As participants in the Oct. 1st meeting begin finalizing their letter to the City Council, a Facebook post about a scheduled public forum is circulated.
Immediately before the group planned to send the letter to the City Council, many community members who had been involved in organizing against the Police Department’s acquisition of riot gear see a Facebook post urging all those who “support police getting riot gear” show up at a community forum on Wednesday, Oct. 10th at 5:30 at Denfeld.
This screenshot was shared by a NAACP Executive Board Member on October 2nd at 5:52pm. At that point, the post had been up at least 6 hours, according to the screenshot.
After much confusion, community leaders learned from Councilor Hobbs that the post referred to one of the official city-hosted forums and that the City of Duluth did not create the flyer that had been posted on Facebook. None of the community groups that asked the city council to delay the riot gear vote were consulted before the City of Duluth scheduled the forums.
The purpose of the City Council delaying the vote was to ensure that the community and community-based organizations had a true voice in the process. However, the City failed to contact those organizations for input and failed to communicate to them that the forums were scheduled. Because of this, riot gear supporters knew about the forums before even community leaders who had been actively engaged with the city on the issues were informed. The City of Duluth (specifically Keith Hamre and Phil Jents) said that riot gear supporters must have been “watching a public calendar,” and found out about the forums when the room was scheduled. However, this seems implausible at best, considering the post was out and being widely shared within 24 hours of the room being booked.
IMPACT: The community felt the city was in closer contact with the police and DPD riot gear supporters than with the rest of the community because they found out about the forums on social media, after it was clear that people who are supportive of the gear already knew about them. The community continues to feel the city cannot be trusted.