At the Capitol, space thin on the ground

At Arkansas’ Capitol, visitors can find a memorial to Confederate soldiers not a long walk from statues of the nine black students who integrated Little Rock Central High School. What they won’t find is much open space for any new monuments.

With vacant space at a premium, a panel on Tuesday approved new rules for the placement of future monuments on land surrounding the Capitol. Instead of contacting the secretary of state’s office to propose a monument, applications will now have to be submitted and approved by a design subcommittee of the Capitol Arts and Grounds Commission.

“This is it. There’s no more land around the state Capitol,” Deputy Secretary of State Cathy Bradshaw said. “What we’ve got now is what we’ve got forever, so we really need to think hard about what we allow on the Capitol grounds.”

The 20 acres surrounding the Capitol are already dotted with an odd mix of about 13 monuments and markers. Other than the Little Rock Nine and Confederate memorials, they also include the Law Enforcement Officers’ Memorial and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

The Little Rock landmark also includes, fittingly, two big rocks — a Bauxite boulder and a boulder from Granite Mountain.

The last new monument built on the grounds was the Little Rock Nine Memorial, which depicts the nine students in bronze and was unveiled in 2005. Money is being raised to try and erect a monument to the state’s fallen firefighters on the Capitol grounds.

Under the new rules, organizations proposing new monuments must submit an application to the Arts and Grounds Commission that describes the project’s design, projected cost and desired site. The rules also require that an additional 10 percent of the project’s total cost be deposited with the state for maintenance and care of the memorial.

After the project is approved by the subcommittee and then the full commission, it has to be submitted by the secretary of state’s office to the Legislature for final approval. Bradshaw acknowledged that organizations could bypass the process entirely and ask a lawmaker to sponsor legislation for their monument.

Bradshaw said there had previously been no formal application process for submitting monument proposals, other than contacting the secretary of state’s office and putting the proposal before the full commission.

“It was talked about that maybe we needed a little bit more of a set guideline for people to go by. I mean, everybody thinks their monument is important, but considering the space limitation, it would be better if they could think it through,” she said.