I have covered local politics long enough that it takes a lot to disappoint me.
But that was the predominant feeling I had after watching Greenfield City Council President Karen Renaud’s recent outburst during the council’s Aug. 21 debate regarding the safe city ordinance, which will now apparently be decided by the voters this coming November.
I’m not going to spend the few words I get rehashing what was said, but I encourage every voter in Greenfield to go watch Renaud’s comments in context, which can be found at the Greenfield Community Television page at YouTube.com.
I’ve watched it a few times now and I still find it hard to believe that a person who purports to be a community leader could say the things Renaud said about white heterosexual male voters, especially in Greenfield, where that particular demographic composes a large chunk of the voting block.
I guess I shouldn’t be completely surprised, as demonizing white male voters seems to be in vogue this election season. Just ask Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders, who have come under attack in the Democratic presidential primary more because of their pedigree than their positions.
It’s called “identity politics,” and it’s a dangerous game that often results in double standards being applied. Imagine what the reaction might have been had Council President Isaac Mass made the same comments about black and Hispanic gang residents.
My guess is, he’d have been forced to resign by the next news cycle, but not Renaud, whose rant went so far as to suggest that people who planned to vote against the ordinance “in secret” would do so with “racist intentions” — a gross over-generalization that would be considered incredibly offensive if it were leveled at almost any other demographic group.
That’s not to say Renaud isn’t somewhat justified in her feelings. She received a number of threatening emails a few years back, as did Vice President Penny Ricketts, and has taken a fair share of abuse lately for helping broker the library-for-French King rezoning deal with Mass.
It also can’t be easy to see her two-year effort to pass a safe city ordinance get potentially checkmated. It doesn’t excuse the obvious bias her comments carry, but it makes them somewhat understandable, though no less disappointing.
I don’t expect Renaud to resign or even apologize for her comments or try to put them in context. But it’s going to be hard taking her seriously as the paragon of tolerance she has purported to be during her time in office, which ends in just a few short months.
So much for the process.
When then-Mayor Christine Forgey was running for re-election to her second term, I took some flack for allegedly sandbagging her opponent, Dalton Athey, by asking him during a debate whether a vote for Athey was also a vote for Al Norman.
Athey’s supporters accused me of unfairly trying to link their candidate to the sprawlbuster, but that was that narrative being floated at the time, so it seemed like fair game to me. Fortunately, I have no need to ask that question this year because it’s pretty clear which of the three mayoral hopefuls is Norman’s candidate.
That would be Sheila Gilmour, who appeared to lock in that designation at the end of the most recent City Council meeting, where she suggested that the council go along with Norman’s demand that it put a binding referendum question on the November ballot asking if voters favor removing the French King overlay and amend the ordinance related to major development review.
Glimour brought up the matter under new business, and only the council’s rules of procedure kept it from going to a vote then and there.
Of course, there was nothing stopping Norman from going out and getting the signatures to put it on the ballot, just like the library and safe city opponents did. But he seems to want to have the council do the work for him, and, if Gilmour gets her way, it may just happen.
The proposal goes to the council’s chairs committee next month and possibly the full council, where it could pass, and if it does, members of this body better never again preach about the need to “respect the process,” because it clearly doesn’t matter.
Chris Collins has covered Franklin County politics from a variety of media platforms for the past quarter of a century. He can be reached at sourcechris.collins@gmail.com.