We the people of Lee county believe the bust of Robert E. Lee should remain out of the public eye and relocated to a more appropriate location such as a museum of confederate history.we also call for the removal of the confederate imagery located in the county commissioners chamber to be removed, relocated, and replaced. We also ask for a promise to never erect any more symbols of the confederacy in Lee county. We recommend the creation of a monument that better represents the community of Lee county and it’s citizens to take its place. 
It is imperative that Lee county joins the growing number of areas that are removing their confederate monuments.
The bust of Robert E. Lee that stands in downtown Fort Myers was erected in 1966, by the Daughters of the Confederacy. We have heard the story of the creation of the memorial, and why it took until 1966 to see it to fruition. The Daughters of the Confederacy, on two separate occasions, generously donated their Robert E. Lee memorial fund to establish and expand a hospital in Lee County. Lee Memorial Hospital was established in 1915, in the 1940’s, the hospital needed to furnish a nursery, both times, the needs of the community were put ahead of the need for a monument to honor Robert E. Lee.
Lee Memorial Hospital was segregated until 1966. Black patients were not given medical care there; it was a whites only hospital. Black people in need of care had to go to Jones-Walker Hospital, which was the black hospital in Lee County from 1924 until 1966. In addition to the racial segregation, only male doctors were allowed to practice medicine there. Lee Memorial Hospital only granted hospital privileges to a female physician for the first time in 1973. Times have changed. Fort Myers has changed. Just as a racially segregated courthouse and hospital have had to change along with the times, so should our outward expressions of who we are as a community. It is time to honor our past by recognizing that the painting and the bust of Robert E. Lee no longer represent our community. Not only are they a misrepresentation of the values we hold in our community, confederate monuments have become lightning rods for violence and conflict in other parts of the country. These relics of the past have become symbols of division and racism in our present and it is time that they come down.