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Council may have violated meeting law

ESCANABA — Four members of the Escanaba City Council issued a statement Thursday in response to controversial comments from Council Member Ralph Blasier, but the creation of the statement may have violated Michigan law.

The statement — which includes the names of Mayor Marc Tall, Mayor Pro-Tem Peggy O’Connell, and council members Tyler DuBord and Karen Moore — was submitted to the Daily Press Thursday in response to a comment made by Blasier at the June 4 city council meeting.

“‘Any person throwing objects at police, shooting at anyone, looting and setting fires will be shot in both legs and left lying there till dawn, and at dawn, each person will need to crawl to the hospital,'” Blasier read from a proposed press release addressing social distancing procedures at the city’s planned Independence Day fireworks show. “I mean, this text for your public announcement, people might want to alter it some. This is just the first draft. If I were alone in charge of the city, this is what I would publish, but I can see where some people might, change it a little bit.”

Blasier said he intended the statement to be a joke.

Blasier issued a written apology for the statement the following day. Since then, language for a formal petition to recall Blasier has been submitted to the Delta County Clerk’s Office, and a separate online petition through change.org to remove Blasier from the council had more than 2,100 signatures Thursday afternoon.

However, the statement issued by the rest of the council Thursday was drafted by multiple council members, who contributed and agreed to support the statement by email. The emails constituted a quorum of the council, which means the council failed to comply with the public notice and participation requirements of the Open Meetings Act.

“I felt it was important that the council speak with one voice and have a joint statement. If any, if any harm was done, it’s on me,” Tall told the Daily Press Thursday.

When asked if he believed the emails were a violation of the Open Meetings Act, Tall replied, “It would seem so on the surface.”

The statement itself, in its entirety, is as follows:

To the citizens of Escanaba,

At our last “virtual” meeting Dr. Ralph Blasier, fellow Escanaba City Council Member, thought he was being funny by making a comment about shooting people who would “throw things at police, start fires and loot” during our Independence Day Fireworks. We found out later that his comment was in reference to presidential candidate Joe Biden’s comment on the previous Monday suggesting that “Instead of standing there and teaching a cop when there’s an unarmed person coming at them with a knife or something, shoot them in the leg instead of in the heart.” Most of us hadn’t heard about Mr. Biden’s speech prior to the meeting. All of us in attendance sat in stunned silence, not sure that we had actually heard what we thought we heard. Dr. Blasier acknowledged that saying that and adding the “left lying there till dawn etc.'” went too far and that he should not have joked about it at all. We as a council want to be clear that we do not share Mr. Blasier’s sense of humor. He most certainly should not have said it. Facetious or not, this is certainly not the time, nor has there ever been a time to say such a thing. It was foolish, thoughtless and in horrible taste.

Dr. Blasier prepared an apology for his comments that was published on the front page of the Daily Press. Members of this council or any elected official are responsible for their words, but cannot control the behavior and words of others. In no way do any of us condone what Dr. Blasier said, but please understand that we also cannot fire another elected official or demand a resignation. We have heard many versions of this story, but we were all at the meeting and there was absolutely no racial reference.

We, like Dr. Blasier were elected to The Escanaba City Council. We all ran to serve the community and have done so through countless hours of meetings and research. We have received input from citizens with a wide variety of thoughts on this. The overwhelming majority of the letters came from areas outside of Escanaba. We are all sworn to make decisions based on fact and adherence to the laws of our city, state and country. We will continue to work hard and make the difficult decisions that move this community forward. We as humans at times make errors in judgement, this was no exception. We will now begin the process of moving our community forward and healing from all the unrest in our country today.

Mayor Marc Tall

Mayor Pro-Tem Peggy O’Connell

Council Member Tyler DuBord

Council Member Karen Moore

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