Lacey mayor responds to question about council’s inaction on councilman’s Facebook posts
Recent controversial remarks made by Lacey City Council member Ed Kunkel on Facebook were on the minds of some during a public Q&A session with council members on Tuesday.
Lacey Mayor Andy Ryder, Council member Malcolm Miller and Police Chief Robert Almada, along with city staff, gathered online Tuesday for “Conversations with the City Council,” a meeting that was billed as a discussion about Lacey police and its policies.
But the meeting became a much broader discussion about race and racism and how the city can better serve minorities. The gathering also included some poignant comments from Councilman Miller about what it has meant to be a Black loan officer in the city for 20 years.
“Let’s start the conversation,” Miller said during the meeting, “about what minorities go through to just live and be a part of a bigger picture.”
During the Q&A session, residents asked why no action was taken regarding recent Facebook posts by Councilman Kunkel’s Facebook. Last week, four former Lacey mayors, alarmed by comments Kunkel made on social media, sent a letter to the city urging the council to take action. The letter spelled out their discovery.
“In one (Facebook) post, Councilman Kunkel refers to armed militia patrolling the streets of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho as ‘How it should be.’” In response to another post showing a mother confronting her son, who was among a group of protesters, he commented, ‘What all of these degenerates causing problems right now need.’”
“We are offended by these comments,” the mayors wrote. “We believe these comments do not reflect the values of our community. Armed white para-military militia patrolling our streets is not ‘How it should be’ and referring to a group of black protesters as ‘degenerates’ is completely unacceptable.”
Kunkel apologized during last week’s Lacey City Council meeting.
Mayor Ryder said any further action is really up to the voters.
“The council is independently elected,” he said. “We don’t have the authority to limit someone’s ability to write posts on social media. Ultimately, it’s up to the voter to elect us and to see who the best representative is for them on this council. It’s a big learning moment for council member Kunkel and he has apologized. Now, it’s up to the community to continue to have these conversations.”
There also was conversation about making the council more diverse. Miller said one of his first-term goals is to motivate more minorities to seek positions in government.
He also shared a moving story about discrimination. Miller moved to Lacey from Seattle in 2001. He has worked in banking since 1997, and has worked as a residential loan officer since his move to the area. But it wasn’t until last month — May 2020 — that Miller received his first referral from a white male real estate agent.
Miller said he knows how it feels to be marginalized.
“It didn’t happen for 20 years, as hard as I tried,” he said, adding that most of his business came from his church.
Miller added, though, that he has felt embraced by the Lacey community.
“Business-wise, I didn’t really feel I was getting my just due,” he said.
This story was originally published June 17, 2020 at 5:45 AM.
