A brief but heated exchange between Aberdeen Mayor Pete Schave and council member Tiesa Meskis erupted during the council comment portion of the Aberdeen City Council meeting on Wednesday.
Meskis was commenting on a run-in with Sucher and Sons Star Wars Shop owner Don Sucher over a sign in the store regarding transgender people. Meskis recently announced her transition to female at a July council meeting.
“This all started because somebody decided to put a very hateful sign in their place of business. And I was alerted to the sign and, as a private citizen, not as a member of the City Council, not under the direction of the city of any kind, I simply went into this person’s business to see if the sign was actually there,” said Meskis.
“And upon entering the store, he did recognize me, and as I was trying to make my way to the sign, he circled around and decided that he was going to try to remove it.”
Continuing, Meskis said she asked Sucher if he was removing the sign because Meskis was there. At that point, said Meskis, “I was accosted by the store owner. That is what the video shows. If you watch those videos and actually pay attention, that is what you are going to see. This is unacceptable behavior by anybody, anywhere, and we need to stop it. We need to talk to people who are displaying this kind of hate.”
Schave interrupted, saying Meskis’ comments were out of order and to “please stop.” Meskis countered, “This is my comment time. You are impeding my speech, sir.”
Schave countered.
“I’m telling you you are out of order,” said Schave.
After some arguing, with Schave trying to steer toward another council member’s comments, Schave said that Meskis “was testifying and the other side is not here to stand up for themselves.”
“So you’re going to silence me?” asked Meskis. “That is correct. You are out of order,” said Schave.
Council member Tawni Andrews intervened and made a motion to appeal Schave’s ruling that Meskis’ comments were out of order. After it was decided that was proper procedure, the council voted to allow Meskis to continue, with only council member Melvin Taylor voting no on the motion.
“You have the floor,” Schave said to Meskis.
“Thank you, sir. I was actually about to finish when I was so rudely interrupted,” said Meskis.
Meskis continued, “This kind of hate cannot be allowed to fester in our community. We need to come together, we need to stop teaching hate. And when we find it, we need to eradicate it, not by violence, not by bringing people into our community that are going to be threatening, but by education.
“And that is all I would ask anybody to do if they see this, hopefully you can confront it without the kind of interaction I experienced. And hopefully we can really teach people to be more accepting of their entire community.”
Meskis concluded, “Thank you. I’m done, mayor.”
Council member Liz Ellis said she hoped the Meskis-Sucher incident could serve as a “wake-up call for the community as to what we want this city to be and what kind of values we want the city to reflect.”
She added, “We’re known for our friendliness, for our generosity, and let’s exercise some of that humanity toward each other. We can have different views. But let’s be respectful in how we express those, so that we bring out the best in each other.
“We’re all learning human beings, and none of us are perfect. But together, we have so many different talents, and together we can make Aberdeen really a lovely place to be.”
There were 56 public comments submitted before Wednesday’s meeting, all regarding Meskis, ranging from supportive of Meskis to others calling for her resignation or expulsion from the council.
Because the list was so lengthy the comments were not read into the record, but a link to all of them can be found on the city website, aberdeenwa.gov/documentcenter. Click on the City Council Folder, then Public Comments to view.
