Colorado Mayor Boots Pledge Of Allegiance, Setting Off Kerfuffle

SILVERTON, CO — What happens on Zoom doesn’t always stay on Zoom.

Here’s what happened on Zoom when the town trustees in Silverton, Colorado, held meetings during the pandemic: Those who didn’t want to recite the Pledge of Allegiance to open the meeting simply turned off the cameras on their computers.

The issue came up in April 2020 when the newest trustees were seated and Mayor Shane Fuhrman proposed dispensing with the pledge because “it’s not really a thing,” Trustee Molly Barela said in a statement to news station KRDV.

The mayor was shut down on a 4-3 vote.

But now that the City Council has returned to in-person meetings, the mayor said it’s for the best that the Pledge of Allegiance no longer be recited at the start of meetings.

“Due to the direct and indirect threats, inappropriate comments in and out of our public meetings, and general divisiveness and issues created in our community, we will not be reciting the Pledge of Allegiance during Town of Silverton trustee meetings,” Fuhrman said at a June 14 meeting.

That didn’t sit well with Barela.

“We already discussed this as a board, and any other unilateral decisions we need to know about?” she fired back.

Fuhrman invited a challenge.

“If you’d like to find somewhere in the code, something that doesn’t permit me to do this,” he said, “then I welcome that discussion at our next meetings.”

Barela reminded the mayor of the board’s vote last spring.

During the public comment period, one person said she wanted to recite the pledge, and a handful of people and two trustees joined her, according to news station KCNC.

The mayor declared them out of order.

Barela said in a statement to KDVR the mayor had both violated the pledge-reciters’ First Amendment rights and offended members of the public, “especially those who are veterans questioning why you would run for office and take an oath to uphold the laws of the United States of America the state of Colorado and the town of Silverton if you won’t stand up for the pledge. Members of the public have told them that they should be ashamed of themselves.”

Barela said in the statement she wasn’t sure if the mayor’s decision was “premeditated” to coincide with Flag Day on June 14.

Patch reached out to Fuhrman for comment by phone and email. We’ll update this post if we hear back from him.