BANGOR (AP) – A memorial to Charlie Howard was unveiled at the edge of the Kenduskeag Stream two years ago to remember the openly gay man who was killed at the spot in 1984 in a hate crime that made national headlines.

But the granite memorial stood for barely two hours at the Kenduskeag Plaza bridge before it was removed for lack of city approvals. In the two years since, the monument and efforts on how best to remember Howard’s death have created political divides.

The original memorial now sits six miles away, neatly stacked on pallets behind the local monument shop that made it.

The foundation dedicated to erecting the memorial has split into two groups, and the city committee that reviews art in public places has balked at two separate memorial designs for the site.

The rejections have frustrated artist Tom Hudgins, who designed the memorial slab, and Daniel Williams, a local gay rights advocate who started the Charles O. Howard Memorial Foundation in 2004.

“Someone told me that it almost sounds like the city doesn’t want something there as a reminder,” Williams said. “I think they were right.”

But John Rohman, a former city councilor who heads the city’s arts commission, said the commission understands that Howard’s death was a defining event in Bangor’s history. But he denies there’s any heel-dragging.

“We have to look at the bigger picture,” Rohman said. “Twenty years from now, we want this to have an impact on those people who go by it.”

Howard, a flamboyant gay man who wore makeup and carried a purse, had recently moved to Bangor from Portsmouth, N.H., when he was attacked late in the evening on July 7, 1984.

Three local teens beat him and threw him off the bridge into the water below. Howard, who could not swim, had an asthma attack and drowned.

Charged with murder, the teenagers eventually pleaded guilty to manslaughter and were sentenced to the Maine Youth Center in South Portland.

In 2004, at the 20th anniversary of the incident, hundreds of people gathered at the edge of the Kenduskeag Stream and witnessed the unveiling of the memorial to Charlie Howard.

On Saturday, Hudgins stopped by the shop where the original memorial is now being kept. The engraving provides a detailed account of Howard’s death.

But that retelling was too detailed for some city leaders, who wanted more emphasis on what the city has done in the years since to promote diversity.

So, after months of negotiations, the Charles O. Howard Memorial Foundation submitted a second design without the details of Howard’s death.

The newly proposed monument is similar to the simple, pedestal style of the original, but the language has changed, stating that Howard died “at the hands of hatred and ignorance.” Furthermore, it calls upon the city’s residents to “continue to change the world until hatred becomes peacemaking and ignorance becomes understanding.”

City leaders signed off on the new wording, but rejected the group’s second proposal for aesthetic reasons.

On Sunday, Williams led a small group of walkers past the site of Howard’s death during the eighth annual “Walk With the Ones You Love,” an event designed to promote tolerance and diversity.

Among the walkers Sunday was Bangor City Councilor Gerry Palmer, who teamed up with Williams five years ago to enact a city ordinance that prohibits discrimination against gays and lesbians in areas including employment and housing.

Palmer said he understands the frustration of those trying to erect the Howard memorial, but he rejects the suggestion that the city wants to forget or gloss over the incident. Any delay, he said, is more likely the result of a slow-moving city government.

“I just know how bureaucracy works,” Palmer said.