The online comments of one Marysville City Council Member took center stage at Monday night’s council meeting.
Mayor Henk Berbee used his report to address a variety of social media posts made by council member Aaron Carpenter.
Berbee said that members of council, city administration and the Law Director have “received a number of complaints” about the posts.
“In these posts, he has made inflammatory statements and posted demeaning images and messages that are clearly offensive to members of our community,” Berbee told council. “He has also expressed his desire to see the United States Constitution suspended by a declaration of martial law.”
The mayor called Carpenter’s political posts “ridiculous and disturbing” and said many of his other posts are, “insensitive, offensive and totally unworthy of a person in his position.”
Berbee said that as a citizen, Carpenter has the right to free speech. He stressed that Carpenter does not speak for the council or for the city.
“It needs to be made very clear that it is improper for him to insinuate that he is making these inflammatory political statements and posting racial and gender insensitive messages on behalf of the city,” Berbee said. “He cannot speak for this council.”
Berbee, who also serves as council president, said city officials have been asked to, “in essence do something to disavow Mr. Carpenter’s statements and presumably to discipline or have him removed from Council.”
Berbee said council cannot take any action against Carpenter unless there is, “a violation of law or ethics that would render him unfit to serve.”
He said citizens have the power to remove Carpenter.
“At this time the only way to remove Mr. Carpenter as a member of Council is at the ballot box in a recall election,” Berbee said.
The council member broke his response into two parts, addressing recent political posts calling for martial law and a national revote, and then posts he regrets from “a long time ago.”
Carpenter said his political posts “speak for themselves.”
“I feel strongly about a lot of things. I make sure to speak my mind when I feel strongly about these things,” Carpenter told council.
He said the posts have garnered him nationwide attention. On Twitter, Carpenter has more than 68,000 followers.
“I believe the reason my accounts have received a lot of attention is because people tend to agree with what I am saying, they tend to be folks who think about these things as I do.”
He added that he knows his posts anger, “a lot of members of folks of a particular political party who tend to disagree with what I say.”
He said there is a lot he could comment about, but didn’t want to go into specifics except to say those people, “will go to the extent of trying to ruin someone’s career because they disagree with what someone has to say.”
He said all Americans have the right to free speech, the right to run for office and the right to vote if they want “and also, if people would like to speak their mind on anything that goes on in the world, people can also do that.”
Carpenter said he knows and acknowledges that council members speak for themselves not the city.
“I would be the first person to recognize that and also to make it clear right now that whatever I say on each of my platforms, which are gaining a lot of followers, a lot of popularity by the day now, is solely what I think and not what the city of Marysville thinks, not what anyone else, besides me, Aaron J. Carpenter, thinks.”
He said he was elected to fight for Ward 1 in Marysville and he believes he is doing that. He said he is “very proud” to represent Ward 1 and be on city council.
Carpenter then addressed posts he made while he was in high school. He said he is not sure what posts are offensive and insinuated that some could have been photoshopped.
“I haven’t really been out of high school for a long time, but I can tell you, some of the things I said in high school, I regret as I am sure you all regret some of the things you said when you were younger,” Carpenter said. “The thing is, I am more recently out of high school so the information is more readily available.”
He said he is working to remove some of the offensive posts.
“I was not an adult yet. I wasn’t a man yet. I wasn’t going to college. I wasn’t running for office. I just ask that you judge me and my character and what I have to say, as someone who just recently ran for office and got elected.”
He asked to be judged on, “what I am taking my future to be, the man I am trying to be, the representative I am trying to be, the person I am trying to be.”
He said everyone regrets what they did in school and he does too.
Council member Deborah Groat also addressed the comments, though she said she wishes she could have kept her thoughts private.
“State and national attention is not positive in Marysville, Ohio, as long as we are doing everything right,” Groat said. She said it was “politically advantageous to the individual.”
Groat said she was “basically harassed” by another media outlet “because I chose not to answer” questions about Carpenter’s comments. She said she referred the media outlet to city staff members.
“That should be the stand we all take,” Groat said. “State, national attention goes back to the city for a city decision as a unified decision how to handle it.”
Groat reminded all council members and residents that council is a nonpartisan position by definition.