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NEWTON FALLS, Ohio (WJW) – Cities nationwide are removing statues and monuments honoring famous figures in American history, but a small Northeast Ohio community is saying whatever gets taken down send here.

“We want to embrace the great leaders,“ Newton Falls City Manager David Lynch told the Fox 8 I-Team Saturday. “Did they have flaws? Yes, they did. We all do.”

Lynch signed the proclamation July 4 declaring Newton Falls a Statuary Sanctuary City. 

The proclamation declares a “general amnesty for George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, Ulysses S. Grant, Patrick Henry, Francis Scott Key, Theodore Roosevelt and Christopher Columbus as represented by the statues of these great leaders, and volunteering to accept these statues that have been removed throughout the USA and place them in a location of honor in our community.”

Courtesy of Newton Falls city manager

He said he understands the “great leaders of our country and Western civilization had flaws” but stressed they also had great achievements.

“They founded our nation, they ended slavery, and established and protected our national parks,” Lynch said. “Yes, they had warts but they laid the foundation for what we have today.”

Newton Falls is about 60 miles east of Cleveland.

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