GREENFIELD — The community’s discussion of last week’s City Council meeting, where the safe city ordinance was put on the November ballot, is still ongoing.
Some of the discussion focuses on Council President Karen “Rudy” Renaud’s remarks about the ordinance she put forward.
Renaud said people who are immigrating to this country do so because of desperate situations and likewise there are people who fear immigrants.
“I am far more scared of the straight white guys out there with semi-automatic rifles willing to go into shopping malls, Walmarts and movie theaters and blowing us all up to pieces,” Renaud said in the meeting. “I am far more scared of some of the straight white guys who come here and talk to us and are rude or send extremely rude emails. (Emails that go) to the point of telling me I should go to a prison like they had in Germany and I will, once Trump becomes president. You scare me and some of my colleagues up here, but you know what? There’s not a single undocumented immigrant in this room that I have any fear of.”
For about two hours last Wednesday, the City Council listened to comments from the public and discussed among itself the safe city ordinance as well as a petition motioning to put the topic on the ballot. Residents spoke passionately on either side of the issue.
The City Council voted to affirm the safe city ordinance by majority twice.
During the second vote, Councilors Mark Berson, Timothy Dolan, Sheila Gilmour, Otis Wheeler, Penny Ricketts, Ashli Stempel, Verne Sund and Renaud voted in favor of keeping the safe city ordinance. Councilor Brickett Allis, Wanda Pyfrom and Isaac Mass voted to rescind the ordinance.
Because the petition language sought to rescind the safe city ordinance the City Council passed last month, the vote to keep the ordinance caused the question to be put on the ballot. Renaud said after public comment ended that elected officials in a representative government are open to scrutiny.
“We’re sitting here, you see our faces. You can hate us to our faces, you can say rude things to us,” Renaud said. “It takes courage to do that. It doesn’t take courage to go to a voting booth and vote with your racist intentions. But that’s what we’ll do — we’ll put it on the ballot, but I’m going to vote for it again.”
After Renaud’s comments, Mass responded.
“I stand here as someone who is facing the camera voting in a different way,” Mass said. “I don’t think the reasons I’m voting against this are because I’m a racist. We passed a resolution of respect and that I believe includes heterosexual, white males who have a license to carry, like myself.”
Mass said in an interview Monday that he believes people make mistakes.
“I think obviously, people shouldn’t categorize others based on gender, race or sexual orientation, but people make mistakes,” Mass said.
He said he finds that Renaud “handles herself respectfully” and added he would be opposed to a petition for her resignation.
When contacted Monday, Renaud declined to comment.
In the meeting, Councilor Sheila Gilmour, who is running for mayor, said she felt Renaud was calling out others who were “rabble-rousing.”
“I think calling people out trying to rabble-rouse especially when we have lies circulating throughout the community intentionally,” Gilmour said. “That’s not disrespect — it’s telling the truth.”
In 2017, Renaud brought a sanctuary city ordinance before the City Council, which failed.
Reach Melina Bourdeau at mbourdeau@recorder.com or 413-772-0261 ext. 263.