On Tuesday, August 6th, at the Whitehall City Council meeting, several people showed up regarding some incident reported to have taken place in front of our mayor’s home. What I heard during the meeting was that someone had showed up in front of the mayor’s home and was alleged to have harassed an elderly person on the porch. A few people spoke: upset was expressed at this confrontation with the elderly person, the mayor’s position as Whitehall’s first black mayor was referenced and the general sense that I got was that the event had been racial in nature, a form of intimidation/terrorization and that the mayor wasn’t wanted or appreciated in Whitehall. I was alarmed to hear that there could have been any such racial incident in Whitehall and so, I was appalled. Because I knew nothing about the story though, I listened intently, ultimately not wanting to comment too definitively until I’d been able to get all the facts of what happened. As a sitting Councilman, (and being addressed on the topic during Council) I felt that it was important to make certain that I and the community was apprised of all the information available so we could all have a fuller understanding, for the community’s benefit. After all, knowledge and communication are keys to better understanding*.
I have filmed the comments made by the public and council during the public meeting, only on the topic at hand, for convenience’s sake. The only comments made on this specific topic are by those in the video. No one else present spoke publicly on the issue. Watch the video first and I’ll proceed after that.

So, in the video one surmises that a person had showed up in front of the mayor’s home and engaged with an elderly person sitting on the porch. The claims are that this person took photos, and the word harassment was used to characterize the incident.
While the topic presented was sensitive, I (and I hope every other person) wanted to know the entirety of the story so as to make the most thorough judgement possible based on the facts, for that is vital, particularly given the sensitivity which rightly surrounds race issues. With that then, at the meetings end, I spoke with the mayor about what had happened. He gave me a cursory outline which started to open understanding. A truck hired by the F.O.P. (Fraternal Order of Police) with a billboard on it with signage about the current issues between the F.O.P. and Police Chief Crispen/Mayor Bivens had parked in front of the mayor’s home. The driver had engaged the elderly person and had taken photos. I asked if the police had been called over the truck parked in front of his home and he said ‘no’ because there was nothing illegal that happened. (FYI: One has a legal right to do as they did, and that’s what it indeed was…legal.) This then was all I asked the mayor and all the info he gave me on the matter. As a result then of the information he shared, the fuller picture started to come into clearer focus because, during the meeting, there had been no mention of this key information regarding the F.O.P. or a billboard truck. While this brought me more information, I had lots of questions and wanted to know more.

Once I got home, I made calls and found out that the mayor’s wife had written about it on a Facebook post that F.O.P Capital City Lodge #9 President Brian Steel had created on Whitehall 411, so, I went there and looked at the post. In her comment she was clearly upset and expressed alarm for the elder having been caused distress by the truck/driver’s visit. There was one photo of the driver standing on the sidewalk in front of the truck. Because the mayor’s wife had made her feelings pretty clear over a couple FB comments, I felt it sufficed for information from her, so I let that stand. As a result of this, I then made a call straight to the horse’s mouth in this issue; the F.O.P..
I was told by them that indeed they’d hired the truck to drive around Yearling Road and Whitehall itself but that the billboard was never supposed to go to the Mayor’s house. I was also informed that when they learned it had been and that the elderly person had been bothered by it, they immediately ordered it removed from the site.
I got the number then for the man who runs the media company that facilitates the billboard campaign, and he said that the drivers of these trucks are trained to be non-confrontational and not to engage. He was very specific about this because, as he told me, their signs can be controversial in politics or other topics and therefore be inflammatory with the public’s emotions.
He also informed me that photos indeed had been taken. According to the gentleman, the billboard truck business asks that the driver take photos of the vehicle in front of the various locations where the truck is driven so as to demonstrate the job being accomplished, that is all. He said that they weren’t there taking photos of people, they were there taking photos of the truck parked at a location. So then, I was assured that the photos taken were in no way for any controversial reasons or to inflame those who live where the vehicle was parked. They are merely used and kept within the business, only, to show the job had been done.
So then, the facts: the Fraternal Order of Police is currently engaged in a battle over issues with the Chief of police/city of Whitehall administration, headed by the CEO of Whitehall, our Mayor, Michael Bivens. As I learned in New York City, when it comes to politics, everything legal is on the table and the multitudes of artists living there used that fully to their advantage when fighting for what they believed in, men/women, black/white, gay/straight, etc. Therefore, it is up to each entity to decide how they are going to fight for their side of the issue. In this case, the F.O.P decided to ramp up the pressure against the administration in whatever legal creative form they chose in order to be heard. That is utterly fair (and their right) in a political battle. Alternately, the mayor has the ability to do and respond as he sees fit too. The F.O.P claims not to have ordered the truck to sit outside the mayor’s home and claim that once they learned it had been, ordered it removed. They claim it is their intention to increase the pressure on the administration and rally support and visibility for their cause. This is what they did and what they hoped to accomplish through their efforts that day. There was no evidence or logical reasoning I heard or found that said the parking of the billboard truck was in any way intended to intimidate, terrorize or personally harm anyone or done so due to a hatred for Mayor Bivens’ skin color. Having these facts then are vital to give us the proper and fuller information we need in order to have the fullest facts of the matter so our thoughts and opinions on the issue ring truest and most righteous. What opinions, judgements and disagreements that now arise as a result of the fuller understanding of the matter can now be made in a clearer fashion having greater insight into the entirety of events. I felt that was important to provide.

From my own standpoint I will say this: what the F.O.P. did fell under their constitutionally protected 1st amendment rights, whether people like their tactics or not (like the tee-shirts and plane they flew over the truck fest). Outside of that truth, if people want to have community conversations about ‘appropriateness’ and consideration regarding relatives and people at their home, those can certainly be had, now and in the future but, when it comes to politics (which this falls under), it is not our emotions which rule the rightness of our political actions but, our Constitution, that which guides us as to what is legally within our rights as citizens and what is not. Period.

Due then to the fuller understanding the facts of the various events that day has brought me, (which we didn’t get at the meeting) and the understandings those facts have brought out for their having been, in my opinion, I simply cannot find this to be anything other than a political event.**
As a sidenote, on its own topic, I have to say that if there are racists in Whitehall, I ask that the ugly intolerance of those individuals be theirs to own, that which must be addressed individually and not be used to unfairly indict an entire community, just as no community or group should ever be judged whole cloth on the actions of a few or some.

Thank you for your time.
*While exploring the whole truth and facts for fuller understanding are my motivation for this writing, doing so is not meant to disrespect anyone nor suggest that other’s opinions are lesser or wrong. Everybody has a right to their opinion, but I felt getting all the information out there was important to the story and had to be done. So too, these claims had been made publicly so I thought it only fair and right that these additional facts be provided publicly too.

**If there is clear evidence of specific racist words/actions/threats, I would like to know exactly what they were.