Attendees voiced their opinion on the relocation of the Jefferson Davis Highway Memorial and the procedure taken to handle the issue during last Tuesday’s Brownsville City Commission meeting.
Although the city commission established an 18-month timeline March 20 to make a decision, people are still concerned about the process it has been using to handle the issue.
Melissa Knerr, a McAllen resident, spoke during the public comment period and said she feels the issue needed to be discussed further. She also tried to get the issue on the agenda but said she was rejected.
“I’ve reached out to many different people to voice my grievances,” Knerr said. “I’ve followed everything as instructed, including submitting a PowerPoint presentation for consideration to be placed on the agenda for this meeting, but wasn’t included on the grounds of, ‘We’re still looking at all the information that has been received.’ I find this very interesting since another group was added to the March 20 agenda; that’s the Jefferson Davis committee, where two commissioners were listed, giving it the appearance of an official city [item].”
She became emotional at the lectern and said she was hurt to hear what the opposition had to say about the people who believe the memorial shouldn’t be moved.
“Not only was this group allowed to speak for 10 minutes, they were allowed to call us white supremacists and attempt to link us to the KKK,” Knerr said. “At no time during that presentation were these claims challenged, but at the end, everyone applauded.”
Additionally, she told the commission she will no longer deny interviews from media outlets that have reached out to her on the issue.
Eric Knerr, a McAllen resident, also spoke on the Jefferson Davis Highway Memorial decision.
He explained his displeasure over the novel the presenters at the March 20 meeting discussed.
“An attempt was made to link the United Daughters of the Confederacy with white supremacy and the desire to affect schoolchildren with a bias towards racism by promoting a book titled ‘Ku Klux Klan: The Invisible Empire,’ which was endorsed by the United Daughters in 1913,” Eric Knerr said. “The group missed the point of this book and its meaning, and message entirely. It’s apparent no one in the group could’ve actually read the book. The conclusion they draw is false.”
Since the statements were made during the public comment period, no action was taken by the city commission, but it brought the issue back into the spotlight.
In other business, the commission approved:
–the readoption of the Historic Preservation Plan for 2018;
–and the City of Brownsville-Brownsville Metro revised ADA Policies and Procedures Manual Complementary Para-Transit Service Plan.
