Wednesday evening’s Ocean Shores regular city council meeting went off the rails during the public communication portion as a handful of citizens hurled accusations and insults and argued openly.

At the root of it all was Indivisible Ocean Shores’ (IOS) recent free speech violation accusations lobbed at Mayor Frank Elduen and the city of Ocean Shores. The accusations involve the use of the word “democracy” on a sign at a voter registration booth organized by IOS at the 2024 Sand and Sawdust Festival this summer and associated protests along with Saturday’s Hands Off protest.

Whenever the public comment period is opened, Mayor Frank Elduen lays out the ground rules about decorum. Those ground rules were not observed by several attendees at Wednesday evening’s meeting.

“It certainly wasn’t polite. You’re supposed to have a nice conversation, you’re not supposed to talk about any particular staff person, which they did. It was unfortunate that there was a lot of laughing, there were people talking and commenting where there were people trying to speak at the mic,” Elduen said. “One particular speaker was flipped off multiple times by the Indivisible group that was there. It was unfortunate they couldn’t be polite and keep quiet at least while somebody was speaking. If they had something to say, they could come up to the mic.”

The first speaker, Nancy Milliman, during the public comment period, discussed American history and the form of government the United States employs arguing that the U.S. is a constitutional republic and not a democracy. The next speaker, Melissa Smith, recalled a personal experience with the voter registration effort at the Sand and Sawdust Festival and went on to dissect the use of the word “democracy.”

After two unrelated commentators, the fifth speaker’s comments touched off a firestorm.

“There’s things going on in this town that blow me away. When I first moved here, I had friends here, I had family here, so we decided to retire here. I thought I was moving to Mayberry. It’s anything but Mayberry, and there’s parts of this town that are really ugly, and some really ugly people living here.” said Mike Avolio. “There’s one group that continually does everything they can to form divisions between all of us. I don’t think they’re acting in the best interests of this community. They live on lies, they tell stories that are half truths, and they’re very disrespectful. When I saw people up here talking earlier, they were over there laughing. Disrespectful. And you know who you are.

“Other things they do that bother me are the signs they hold when they’re out picketing. They got a couple (of) members that hang on these signs that say ‘conservatives are Nazis.’ I don’t like that. And you guys disgust me for doing that. I’m a conservative, I voted for (Donald) Trump, and put your middle finger away, lady. If any of you want to walk outside and call me a Nazi, I’d be more than happy for you to come and talk to me and we’ll have that discussion out in the parking lot. I’m not happy with the condition of the city and some of the people we have living here. The name calling and the division has to stop. We’re all here to enjoy Ocean Shores, it’s a beautiful place to live but right now some people are dragging it down.”

During his comments, Avolio turned and looked at and pointed toward other members of the audience.

Maria Van Horn, a member of the IOS steering committee, then took to the podium to offer her rebuttal to the press release the city of Ocean Shores distributed in response to the free speech issue raised at a previous city council meeting regarding the sign at the Sand and Sawdust Festival.

“Over the past eight years, Indivisible Ocean Shores has never distributed our or partisan materials at any voter registration booth sponsored by us,” Van Horn said. “Volunteers at our booth are required not to represent any political party through their dress, speech or literature. One of Indivisible Ocean Shores’ goals is to protect democracy, which is only successful if people register to vote. Democracy is the issue.”

Van Horn concluded her remarks with, “And I have never called anybody in this room a Nazi,” which led to a confrontation with someone in the audience.

Jan Hyatt then read a letter submitted by Kim Nichols who could not attend the meeting. Nichols’ letter read, in part, “There are so many other volunteers and diversely staffed committees in our community, all with the sole purpose of doing good and coming together to nurture this beautiful place where we all live. So, now, I have to ask, why would this (Indivisible) of Ocean Shores bring all of this controversy to the forefront almost a year after the event? How is this bringing our community together for the good? All I can see is a continuation of the divisiveness that destroys small towns.”

Jane Shattuck took to the podium next. After she called for unity and decried the yelling and bickering, an argument ensued and City Administrator Scott Andersen called for a break. The argument continued during the break, which led Elduen to clear the room.

“We had an individual that spoke and sat down and caused some trouble with a person who was just sitting there minding their own business,” Elduen said. “Things started escalating in the crowd so we decided to clear the room, hopefully people will cool off so we can continue the meeting, cooler heads will prevail so we can get through the meeting. There was a group there I think was just there to cause some trouble.”

After the break, the audience was allowed back in and the meeting resumed.

“We’re going to reconvene the meeting. Hopefully, we all can be polite and cordial to each other,” Elduen said. “I guess we’ll give that a try this time.”

When the meeting resumed, Gina Rawlings joined the public comment session online and described a harrowing experience she had during Saturday’s protest along Pt. Brown Avenue. The public comment period ended with an unrelated topic.

The Ocean Shores City Council April 8 meeting agenda states, “The city council desires to allow the opportunity for public comment. However, the business of the city must proceed in an orderly and timely manner. Visit public comment (revize.com) to learn how to participate during public comment and or watch the meeting live.”

“You should just be respectful, whoever is speaking you need to be respectful. If you want to say something you have the opportunity to say it during your three minutes,” Elduen said. “It’s disturbing that people can’t say their peace without being heckled and laughed at, flipped off, those kinds of things, it’s unfortunate.”

Ocean Shores resident Mike Avolio speaks at the city council meeting.