The statue of Christopher Columbus on the Statehouse lawn won't be going anywhere anytime soon. Despite protests last year that the monument to the Italian explorer should be taken down like the one that once stood in front of City Hall in his namesake city, members of the board overseeing the Statehouse grounds Thursday approved a five-year process to get rid of any memorial.

As when the Capitol Square Review and Advisory Board initially considered the push to get rid of the statue in June, the only board member advocating for removal was Rep. Erica Crawley, a Columbus Democrat. “Surely we don’t need a study to determine whether a statue should or shouldn’t be on our grounds. And it shouldn’t take five years to do it," Crawley said.