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Last updated on Tuesday, October 29, 2013
(BLOOMINGTON) - The city of Bloomington have removed the large billboards and signs around the city about missing IU student Lauren Spierer.
Bloomington Mayor Mark Fruzan confirmed city crews collected 20 bill-board style signs and placed them in storage.
The decision to remove the signs around the community was an effort to balance many and varied community interests and input," Kruzan stated in a release.
"For the many people who have felt the signs should have been taken down long ago, it's long overdue. For those who believe they should remain in place, no time was right to remove them."
Posters about Spierer can still be found throughout the community and on the IU campus and police are still investigating her disappearance.
Spierer's parents, Robert and Charlene Spierer, recently purchased poster board and paid to have some of the billboard-style signs of their daughter reprinted.
Kruzan says the decision to take down the large signs had nothing to do with a city ordinance concerning signs in Bloomington.
"Our initial intention was to remove them after IU graduation last May," he added. "But local firefighters then decided to renovate the volunteers' signs in April, so a decision was made to wait another six months, which was last week.
No disrespect is intended nor does it reflect any loss of interest in the case. The community has been very engaged in the case and will remain so. Posters about the case remain up throughout the campus and community, including in city government buildings, and police agencies continue to actively investigate."
Spierer was reportedly last seen about 4:30 a.m. on June 3, 2011, at the intersection of 11th Street and College Avenue. It's been reported she was walking home alone toward her Smallwood Plaza apartment after a night out at Kilroy's Sports Bar. She was 20 years old.
A Facebook group "Email Drive for Lauren" has been created, asking people to email Kruzan to request that the signs be put back in place.
The Spierer family learned late last week that the signs were going to be removed.
She stated her family's only objective since the day they learned their daughter was missing is to obtain information about her whereabouts and bring her home.
"We remain grateful to the Bloomington Fire Department for the time and energy they took to build new frames and replace Lauren's weather- worn billboards this past April. We have been shown a tremendous amount of kindness and support by the residents of Bloomington and for that we are eternally grateful. We apologize to those who have found Lauren's missing posters offensive," Charlene Spire wrote in an email.
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