City leaders made their case Wednesday for the removal of the Christopher Columbus statue in South Philadelphia. The city cited public safety concerns and feedback from the community when it asked the Art Commission for approval to take down the statue at Marconi Plaza during a virtual hearing. They are looking to remove the statue from its current location and relocate it to the city's storage facility.

The city allowed the public to send in written submissions. According to city officials, they received 13,553 submissions through their public comment form. During their presentation over Zoom, the city said they looked at a random sampling of 1,200 responses.