Italian Americans seeking the return of Chicago’s Christopher Columbus statue to its former pedestal in Little Italy allege that Mayor Lori Lightfoot interfered with a Park District contract to keep the monument on display “in perpetuity,” according to a recently filed complaint.

Lightfoot has been newly added as a defendant in a lawsuit the Joint Civic Committee of Italian Americans filed against the Chicago Park District last July asserting that the district violated a deal signed in 1973 to display the Columbus statue in Little Italy when they took down the statue in summer 2020.