On Monday April 15, Brooklyn Park Mayor Hollies J. Winston and four of my colleagues at the City Council passed a resolution to censure me. By doing so, they hope that I will go away.
I won’t.
The mayor, some members of the City Council, and the city manager have tried to paint me as an out-of-control, condescending, and disrespectful council member. They will never succeed because the people who elected me know who I really am. The people of the Central District know that I am exactly who I told them I am when they went to the ballot box and gave me the honor to represent them at City Hall. They know that I am a bold, brave, courageous, and a tried-and-tested leader.
I am devoted husband, and proud father and grandfather. Voters know that outside my family, I have dedicated my life to selflessly serving others. Long before I became a Brooklyn Park city councilman, I was in the United States Navy, where I was willing to sacrifice my life to protect my country. I served my country with courage and integrity and was honorably discharged.
When the people of the Central District chose me to represent them, I vowed that I was going to serve them with the same tenacity, honor, and courage that earned me awards and great respect in the Navy. That is why I speak without fear.
Apparently, the mayor, the city manager and some of my fellow council members aren’t used to this kind of honesty. That is why they have resorted to passing resolutions to censure me, hoping that they can silence me.
What is really going on in Brooklyn Park is that there is a small clique of leaders who what to protect the status quo in a city that has changed drastically in the last few decades. Brooklyn Park is no longer a majority-white city. The latest U.S. Census data shows that more that 60% of residents in the city are non-white. Yet, the city manager and his allies at City Hall want to run the city as though 60% of the population does not exist. We must ask questions to make sure that the diversity of our city isn’t only in name – that we are a city that lives by its promise of treating every resident with dignity.
How, for example, is it acceptable for the city to continue maintaining ice skating rinks that most of residents don’t use, when there isn’t a single public basketball facility? Why is asking that question an offense worth a resolution to censure a council member? And what are council members supposed to do when the people who make important decisions for his constituents continuously ignore his pleas to come to the table and discuss such matters that affect the people he represents?
The timing of the latest resolution should also be viewed with great suspicion. In addition to trying to curtail my constitutional First Amendment right to free speech, the resolution bars me from using city funds to travel, and from representing the city in almost any capacity. Essentially, they want to completely disable me in the year when I am up for re-election. It’s a shameless attempt to discredit my unassailable record, and my strong connection to the values of this deserving community. They will not succeed.
Fortunately, my constituents – and the people of Brooklyn Park at large – are not blind. As they have proven through their public comments, they are not oblivious to what’s going on. They’re intelligent enough to read between the lines. The people of Brooklyn Park can see, for example, that the recent huge exodus of city staff is a sign of severe dysfunction at City Hall. These are the people I work for, not the mayor, city manager, city attorney, or City Council.
City employees can continue wasting more taxpayer dollars to monitor my personal social media accounts for content to give the City Council reasons to pass a million resolutions to censure me. They can run to the news media and give one-sided stories about me. But that will not stop me from asking the people we gave responsibility to manage our city questions that other council members are too afraid to ask.
If my detractors want to start a war with me and frustrate my efforts to better my community, I am ready to fight to the bitter end for the people who elected me.
About Boyd Morson
Boyd Morson represents the Central District on the Brooklyn Park City Council. The city is Minnesota's sixth largest and the fourth largest in the metro area after Minneapolis, St. Paul and Bloomington.
(5 votes, average: 1.80 out of 5)
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