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Major Victory for Group Hoping to Stop Relocation of Katyn Statue

Updated 7:55 PM; Posted 7:14 PM - NJ.Com, August 13, 2018


JERSEY CITY — The group seeking to keep the Katyn monument at Exchange Place cleared a major hurdle on Monday when City Clerk Robert Byrne certified it has submitted enough valid signatures to halt the council's recent action that authorizes moving the statue to York Street.

Byrne's certification of the Katyn petition represents a stunning turnaround for the group and a major defeat for Mayor Steve Fulop, whose plan to move the controversial statue to make way for a new park at Exchange Place is now on hold.

"This isn't just a win for the Polish community, it's a win for all Jersey City residents who supported us," Kristen Zadroga-Hart, a member of the committee that collected the signatures, told The Jersey Journal. "And it's a win for democracy. There's a process, we saw it through and hopefully the City Council will understand the work and time that went into this and will vote on the side of the people."

The issue moves now to the nine-member council, which has two options: vote on Sept. 12 to reverse the ordinance approving the statue relocation; or ignore the matter entirely and allow voters to decide in a referendum.

Council President Rolando Lavarro said he will discuss with his council colleagues how they want to move forward.

About the petitioners, Lavarro said, "I congratulate them on their success."

Successful petition drives to overturn council actions are rare. A group in 1995 failed to halt an ordinance approving a city payroll tax (that measure never went into effect for other reasons). In 1963, a group attempting to stop pay hikes for police officers and firefighters submitted 39,000 signatures on a petition that led to a referendum that November. The referendum failed.

The wild story behind the proposed Katyn statue relocation started in April when Fulop revealed he wants to move it so the city can oversee the creation of a new park at Exchange Place. The announcement met with immediate resistance from the Polish community, which accused the city of attempting to erase history. The statue, which commemorates the 1940 massacre of over 20,000 Polish people by the Soviet Union, was gifted to the city in 1986 and was unveiled at Exchange Place in 1991.

The council at its June 13 meeting approved 6-3 an ordinance that authorized the city to move the statue one block south to York Street. Fulop has said the statue would be the centerpiece of a new city park at that location. On the Friday following the council vote, a five-person committee formed to attempt to overturn the action by collecting a minimum of 6,714 signatures of valid Jersey City voters.

Byrne on July 23 told the group its initial batch of 9,471 signatures contains only 3,833 valid signatures. The group then submitted another batch of 5,000 signatures on Aug. 3 and challenged Byrne's rejection of about 1,000 of the signatures from the first batch.

On Monday, Byrne said the group's second batch includes 2,295 valid signatures and that 668 of the previously rejected signatures are valid after all. That gives the group 6,796 valid signatures, 82 more than the minimum it needed to succeed.

Fulop has hinted that if the petition drive succeeded, the city might move the Katyn statue to Montgomery Street, the location it was originally intended to be when the council accepted the monument as a gift in 1986. City spokeswoman Hannah Peterson on Monday indicated that's the city's plan.

"We are indifferent whether the statue moves to York Street or moves two blocks away from the waterfront on Montgomery where it is legally supposed to be," Peterson said. "If the committee prefers two blocks away we are happy to pursue that as well. We thought the York Street location was ideal as it would create two new parks but we are happy to explore either of the two options."

It may not be so easy for the city move the statue to Montgomery Street. Last week, U.S. District Judge John Michael Vazquez, who is overseeing a lawsuit filed against the city by four Polish men, including the sculpture's artist, Andrzej Pitynski, said in an order that the city must notify the plaintiffs 14 days in advance if it intends to move the statue to give their attorney a chance to challenge the relocation.

Terrence T. McDonald may be reached at tmcdonald@jjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @terrencemcd.