Discussion continued at the July 3 Mount Vernon City Council meeting over the recent mayoral proclamation supporting June as Pride Month in the city, as well as a proposed resolution allowing displays of stickers or flags supporting organizations.
City administrator Chris Nosbisch said discussion on the policy by the council will happen at the Aug. 7 council meeting, as he will be absent from the July 17 meeting and staff has asked him to be present for that discussion.
Six of the roughly 20 people attending the meeting spoke about the proclamation during citizen’s opportunity to address the council at the Monday, July 3, meeting.
Against the proclamationSpeaking against the proclamation were Mount Vernon residents Curt Hancock and Greg Papin.
Hancock said his objection to the proclamation “is about a lifestyle…. It will tell our children the city encourages participating in the LGBTQ lifestyle.”
“This is a city council promoting sexualizing our children,” he said. “This isn’t the way to do it. Sexualizing our children is wrong.”
“A statement to place these stickers on city grounds supports sexualizing our children,” he continued. “Please don’t do it.”
Papin said, “Elected officials are supposed to serve all the community. Proclamations are traditionally non-divisive. Don’t we want all to be included?”
He suggested making each month a pride month for various constituencies and posting stickers for various other issues.
“In reality,” he said, “we should only display city, state and nation flags.”
For the proclamation Speaking for the proclamation were Mount Vernon residents Whitney Turner and Gretchen Reeh-Robinson.
Turner said she “appreciates support for all the community by the proclamation,” adding that “Our kids know they’re safe in this community.”
Reeh-Robinson said she was at the city council meeting to support “11 commemorative flags that are proposed by the city to display….I support this position the city might be taking.”
“I stand for rules in the community, but not to ban books,” she said. She noted that when she was in school, the librarians found books for her, and she read Catcher in the Rye numerous times.”
She learned at UNI, she said, that “each kid has at least one person who supports them.”
“If the Constitution is your primary guide, consider that it wasn’t written for how we are now,” Reeh-Robinson added. “Every day should be an effort to empathize with someone—less ‘me’ and more ‘we.’”
Neutral Mount Vernon resident and retired teacher Kristi Keast, as well as Mechanicsville resident Jerry Niederhauser—who has a business in Mount Vernon—both expressed neutrality on the issue.
Niederhauser said, “Someone just said that the constitution wasn’t written for such a time as this. That’s not right. It was written for such a time as this.”
City councill member Paul Tuerler replied, “I disagree with your statement that it was written for today because it allows for change—because the founders were smart enough to know that they didn’t know everything.”
“I’m on everybody’s side,” Niederhauser said. “I just want a civil society. They’ve got us fighting over everything—red, white, etc.”
Keast did not take a stand on the issue but simply thanked the city council “for supporting all their community members.”