After hearing many comments from the community, the St. Louis Park City Council is revisiting its decision to remove recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance from city council meetings. The council will discuss this topic at its July 8, 2019, 6:30 p.m. study session.
St. Louis Park Mayor Joe Spanos went to Twitter to announce plans to reconsider.
1/3 As many have heard the SLP city council recently voted 5-0 to stop saying the pledge of allegiance to start council meetings. I was out of the state with family at the time (as was CM Miller) so while I was not a fan of the proposal, I didn’t get a chance to vote on this.
— Jake Spano (@spanojake)
June 28, 2019 2/3 Historically when a decision is made by the council, it’s over and we move on but after hearing from more people than I can count in the last day (many admittedly not from SLP), I asked my colleagues to revisit this decision and a majority of them agreed.
— Jake Spano (@spanojake)
June 28, 2019 3/3 As such, we will be discussing this issue at our next city council meeting on July 8th at 6:30 in the council chambers at City Hall. I haven’t been able to reply to every contact I’ve had but please feel free to dm me or email. I read them all
— Jake Spano (@spanojake)
June 28, 2019 The decision to stop reciting the pledge before city coucil meetings came down on June 17, a meeting not attended by Mayor Spano or council member Thom Miller.
"We concluded that, in order to create a more welcoming environment to a diverse community, we're going to forego saying the pledge of allegiance before every meeting," said St. Louis Park city councilman Tim Brausen, speaking after the 5-0 vote.
The change is scheduled to take effect during the July 15th council meeting.
The council member who sponsored the motion to remove the pledge, Anne Mavity, was quoted saying that most communities in Minnesota do not require reciting the pledge at meetings.
