A Minneapolis city council unanimously voted to drop reciting the Pledge of Allegiance from its council meetings, but is now reviewing its decision after some constituents raised concerns.
St. Louis Park City council voted 5-0 to drop the Pledge of Allegiance at the beginning of their sessions, to be more inclusive and so that members of their community would not feel intimidated by the traditional practice.
Council member Anne Mavity, who sponsored the vote said, “We all love our country dearly, and we demonstrate that by our service as elected officials all the time,” Star Tribune reported.
“Not everyone who does business with the city or has a conversation is a citizen,” Mavity told KARE 11. “They certainly don’t need to come into city council chambers and pledge their allegiance to our country in order to tell us what their input is about a sidewalk in front of their home.”
Council member Tim Brausen told the Star Tribune “racial equity initiatives” motivated the plan, stating that the city has been making a joint effort “to get more diverse communities and historically less engaged communities to come and participate in our public process,” but, he added “given the current Washington politics that are going on now, there’s a lot of people that are afraid of our government, and we worry about that.”
“I want to make sure that we are welcoming to everyone in our community, and so I just felt that was an unnecessary component to include every single week in our work,” said Mavity.
There was very little debate at the initial session leading to a unanimous decision on June 17 to abandon the pledge, but not everyone of interest was present at that time. Mayor Jake Spano and one other council member had missed the meeting and had no opportunity to vote. Many citizens also raised concerns regarding the decision to ditch the pledge.
Spano expressed his discontent with the decision on Twitter.
2/3 Historically when a decision is made by the council, it’s over and we move on but after hearing from more people than I can count in the last day (many admittedly not from SLP), I asked my colleagues to revisit this decision and a majority of them agreed.
— Jake Spano (@spanojake) June 28, 2019
Jacque Smith, communications and marketing manager for the city, responded on this turn of events by stating in an email to the Washington Post that: “After hearing many comments from the community, the St. Louis Park City Council is revisiting its decision to remove recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance from city council meetings. The council will discuss this topic at its July 8, 2019, 6:30 p.m. study session.”
Anne Mavity, who sponsored the motion, said about half of Minnesota’s cities already have done away with the tradition of reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, and that includes Minneapolis, she said according to The Associated Press.
she told Minnesota Public Radio on Thursday that she was not surprised by the upheaval the decision caused: “To me, saying the Pledge of Allegiance is not the barometer on patriotism. If anything, patriotism and American values allows a variety of opinions and I welcome people to disagree. That’s what democracy is all about.”
