of Justice report as "a city engineered holocaust."
“There were some people who went to school in the morning and when they came home their houses were gone,” Palm Springs Historical Society’s associate curator, Renee Brown told News Channel 3 back in June 2020.
Bogert would later say in defense of the city's actions, "They were poor Blacks."
He added, "They began to come from Texas or wherever and settled in the (Section 14) Indian land, where they could live rent-free. Some of the hotels in the center of town thought this was a bad image for the center of Palm Springs"
The HRC also pointed out that Bogert improperly benefitted from the move as he served as a conservator for a tribal member while also serving as mayor. He would be found guilty of fee splitting between a broker and a conservator, splitting by or with fiduciaries.
In June 2020, a petition calling for the statue to be removed was launched in June as well. Over 2,400 people have signed the petition.
The HRC acknowledged the controversy over Bogert's role in section 14.
"Many working class,Black, Indigenous, and People of Color residents of the City of Palm Springs have issued a clear call to move this monument as expeditiously as possible due to the harm it poses as a symbol of the dehumanization and devaluation of their lives," reads HRC's proposed resolution.
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The commission passed the resolution with a 5 to 1 vote. The proposed resolution will now be presented to the city council, however a date has not been set yet.
