02-13-2023 Council Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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MINUTES OF THE ORONO CITY COUNCIL MEETING JANUARY 23, 2023 6:00 o’clock p.m. _____________________________________________________________________________________ Page 8 of 12 comparing them to the Holocaust. Okay, are we clear on this? Are we clear on this yet? This is one of the protests he was at. He wants to sit up here and throw me under the bus and call me a clown. Let's see here. Oh, shit. Little Red Riding Hood. Look there. There's your boy. That's him at the Capitol steps. Look how close his feet are to the steps, shit they are right there. Is that why they call him Capitol Steps Crosby? Where was he on January 6, I wonder, 2021? Walsh stated you can speak to the council. Speak to the council sir. Public comments are for the council. Mr. Erickson (turning to someone in the audience) asked are you Mr. Williams by the way? Is that you? You look like him. I understand you guys don't think it was a big deal, this January 6 bullshit. But it is a big deal. And he was there. And I know he was there. He knows he was there. When is he gonna start talking about it? Him and his tactical gear, bullshit weapons on his hip and shit. There he is some more. What's this Proud Boys shit? Some new Proud Boys shit now. Donate to their GoFundMe page. Mr. Crosby, look, he's standing right here taking pictures. Crowd funding for the Proud Boys. Right here in our city. What's this down here? Sorry, Connie, I had to link on Parler. Oh shit. Those sound like names that I'm familiar with. Aren't we all by now? He likes them on Parler. Look. He looks like a founding member. This is the new stuff -- 46 following the Minnesota Proud Boys. He's one of them. Crosby, Richard, Orono. Go figure, we are the Minnesota chapter of the greatest group in the US. Is that where we're at here at Orono? Are you part of this shit, Mr. Walsh? Because I think you are. I think you all know exactly what the hell's going on up here. There's so much I got some pictures on my phone that the FBI will be looking at. Okay. He was out there taking selfies on the steps of the Capitol in DC. Walsh said your three minutes are up. Your circus is over. You can sit down, sir. Mr. Erickson said this is the damn circus and you brought it here. Right here. I'll leave that for you. Follow your leader. Comparing our governor to Adolf Hitler, Fidel Castro, Mussolini, Pol Pot, Idi Ahmin, Hussein. What the hell's going on? Walsh said your circus is over. Sit down. He asked if there was anyone else for public comments. Hearing none, I’ll bring it back to the council. MAYOR/COUNCIL REPORT Benson said she wanted to address something that happened at the January 9 meeting, my first meeting as a city council member here in Orono. Our city attorney Mr. Mattick touched on it early in the meeting -- abstention. I just want to talk about that a little bit. Because it matters how I vote, it matters what the perception is about my votes. And it matters how the record reflects my votes as a council member. And that's true for everybody sitting up here. The issue at hand at that meeting was the $192,000 refurbishing of a used ladder truck that Orono had purchased in December of last year. And it was my intention to abstain from that vote authorizing that purchase, because it was not an insignificant amount of money. and I did not feel at the time that I had enough information, being that it was my first meeting, being that I had not been a part of those negotiations, and being that there were and are a lot of questions around the expenditures of this fire department from the public. I did not feel that I had enough time at that meeting to give an informed vote either for or against. And that's why I had asked to abstain from that vote. And at