Editorial by Matt Marquardt –
I just received a phone call alerting me to a press conference that will be held today at City Hall regarding what the caller described as the “real story” behind how Mayor Eric Bookmeyer has treated our Human Rights agency. This oughtta be good.
You remember our City Hall, it’s that building in downtown Mason City that is being remodeled at the behest of Mayor Eric Bookmeyer and our do-nothing, leaderless City Council.
This is the same mayor who hates our long-standing Human Rights agency and wants to put it out of business. Bookmeyer wants to take River City back to the mid 1960’s, a time when segregation was still being practiced; when whites and blacks could not always eat in the same cafes; when sometimes blacks couldn’t easily vote. A time when there was no Human Rights agency here.
I was in City Hall yesterday, checking out the construction project. I wanted to make sure the mayor was only going to have one drinking fountain installed, not one for whites and one for everyone else. So far so good there; I’ll keep an eye on it.
Back to the call I received about the press conference. Apparently, what was written in the Bookmeyer Gazette about yesterday’s Human Rights Commission meeting wasn’t 100% accurate and some of the victims of Bookmeyer’s bullying want to get the story out first hand so it cannot be tainted, skewed, and twisted by our local newspaper that’s not worth much more than used Charmin.
I’ll be at the press conference today and report the truth as always.