Our Veterans Memorials across the state of Virginia are at risk of removal at the will of county and city governments across the state.

This current state law protects our Veterans Memorials across Virginia however the state government of Virginia wishes to get rid of this law. 

https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacode/title15.2/chapter18/section15.2-1812/

And replace it with this.

http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?201+sum+SB183

This bill if passed by the state senate would allow any locality to "remove, relocate, contextualize, cover, or alter any monument or memorial for war veterans located in its public space, except in a publicly owned cemetery, regardless of when erected and removes certain criminal and civil penalties for such removal, relocation, or alteration."

Under the current law if a county say (for example) Bedford wanted to remove their D-Day Memorial and replace it with a shopping mall the county of Bedford would be fined for such removal and face civil penalties or even jail time for those on the county board. 

Under SB-183 Bedford could do the same and face no punishments or fines. 

Doing something like this here or anywhere for that matter would  be a slap in the face of our veterans currently living and working in Gloucester as well as their families and active duty military personnel. 

The purpose of this petition is to avoid any long and drawn out controversies and perhaps negative publicity for Gloucester regarding these Memorials in our county.

We the undersigned as current residents of Gloucester County, Virginia ask that you members of the county board to pledge never to remove, relocate, contextualize, cover, or alter any Veterans Memorial within Gloucester.