IOW votes to hand over Confederate monument to private property in Walters area

ISLE OF WIGHT, Va. (WAVY) — The Confederate monument at the Isle of Wight courthouse complex will soon be moved.

On Thursday, the Isle of Wight Board of Supervisors voted to officially hand over the county’s Confederate monument to Volpe Boykin and his wife.

County taxpayers will pay $32,500 to relocate it from the complex within the next 90 days and have it placed on Boykin’s property along Route 258 in the Walters area of the county. Boykin has said he plans to make it available for anyone who wants to see it.

Boykin’s bid was the only one submitted for the monument. The bid is required as part of the state-mandated process for moving or altering monuments.

The cost breakdown shows it will cost $25,000 to remove, relocate and reassemble the monument, $3,000 to $5,000 for the concrete foundation, and $2,500 for installation of an access driveway.

Boykin’s property was the county’s second choice for relocation. The first was the Town of Windsor Cemetery, but Windsor’s Town Council in February said it didn’t have interest in that idea.

The monument is the ninth to be relocated or removed in the Hampton Roads area in the last year.

Leaders in Virginia Beach, Portsmouth, Williamsburg, Newport News, Franklin, Surry, and Pasquotank County, North Carolina, are some localities in the region that have also voted to relocate theirs.