CLAREMONT — The City Council has elected not to censure one of its own.
After a 45-minute debate at Wednesday’s council meeting, members voted, 6-3, against censuring Councilor Jonathan Stone over comments he made on social media directed at a resident who objected to a holiday display on city land.
Councilors Andrew O’Hearne, Stone, Jeremy Zullo, Scott Pope, Assistant Mayor Allen Damren and Mayor Charlene Lovett voted against the motion, while Abigail Kier, Nick Koloski and Claire Lessard voted in favor.
Though a few councilors did direct apologies toward Sam Killay, the resident who objected, and his wife, Trish, who were in the audience, a majority did not agree that a censure was warranted.
While Koloski voted in favor of censure, he lamented its triviality.
“I apologize for my fellow councilor’s actions. I don’t condone them,” Koloski said. “But I think censure is pointless because there is no teeth behind it.”
At the start of the discussion, Sean Tanguay, an attorney who was present to provide legal advice, said a censure is nothing more than the formalized opinion of the council. It carries no legal weight and does not prevent Stone from carrying out any of his duties as a councilor, Tanguay said.
Kier, who participated in the meeting via speakerphone, made the motion to censure Stone, arguing it is about standing for decorum and treating all citizens the same, regardless of their view.
“I believe we should hold the council to a higher standard,” Kier said. “It is important to do what is in our power.”
Killay made a request in December to have the council remove the holiday displays erected by the city in Broad Street Park.
Killay contends that displaying the lighted nativity scene and menorah, a long-standing municipal tradition, constitutes a government endorsement of religion and consequently violates the First Amendment. (The council chose not tom remove the displays before the holidays were over and referred the matter to the council’s policy committee.)
Not long after Killay raised his concerns, he said, he and his wife, who doesn’t fully support his request, were subject to a slew of offensive and threatening messages on her Facebook page.
Some of the comments were made by Stone. Stone has never denied posting the comments, but he contends he never threatened the Killays.
At Wednesday’s meeting, Trish Killay confronted Stone from the podium, demanding to know why he lifted photos from her Facebook page.
“Why did you come to my page and take my picture?” she asked.
“I guess same reason you took off my page,” Stone replied.
Killay said she only took what he wrote about her and asked again, why had he lifted her photo from her page.
When Stone asked if he threatened her, Killay said he didn’t but had supported threats from others and did not take them down.
Lovett said the council needs to first adopt a policy and it is a bad idea to discipline someone when the standards are not clear.
“Until we develop a code of conduct, we are in no position to decide who is censured and who is not,” Lovett said.
Several residents in attendance said they did not think censure was a good idea, and some said the issue should be left up to voters at the next election.
Trish Killay said it’s easy for others to say this was just online drama that doesn’t merit a real-world response. “But you have not lived my life,” she said. “I’m being threatened. They need to take this seriously. I don’t feel safe anymore. It has come up in every part of my life. I didn’t write anything and I was attacked.”
The council on Wednesday night also decided not to hire an independent investigator to look at whether Lovett interfered with the duties of the former city manager, which would be a violation of the charter. Lovett denied the allegations, but at the start of the meeting she said she would support such an inquiry.
After censure was defeated on Wednesday, Stone, who at the last meeting called for Lovett to be investigated, said that since the residents who made the interference claims were not present at the meeting, he recommended the matter be dropped. The rest of the council quickly agreed.
Patrick O’Grady can be reached a pogclmt@gmail.com.
