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Anticipating a crush of interest and limited time to hear from everyone, Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney’s Monument Avenue Commission has decided that its first public hearing Wednesday will be limited to 50 speakers chosen in a random drawing.

“There’s just no way everyone who wants to speak will be able to speak,” said Gregg Kimball, the commission’s co-chair and the Library of Virginia’s director of education and outreach.

The panel called the hearing at the Virginia Historical Society — one of two scheduled at this point — to gather public feedback on Stoney’s request that the commission members develop a plan to “add context” to the Confederate monuments that line Monument Avenue.

Stoney has said he does not support removing the statues, which include three Civil War generals — Robert E. Lee, J.E.B. Stuart and Stonewall Jackson — along with the president of the Confederate States of America, Jefferson Davis, and Confederate navy commander Matthew Fontaine Maury.

Instead, the mayor has asked the 10-member group of historians, academics and community leaders to study ways to provide context, likely with the addition of interpretive signage.