Gov. Andrew Cuomo says the statue honoring Italian explorer Christopher Columbus won’t be sailing out of New York any time soon. “As long as I am Governor of the great State of New York, there will be a statue of Christopher Columbus standing tall and proud in the city of New York,” Cuomo, a Democrat, said at the Columbus Citizens Foundation gala Saturday night.

The Italian-American governor said he understands people have differences over the issue and that “in this great country by our Constitution people can disagree. But it is also true that by the Constitution you cannot censor, you cannot control, and government cannot seek to impose its own political ideology on the people.”