GOSHEN — Goshen City Councilman Ed Ahlersmeyer announced his immediate resignation from both the city council and the Goshen Community Relations Commission at the beginning of Tuesday night’s council meeting.
Ahlersmeyer, who made his announcement in a prepared statement during the “privilege of the floor” section of the meeting, had been facing mounting pressure from the community related to accusations that he’d used his seat on the city’s Community Relations Commission to promote racist rhetoric and then last Wednesday reportedly became involved in an altercation with one of his accusers.
While the “privilege of the floor” opportunity typically takes place at the end of the meeting, council members Tuesday decided to move the time to the beginning of the meeting due to the large number of community members who showed up to participate in the discussion.
“I wanted to formally announced that I have given the mayor, and the council president, and the county GOP director my letter of intent to resign my position as a city council member effective yesterday,” Ahlersmeyer said, speaking from the podium typically reserved for audience members. “And I do want to thank the Goshen 2nd District and all the voters for having confidence in me and giving me the opportunity to serve this community. And I also want to thank the Goshen City Council for appointing me to the CRC for the last two terms. It’s been an honor and a privilege to serve this community in such a capacity.”
Ahlersmeyer, a Republican, had been serving the third year of his second four-year term on the council. He had also been appointed to serve on the Goshen CRC as the council’s representative. His three-year term on the commission began Jan. 1, 2017, and was slated to end Dec. 31, 2019.
At the heart of the controversy surrounding Ahlersmeyer’s conduct is an article he read during the CRC’s December 2017 meeting.
The article, titled “Blacks, Crime, and the Bended Knee,” was posted to the website www.americanthinker.com by author Shari Goodman in September of last year and expresses opposition to the controversial “bended knee” protest by some NFL players, to which Ahlersmeyer is also opposed.
In response to that reading, a number of CRC and community members have come forward to denounce Ahlersmeyer’s sharing of the article, stating the article espouses racist and white supremacist viewpoints.
A number of those same community members showed up at last Tuesday’s CRC meeting to denounce the reading and call for Ahlersmeyer to be removed from his seat on the commission.
“In regards to the CRC and bringing that (article) to the CRC, it was a challenge for the CRC to handle a topic that I feel was appropriate for the CRC to address. A lot of people took it as that I brought that article to the CRC in order to exhibit my views, and that is not at all (the case),” Ahlersmeyer said in addressing the controversial article Tuesday evening. “I have no relation to it other than I believe there were some key points that we could discuss of value within it. For example, I agree that America didn’t originate slavery, but it did abolish it, and that slavery does still exist. I did not agree that the black community had these issues of its own making, but I did believe that, maybe that, all of us have a part in it. I would also agree with the author that education, self reliance, delayed gratification, responsibility, hard work, ambition and an intact family are values ingrained within those who lead productive lives.”
Ahlersmeyer went on to note that in his opinion, if such a controversial article can’t be discussed during a meeting of the CRC, then what is the point of the CRC in the first place.
“I believe that each one of you are working for the good of Goshen. I believe however that our community has a cancer of sorts, and that cancer is intolerance,” Ahlersmeyer added. “I believe that intolerance has reared its face here, and I would ask this council that if a conversation has consequences like this, then is this CRC really doing what it’s supposed to be doing? Do the values and the mission of the CRC really correlate with what this was intended to do? Please investigate that. Because if we can’t have open conversations in a civil rights commission like this, then we are censoring each other.
“I believe that the push-back against me was because I did not agree with a group of people,” he continued. “I did not think the way a group of people do. And I believe that is our constitutional right — freedom of thought. I think there’s a lot of discussion about advancing our community on behalf of diversity, and I do think that’s a beautiful thing. But diversity cannot be based only on skin color. We have to have diversity of thought as well. Thank you.”
Ahlersmeyer left the council chambers immediately after making his statement.
COMMUNITY RESPONSE
Despite his arguments to the contrary, all but one of the more than 20 community members who chose to speak to the issue Tuesday voiced opposition to Ahlersmeyer’s decision to share the Goodman article.
Among those choosing to speak out against Ahlersmeyer’s actions was former city councilman Daniel Grimes. Grimes, who is black, noted that while he appreciated Ahlersmeyer doing the right thing by resigning, his actions do not negate the reality that racism is alive and well despite some who may think otherwise.
“I will not participate in revisionist history, and we need to understand what occurred here this evening,” Grimes said. “Councilman Ahlersmeyer came before this podium and talked about how we need open conversations, and I agree 100 percent. I wish Councilman Ahlersmeyer also agreed with that two months ago when I asked him if we could have a conversation. As a resident of Goshen and the city appointee to this community relations commission, I felt it was his responsibility — his job — to be willing to have conversation with the residents of Goshen.
“And I asked for that. I asked, when can we meet, when can we have a conversation, because I gave him the benefit of the doubt. When I read the article with the racist ideology that he was spreading to the CRC ... Make no mistake, it was racist ideology; it was wrong; it was inappropriate; it had no place at the CRC; it had nothing to do with moving this community forward. If he had concepts that he wanted to communicate, he should have said that. He should have opened it up to dialogue, and he should have identified in the article what points he agreed with, and which points he disagreed with. He failed to do that.”
Grimes said he felt that, rather than apologizing for his actions, Ahlersmeyer came to Tuesday’s meeting seeking sympathy for what he felt was political correctness run amok.
“It is not political correctness run amok. The CRC is to promote equity and fairness for everyone. If you do not agree with those objectives, you have no business being on the CRC,” Grimes said. “I came to this council for the first time 20 years ago, and I’m standing in the same place where there were hooded klansmen in this council chamber. This is our legacy. This is our history. I can only stand before this council this evening because of those who participated in the struggle, and the marches. Our elected officials, we have high regard for you, we respect you, and we expect you to lead us forward, not backward. I am not going to the back of the bus. You are going forward. That is what this council and the members of the CRC need to believe in and stand for.”
John Alheim, former Goshen Fire Chief, was the sole community member to speak out in support of Ahlersmeyer’s actions Tuesday.
“If people felt that Mr. Ahlersmeyer was a racist, why did he present it in a meeting? Why would he do that?” Alheim asked. “My gosh, where are we going with this? We’re not one dimensional. There’s always a difference of opinion every place you go, and obviously, it hasn’t sunk in. I understand that people have passion about racism, but there’s a point where you have to ask, where can we sit down and say, ‘We’ve got to bring up different ideas.’ But all I’ve seen so far is one dimension — if you don’t believe what I say, then you’re a racist. And I do not agree with that.”
Many more community members came forward throughout the evening to express the need to continue to address racism, with some suggesting that the city look into having city employees receive training in cultural sensitivity.
Council president Brett Weddell, speaking on behalf of the other Republicans on the council, thanked those who came and expressed their thoughts and concerns on the matter, noting that he and the others also felt that Ahlersmeyer’s reading was inappropriate.
Goshen Mayor Jeremy Stutsman concluded the discussion by thanking those who came and shared and expressing his commitment to work with the CRC and council in planning a positive way forward.
“I think over the next several weeks that the city council and I need to have some discussions, and it might be valuable to set up some kind of retreat situation almost so that we can talk about the CRC, and how we best see that functioning,” Stutsman said. “Once we have the discussion, if there is any changes we’re going to make, we should make them, and then sit down with the CRC members and start discussing how those changes will be implemented and how we can best move forward with this.
“We have a lot to discuss and a lot to figure out, and it’s going to take a little time, but we’re going to keep at it,” he added. “The most important thing about any topic is continuing discussion. We never get to the solution right away, but if you continue the discussion, that understanding of each other and that acceptance starts to happen, and I think that is 100 percent essential in this process.”