Richmond leaders want Confederate monuments removed. A small-town mayor is ready to take them.

As protesters celebrated the state's impending removal of the Robert E. Lee memorial on Richmond's historic Monument Avenue on Wednesday, Col. Greg Eanes made his move.

The outgoing mayor of the tiny town of Crewe, in consultation with his successor, sent a letter to Gov. Ralph Northam offering to take in the Confederate general. He's open to Jefferson Davis, too; anything that could bring in tourism dollars to help the town pay for upgrades to a century-old water and sewer system and keep Crewe from needing to raise taxes on people who can't afford to pay them.

"Green is the most important color," said Eanes, 61, a retired service member who joined the Air Force after 9/11 and ultimately returned to his hometown of Crewe, a 2-square-mile slice of Nottoway County about an hour southwest of Richmond. "If I could get a statue of Lenin or Josef Stalin, I would take it."

Northam on Thursday is expected to order Lee removed from his pedestal and placed in storage. The state-owned statue became the epicenter of protests against police brutality sparked by the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis after Richmond police tear-gassed peaceful demonstrators there on Monday.

Read more: https://www.richmond.com/news/local/richmond-leaders-want-confederate-monuments-removed-a-small-town-mayor-is-ready-to-take-them/article_a0583665-36f9-5e15-8c81-1fe18c8cfd20.html