FERNDALE, Wash. — An addition yesterday to today’s Finance & Administration Council Committee meeting agenda added a proposed resolution “rejecting white supremacy and establishing Ferndale as a welcoming city.”
Council committee members Keith Olson, Kate Bishop and Greg Hansen are expected to discuss the proposed resolution, recommend changes and/or decide whether to forward the resolution to the full council for further discussion and/or a vote. The next full City Council meeting is scheduled for Monday, August 19th, at 6pm.
The full text of the proposed resolution is as follows:
City of Ferndale Communications Officer Riley Sweeney said City Council member and candidate for County Assessor Rebecca Xczar is bringing the proposed resolution to the committee members in response to a resident’s report of finding posters by a white supremacist group in the downtown Ferndale area and a social media report of someone handing out flyers in Bellingham.
The Finance and Administration Committee meets today, August 14th, in the City Hall conference room at 10am to 11am.
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How about we ignore this nonsense and conduct real City business.
On the contrary, it is definitely not nonsense and establishing Ferndale as a place that actively promotes the values expressed in this document is absolutely appropriate business for our City Council.
We need to stop this before it gets worse. We don’t need this racist garbage in Ferndale.
City Council won’t stop anything with this, and at least some of the reports of racist materials being spread seem suspicious. I agree with Mike – Ferndale is already welcoming anyway, so get to work with the people’s business…
Unfortunately. I believe that there will always be people who hold racist views. I’m also sure there are people who do things such as this in an attempt to get attention and nothing more. Then, of course, there are those who do these things in an effort to push a political agenda. To think that signing a document will somehow put a stop to such happenings is ludicrous. All it does is bring attention to creeps who do such things and that’s exactly what they want. Anyone who may be interested in living in Ferndale would most likely visit the city and almost certainly find it a very welcoming place. I doubt they would make a trip to city hall to check and see if our illustrious city council members had signed something so stating nor would they feel it would have any relevance.
Perhaps you are correct, that there will always be people who hold racist views. Words have power and ignoring hateful words is truly ludicrous. You call the people putting forth these tropes creeps. Would you consider them to be bullies/cowards as well? If so, would you advocate that we just ignore them and let their negative impact on individuals and our community go unchallenged. Words have power, we pledge allegiance to our nation, sing praise for our flag. Are these meaningless, ludicrous efforts?
I believe that it is important that we affirm positive values not just ignore negative ones. Our representatives on the city council are well positioned to affirm our community values and should. I am frankly less concerned about people outside Ferndale looking into our community as I am supporting people in our community who are the victims of such targeted hatred.
Asking people (usually minorities) to ignore racism downplays the offense and in the process minimizes the respect that the target of the offense is due. It’s basically saying, forget about it, your pain and self respect is not worth it, Anyone who thinks ignoring racism is the answer is part of the problem.
Was the Council in favor of racism before? This is all optics. Otherwise they should similarly come out officially condemning serious crime trends that are not being adequately addressed: Since I’ve had repeated car prowls on my property by drug addicts, I’d like the to ask the Council to explicitly condemn in writing this criminal behavior. After all, it’s the least they could do…
Sorry to hear about the car prowls, we had a ladder stolen in the past few months. Racism and car prowls are not even remotely equivalent. As a victim of a car prowl you are not being targeted because of some inherent aspect of who you are. Your argument is an informal fallacy based on a false analogy.
I think you’re categorizing things based on political trends as opposed to what most people experience day to day. Accomplishes nothing but vacant virtue signaling.
As a mother of a non white child..I want to say Thank You! I was scared when I read about the posters. Seeing Mr. Sweeney speak out and after reading this article , I feel so much better knowing that people in this town are willing to take a stance against racism. To anyone who thinks ignoring it is the answer please for a second imagine if your child wasn’t white, how you would feel.
Gayland I have a non white child. Reading that white supremacist posters were being put up in a town that I am raising my child in scared me. Reading follow up news stories that Ferndale wasn’t allowing that to happen here put my mind at ease. Not sure what you’re confused about?
My apologies Anna, my comment was intended for Michael Thompson last response in the thread just prior to your comment. I fully understand your comments and thank you for sharing your experience.
Gayland, my apologies!