Town Officials and Public Discuss Christmas Parade
The cancellation of the Garner Christmas Parade which was scheduled for December 7th became the topic of the night at the Garner Town Council Meeting on Monday December 2. Members of the community gathered to share their concerns as new council members were sworn in.
After serving 12 years on the council, Ken Marshburn was sworn in as mayor. Also sworn in were new council members Demian Dellinger, Elmo Vance, and Phil Matthews.
Kathy Behringer was elected to serve as Mayor Pro Tem.
Outgoing mayor Ronnie Williams and council member Buck Kennedy were recognized for their service.
Eight people made public comments and the meeting is available for viewing below.
The Parade
Councilmembers seated during the decision said the issue should have been discussed months before, spoke on the length of the parade route and the difficulty in securing an event that is not contained to one location, and said that law enforcement provided the information that led to the cancellation.
Possible litigation issues coupled with complaints from Garner residents about the inclusion of controversial groups were said to also be a part of the issues surrounding the parade while the safety of children seemed to be a unanimous and paramount concern of everyone involved in the decision, council and staff.
Credible threats gleaned through law enforcement monitoring of social media and online forums and websites weighed heavily; threats similar to those made against the Wake Forest Christmas parade which Wake Forest officials had initially signaled would continue in the aftermath of Garner’s cancellation.
However, Wake Forest officials announced the cancellation of their Christmas parade on December 4th, providing the following statement found here.
Public Comment
Public comments ranged from anger at cancellation of the parade and bowing threats by outsiders to condemnation of certain groups participating at all. Nearly all were deeply concerned with the precedent set by the cancellation and implications for the future of the parade and other town events.
Watch Public Comments in their entirety below.
Comments from Town Officials
With councilmembers and the mayor newly inducted and given the sensitive and passionate nature of the town’s decision to cancel the Christmas Parade, Mayor Mashburn suspended protocol and allowed each councilmembers to make a brief statement after the petitions and comments from the public. Selected are presented below comments below.
“I think people get misled because they think ‘oh they made some comments on facebook and twitter’. These groups, there are all kinds of chat rooms on the dark side of the internet that not only the Garner police monitor; SBI monitors, high patrol monitors. Chief Binns shared some information with us that you are not going to find on facebook and twitter...The difference in Pittsboro, in Chapel Hill, in Durham, and in Charlottesville is this: they were all adults. The parade involves kids, this is why I’m so upset…I wish we had discussed this months ago.”
𑁋Council member Gra Singleton
“To echo what’s already been said, it was a tough decision...It’s one that we have to look at in the future...We should be celebrating peace, we’re looking at frustration and anger right now...It’s imperative that a lesson has been learned, that we have to think things through, and make those hard decisions early on, and debate them out early on so that this will not happen again.”
𑁋Council member Elmo Vance
“I’d rather err on the side of personal safety for the good citizens of this town, rather than to be known as a town where a terrible tragedy occurred. I think if some of you visited the good people in Charlottesville today you would hear of the trauma that many are still undergoing as a result of the bad things that have happened in terms of their reputation...I do think that we will have an opportunity as a new council to discuss some of these very concerns that have been mentioned here this evening. I don’t personally believe that this is the end of our Christmas parade, and I will do all I can as mayor to either put together an organization or group that can basically study and look at this issue...This was not a flippant decision, it wasn’t based on skewed information, it was based on very solid information as far as I’m concerned and indicates that public safety is something that we can’t guarantee.”
𑁋 Mayor Ken Marshburn
Watch full Town Council Member statements below
The Garner News is continuing to gather verified information and will continue its coverage of the Christmas Parade issue as it continues in to 2020.