The controversy surrounding the decision by the city of St. Louis Park to drop the Pledge of Allegiance from its public meetings drew "outrage" coverage from cable news and a tweet from the President this week—leaving the mayor of the suburban city just outside of Minneapolis frustrated, and a little bemused.
"Unfortunately, this has been grabbed onto by forces outside of our community and turned into.. a proxy for patriotism and love of country," he said.
The city plans to hold a public meeting later this month to address the issue. Spano said he hopes it's part of larger conversation about civic engagement.
"Our focus is really... at a future study session to sit down and consider undertaking a process to have a focused conversation with St. Louis Park residents about the role of civic expression in our community, including the pledge, and how we can best express our values and our principles so we can create a more welcoming municipal space for all of our neighbors," he said.
Spano believes that the issue had been made into a "binary" question of saying the pledge or not saying the pledge, when be thinks a broader conversation would be more productive.
"There are lots of ways that we express our civic mindedness and our patriotism in our community. And I think kind of the hope is, is that we can focus on our residents and what our residents want, because I'm hearing from folks on both sides of that continuum," he said.
Listen to the full interview here: