‘Confederate coward’: Liberty mayor tells man to leave meeting over heated statue debate

The Liberty mayor faced off with a community member at Monday’s city council meeting who made continued comments regarding a years-long debate over a Confederate statue in a cemetery blocks from the city’s downtown square.

Dwayne Holtzclaw, who said he’s spoken at more than 70 city council meetings, said the city is disrespecting veterans through a continuing civil lawsuit to gain ownership of the land the statue sits on.

“Simply a coward does this,” he said, when Mayor Greg Canuteson interrupted.

“I don’t think anybody is attacking an American grave of an American veteran,” Canuteson replied.

“I don’t need to listen to you anymore,” Canuteson, who was elected in April, continued. “You have made your point. You are marring this meeting.”

Holtzclaw called Canuteson a coward and walked away from the podium. Canuteson responded, saying Holtzclaw wouldn’t “have the guts” to call him one outside of the meeting.

“Oh absolutely,” Holtzclaw said. “You meet me outside here, I’d be more than happy.”

“We’ll see about that,” the mayor replied. “I’ll meet you out there. You’re a Confederate coward.”

The two argued until Canuteson repeatedly told the speaker to leave the meeting. Addressing other council members and the public, he said city leaders have repeatedly been attacked for more than two years over the debate surrounding the statue, when he believes there are more important issues they should be focused on.

“Great things are happening in this community, and we have to listen to that crap every council meeting,” Canuteson said.

Holtzclaw has attended city council meetings for years to debate the issue of the Confederate statue and threaten council members, sometimes claiming he knew where they lived, without repercussion, Canuteson said.

On social media, he said Holtzclaw has expressed racist views and wants to protect a statue that he says is an important grave marker for his ancestors and includes Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate general and the first Ku Klux Klan grand wizard, on its list of honorees.

Canuteson told The Star that he wanted to fight back on Holtzclaw’s claims and show that Liberty is not a city that will tolerate racism.

“We have great things going on in our community, and that’s what we should be focusing on,” he said. “Instead, every week we have to listen to this horse shit coming from him and his racist views.”

“I, for one, do not intend to let them go unanswered anymore,” he continued, “because the citizens of Liberty reject his racist views.”

Debate over the statue, which sits in Fairview & New Hope cemeteries, has raged on for at least three years. Since then, just over 2,900 people have signed a petition urging city leaders to remove the statue of a Confederate soldier atop a pedestal who overlooks the graves of Confederate soldiers.

“A town named Liberty should not have a monument that memorializes people that brutally removed that right from people of color,” Patrick Campbell, who started the petition, wrote. “It sits in a graveyard but it is not a grave just an intimidating reminder of Clay County’s confederate past that should no longer be publicly promoted.”

Shortly after, other community members started a counter-petition that garnered more than 1,200 signatures, arguing that the statue was erected in 1904 and paid for with dollars from local fundraising. The statue, Gieselle Fest wrote, is on a plot owned by the United Confederate Veterans, now the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

Last February, the city’s previous mayor Lyndell Brenton said residents could no longer comment on the issue at meetings until the civil case is resolved. Instead, he said community members could send written comments to the deputy city clerk that would be entered into the public record and shared with public officials rather than be read aloud at meetings.

Once the court proceeding determines who owns the land, Canuteson said the public will have time to argue what they think should be done with the statue. Until then, he said the constant arguments are pointless.

Members of the pro-Confederate group have also attacked city council members and tried to elect officials who agree with their views. Instead, he said the majority of voters elected its current representatives and mayor.

“The voters of this district did what was right and elected these folks because they didn’t want to listen to this bullshit,” Canuteson said.