On Tuesday, September 8th, Chair of the Haywood Republican Party Kim Genova (far right of the photo above, row six) brought a complaint against Hands Off! Haywood to the Haywood County Commissioners meeting. In a colorful speech she alleged, “Every Saturday, on Main Street, in front of this very building, an agitated rowdy group of protesters take over this town. They block sidewalks, stop traffic, harass passersby, and cause havoc by even lying in the street, defying drivers to run them over….My question is: why are you allowing this to happen week after week?” If you are amused by this depiction of HOH protests, you are not alone.
HOH came out in numbers, with 8 Steering Group members (front rows in the photo above) challenging Genova’s allegations and speaking passionately about their freedoms of speech and assembly, rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. Waynesville Mayor Pro Tem Chuck Dickson (at podium in the photo above) was in the courtroom for another matter and added testimony that HOH protests are orderly. He described passing through the protest area last Saturday: “The folks that I spoke with were at the edge of the sidewalk at the street. The only harassment I saw was from people passing by, people shooting birds, people cursing them. I did not see people yelling back or doing any kind of thing like that. As far as defying drivers to run them over, you don’t stand at the edge of a highway like that when a truck comes by and defy them to run you over.”
HOH invites the commissioners and anyone else to come by to observe our protests or, better yet, participate in them. We also invite everyone to watch the video of the whole discussion at the Commissioners meeting here (scroll to minutes 14:15 to 1:02:10). By the way, three of these five republican commissioner seats are up for election in November: those of Terry Ramey (ousted in primary), Jennifer Best (not seeking reelection) and Tommy Long (running for re-election). The competing candidates are: Carly Pugh (democrat), Michael Sorrells (democrat), Vicki Hyatt (unaffiliated), Blake Hart (unaffiliated), David Burnette (republican), and Jeffrey Stines (republican).