Folks, it's time for some more emails.
I just saw this article in the Feb. 3 print edition of the 'Pasadena Independent', a local free paper that covers Pasadena, CA and some of the adjacent San Gabriel Valley communities. To read the article, click on the photo of the newspaper's front page, read the start of the article in the upper-right-hand corner, then proceed to page 3 and then to page 15 for the continuation.
Peter Amundson, the mayor of Arcadia, an up-scale suburb to the east of Pasadena with 56,000 people has stated that "No organization in the world has done more to support the American family than Focus on the Family." And the esteemed mayor has invited Mr. H.B. London, Jr., a vice president of Focus on the Family to speak at the Mayor's Community Breakfast at the expense of Arcadia taxpayers.
Arcadia was once the headquarters of the John Birch Society, a radical right-wing organization. Fred Koch, founder of Koch Industries was one of its founding members. It is also the city where Focus on the Family was founded. I would have thought that atitudes in the community would have changed in the intervening years as the city now has a majority Asian-American population, but it seems that the powers-that-be in the city (The City Council is made up of 5 white males, no Asians, no women, no Latinos, no anything else) are stuck in a 1950s time warp.
Per the linked Pasadena Independent article:
During Tuesday's regular City Council meeting, nine area residents spoke passionately and powerfully about Mayor Amundson's decision to have city funds pay for a speaker from the anti-gay organization such as Focus on the Family at the community breakfast in March. Their statements were both honest and moving, and two speakers got choked up to the point of tears during public comment.
The speakers included Arcadia High School students, at least one of whom spoke about the organization's opposition to anti-gay-bullying measures, the mother of a gay son, and the pastor of Good Shepherd Church who was abruptly cut off by the Mayor at exactly three minutes as he tried to make his final point. When one speaker finished her remarks, the Mayor asked her where she had heard of his support for the National Organization for Marriage ( NOM) and denied he knew anything of the organization. She pointed out that he has a link to that organization on his Facebook page, and the mayor "then uttered something that was indecipherable." A check by the Pasadena Independent of the mayor's Facebook page did, in fact, verify the link.
There was no public commenter in favor of the mayor's choice.
Was the mayor moved to reconsider his choice of inviting a speaker from a hate group to a breakfast that is organized to help foster a sense of community for all city residents? Again, from the article:
According to Evans, during the "Reports" portion of the meeting, the Mayor "lashed out against the brave speakers, insulting them and accusing them of "hate speech" and "intolerance"." "Quite simply, Mayor Peter Amundson demonstrated last night that he is an embarrasment - both to himself and to all of Arcadia."
Plans are in the works by organizers opposed to the mayoral decision to plan their own community event, and also a possible protest on the morning of March 4, prior to the Community breakfast.
How about it, fellow DKos activists. Let's let the Mayor and city council hear from us. Email addresses below:
City of Arcadia, CA
Mayor Peter Amundson - peter@keeparcadiagreat.com
Council Member Roger Chandler - citycouncil@ci.arcadia.ca.us
Council Member Robert Harbicht - harbicht@verizon.net
Mayor Pro Tem Gary Kovacic - gkovacic@swdlaw.net
Council Member Mickey Segal - msegal@nksf.com
City Manager - Donald Penman - (626) 574-5401 or advocacy@ci.arcadia.ca.us
Thanks to the great DKos community for continuing to stand up to fight injustice.