Bangor city councilors voted not to move forward with a proposal to eliminate the Advisory Committee on Racial Equity, Inclusion, and Human Rights in a Government Operations Committee meeting Monday night.
The decision follows what councilors described as a flood of emails this weekend from community members who opposed the committee’s elimination. City Councilor Susan Faloon estimated she received between 75 and 100 emails since the agenda was released Friday from community members urging councilors not to disband the committee.
City Council Chair Susan Hawes said she asked the city manager to draft the repeal ordinance because some people were concerned about the way the committee operated, although she did not specify who those people were.
“We wanted a discussion,” Hawes said, adding that there weren’t enough guidelines or accountability around the committee’s work. “There might be some revamping, and maybe at the end of the day, it might go away. But if it doesn’t, it has to be in a better format.”
Debate over the proposal to repeal the committee touched on political divisions on the council, particularly on the issue of immigration, on the heels of a federal immigration enforcement surge in Maine that resulted in more than 200 arrests.
The advisory committee was established in October 2020 to advise the city on “policies, practices, and programs that promote equity, diversity, inclusion, and human rights within municipal operations and the broader Bangor community,” according to the city’s website.
Chair Katie Brydon presented the committee’s annual report to councilors Monday, saying the nine-member group collected feedback from residents about how the city can become more welcoming and advised city staff on making the city’s website more accessible.
The committee put forward two policy recommendations to City Council in the past year: one clarifying the city’s policy around potential collaboration with federal immigration authorities, and one recommending a temporary sanctioned homeless encampment for people who were displaced when a camp near the Penobscot River was shut down. Neither proposal was moved forward by the council.
Councilor Carolyn Fish was the most vocal critic of the advisory committee in Monday’s discussion, saying that some Bangor residents think the committee is divisive, anti-Trump and “raising up certain communities above and beyond the others” and criticizing the committee’s recent focus on immigration.
She also argued that city councilors should focus on city business and stay out of politics, noting that multiple councilors said at last week’s meeting that they’d attended an anti-ICE protest.
“I didn’t come in and say, ‘well, I’m glad that we celebrated Charlie Kirk’s life, because wasn’t that horrible that he got his neck blown out with a .30-06, not a peep. And this isn’t the place for it,” Fish said.
Fish motioned to table the vote until a future meeting, but other councilors on the Government Operations Committee voted her down and Councilor Angela Walker motioned to vote on whether to bring the issue to the full council.
Fish and Councilor Wayne Mallar voted to move the proposal forward, while Walker, Councilor Susan Deane and Councilor Michael Beck voted against.
Several councilors said they were surprised to see the ordinance proposal Monday’s meeting agenda, since it had not been discussed at all previously.
“When I first read this, I felt like I was totally blindsided,” Deane said, adding that she thought councilors should’ve discussed the proposal in the workshop before putting a vote on a committee agenda.
Although the ordinance in Monday’s agenda stated that the advisory committee should be repealed because its work would overlap with a new committee on homelessness and housing, most of the discussion centered on the politics and conduct of the advisory committee rather than any potential overlap.
“They seem to be running rampant any way they want,” Mallar said. “I don’t know why you call them an advisory committee when they stand up and chastise the council for not doing what they wanted them to do.”
Fish also brought up an incident last February when advisory committee member Gabrielle Wiley urged city councilors in a meeting to “reject Mallar and Fish’s Christian right neo-Nazi ideologies.”
Other councilors in attendance said any issues with the committee should be addressed by making changes rather than repealing it, and that its members bring valuable feedback to the council.
“Their job is to review existing policy and advise,” Beck said. “We don’t have to listen to it, and we haven’t always, but I appreciate hearing it.”
While the proposal to eliminate the committee won’t move forward to the full council, it’s unclear if any other actions will be taken to dismantle it. Hawes suggested during the discussion that as the council chair, she has the power to eliminate the committee without a council vote.