Latest in a series of posts about the Bethlehem Police
If you’ve been following Gadfly’s coverage of the butt end of the December 1 City Council meeting, he left you with Councilman Callahan in the middle.
Where Councilpersons Reynolds, Van Wirt, and Waldron took aim.
We have suspicion that Councilman Callahan is the source of the “fake controversy,” outrage that he’s driving a wedge between Council members, and belief that his intention is to separate himself from the rest of Council in regard to support for the police.
Councilman Reynolds (4 mins.)
- better idea of where this fake controversy came from and how it got pushed to this point
- [conversations with other Council members] we all had our suspicions.
- pick and choose [quotes]
- [About the Community Engagement Initiative] A lot of people are feeling pain, and we are trying hear different people’s perspectives
- A lot of the comments that night, some we agree with, some we disagree with.
- [Long meeting, lot of people talking] You do not have to own every comment made.
- Different people have different perspectives.
- [Conversation with a police officer]
- A lot of discussion over past six months is not . . . slogans, or how we make people look bad . . . [but] how do we move past that for the betterment of society.
- You have a 4hr meeting and somebody says O they agree with this and they don’t agree with that so on and so forth — that’s not a serious way to look at these issues.
Councilwoman Van Wirt (2 mins.)
- [Thanks to other Councilmembers for their words] to promote unity and healing.
- [Thanks to Councilwoman Crampsie Smith] for the dichotomy that is a good Councilmember, which is that you can do both things at once.
- Indeed, that is the definition of a good Council member, being able to do both things at once, both sides of the coin.
- Usually, I don’t respond to Mr. Callahan . . .
- But I am outraged at his behavior . . . driving a wedge that doesn’t exist in between Council members and causing such pain and fear among our fellow citizens.
- His words have been divisive and inflammatory, self-serving, and distorted.
- What we need is unity.
- Finding someone using such a painful topic for their own gain, I find reprehensible and I’m embarrassed.
- For him to take words and distort them, I find reprehensible.
President Waldron (2 mins.)
- mixing and matching different quotes from callers and Council members that may or may not have anything to do with each other
- out of context look pretty damning, and I think that’s exactly what you are doing right now, inciting a lot of the rhetoric that’s been going on
- After a lot of the rhetoric that’s been going on and the emails we’ve been getting . . . facebook posts that have been circulating there’s been a lot of misinformation and a lot of quotes being taken out of context.
- I’ve had an opportunity to correspond with a few people . . .they thanked me for clarifying the record and said they were misinformed.
- . . . intent to separate you from the rest of your Council members as if you are the only one who is standing up for the police department when clearly every one on this Council supports the police department.
- There’s no proposals to defund . . . supporting [the police department] 100%.