Oregon City is a mostly dreamy burg near Portland. It sits on picturesque Willamette Falls in God’s Country – Clackamas County, Oregon. Oregon City was the first official city in Oregon where people came to make a life and a living on this lush resource-filled land by the Willamette River.
This is the place where fur trappers, dream seekers and saints came to put down roots after Lewis and Clark sent the word back to President Jefferson to send people. The Conestoga wagon wheel ruts can still be seen in Baker City in Eastern Oregon, on The Oregon Trail, where settlers rode on their way to find Oregon City.
The town has been reenergized by beer halls, kickboxing gyms, wedding venues, coffee shops, and pot stores. Benchmade Knives manufactures its world-renowned blades there.
But there’s trouble in paradise.
The woke mob wants to take over and they’ve got the mayor in their crosshairs.
Mayor Dan Holladay was just reelected in 2018 to his second term as mayor. He grew up in Oregon City, went to high school there, and has dedicated the better part of his adult life to volunteering for the city that he loves. He’s been on ad hoc boards, water boards, the city council, and is now mayor. These days he walks with effort and speaks with a slight slur because an unknown illness has begun to degrade his ability to enunciate.
But there was no missing his points on Sunday night as he calmly turned the tables on the rage mob that set out to get him.
Sunday night, an emergency meeting was called by three council members. The agenda said it was a “Discussion of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in Oregon City.” The not-so-hidden agenda was Holladay and his social media postings and responses, which insufficiently woke for the rage mob, Black Lives Matter, and their mostly white allies in the Portland area.
The letter-writing machine was churning, sending council members their complaints about the “racist” mayor. The council members “strongly encouraged” the public to “relay concerns and comments” to them to use as ammo.
Calls for his resignation were getting louder. The council was looking for a way to get rid of him. The Portland Professional Protesters were out to get him.
Here’s an example of the kind of thought put into complaints about Holladay.
“Olivia” described herself as “a human bean, #polyamorist,#atheist & #TheResistance, #Polyamory,#ProChoice, #BlackLivesMatter, #ProEquality & just being a damn kind human being.”
This “damn kind human being” declared Holladay, whom she doesn’t know, a racist because he pointed to a Washington Post database on police shootings and offered a comment on Next Door.
So this is what Dan Holladay had to say in local @orcity Oregon City fb group about what’s going on right now & his view about black people & black lives.What a turd of human being he is. @KGWNews @KATUNews @KOINNews please run a segment & call out this racist mayor! pic.twitter.com/VPpb6Xf3iw
— Olivia (@supernovaxox) June 6, 2020
The screenshot of Holladay’s social media comment read,
Not to nitpick but there were actually 10 unarmed black people killed by police nationally. Of those 10, 6 were actively attacking officers in the other 4 officers are either under indictment or standing trial that’s 10 out of maybe 60 million blacks in this country? [sic]
That is hardly an epidemic.
You might be able to fault Holladay for bad grammar and reading The Washington Post, but citing statistics isn’t racist. Stop it. It’s not racist.
A woman by the name of Kathy McFerrin thought it was racist. She wrote to the mayor:
So.. we are galvanizing against your racism … marketing your stupid comments shows you aren’t smart enough to hold office. So we’re gonna work really hard to get you out pal..You You scum bag piece of shit racist ! bye FU.. career fucked by stupidity
Writer Deb Stone believed she was grasping the gravity of the situation when she posed, “if this is what he says in public, imagine what he says in private.” Cue the scary music.
This is how the mayor of Oregon City feels about police violence in public forums. Imagine what he says in private. This is his email address: [email protected]
Mayor: Dan Holladay
[email protected]
Phone 971-269-9471Commissioners:
Rocky Smith, Jr.
[email protected]Denyse McGriff
[email protected]Frank O’Donnell
[email protected]Rachel Lyles Smith
[email protected] #BlackLivesMatter #GeorgeFloyd https://t.co/oZIaDxkOPQ— deb stone (@iwritedeb) June 5, 2020
Another “woke” person said that by quoting statistics and not sufficiently prostrating himself, Oregon City “should truly be ashamed that he is representing your community.”
Hey @orcity how about you ask better of your Mayor Dan Holladay in how he responds to human rights and systematic racism. You should truly be ashamed that he is representing your community. #BlackLivesMatter @wweek
Hey @orcity how about you ask better of your Mayor Dan Holladay in how he responds to human rights and systematic racism. You should truly be ashamed that he is representing your community. #BlackLivesMatter @wweek pic.twitter.com/mDicu1A2xb
— Lauren Todd (@Lauren_Todd) June 6, 2020
Note the fireworks in the second photo in that tweet.
That’s another sub rosa agenda going on here.
Holladay became a target when he attempted to reopen his city from the governor’s coronavirus lockdowns.
It’s no secret that Oregon Governor Kate Brown has wielded her power like a scepter over whose businesses live and die during this pandemic. Just ask a certain hairdresser in Salem about Brown’s willingness to order CPS to take her child away if she didn’t stay locked down.
In that fireworks posting, Holladay said:
So if we can have protests, riots, looting and vandalism in Portland, Salem and Eugene.[sic] Why can’t we have we have fireworks in Oregon City, Canby, Gladstone, Molalla or Sandy? Asking for a friend “Uncle Sam”
Quick, get that man to the guillotine. This mob is only too happy to oblige.
Holladay also got into trouble with the council because he, as he has in the past, asked local businesses to donate money to the 4th of July fireworks fund. One councilwoman suggested that this was a bad look for the city because those businesses might have future issues in front of the council. Fair point. Holladay withdrew his plan for fireworks.
The far-Left Oregon attorney general threatened Holladay with a lawsuit if he did the 4th of July fireworks—that’s how many cages he has rattled with his crazy talk of fireworks and fresh air.
He was faulted for not signing a letter by a consortium of mayors decrying the George Floyd killing. He told me the first draft of the letter was too extreme and refused to sign it.
Finally, Holladay was chastised for posting his police chief’s comment about supporting and embracing people of all colors in Oregon City.
That was not enough for the mob. They wanted him lying prostrate like the Webster, Mass., police chief.
Rumors began to swirl that the mayor was a drunk because of his slurred speech due to his illness. So on Sunday night, before the arranged hate-fest began, Holladay had police give him a breathalyzer test, which he claims registered 0.0.
Mayor Dan Holladay began the meeting by announcing he had just asked a police sergeant to give him a breathalyzer test to prove he wasn’t drunk — and that wasn’t even the weirdest part of an extraordinary emergency session Sunday night.https://t.co/jSoPyHWVzd
— Canby Now Podcast (@canbynow) June 8, 2020
And then the “racist” gave the woke mob a lesson in the role of government and equal justice under the law. Here’s part of what he said.
When I was first notified of this meeting tonight, my first reaction was to not come and let the folks say what they wanted. But the more I thought about it, the more I believed that that would be taken as a sign of cowardice.
I have spent most of the last few days thinking about how we got to where we are today and what I might say to the people of Oregon City.
As mayor of Oregon City, I take seriously my obligation to ensure that the rule of law is applied equally to each and every citizen, regardless of color, beliefs, station in life or where you come from.
In George Floyd’s case, the law was not applied equally, that is why we are in this place today. People are angry. They should be. I am angry.
Let me be clear, what happened to George Floyd was wrong. What those police officers did was wrong. Indeed, they’ll get their day in court.
…
We don’t do this nor will we tolerate it in Oregon City. We must bear this in mind as we reflect on this inhumanity done to this man.
Peaceful protests and calm rhetoric honor this man. Mob violence and riots do not honor George Floyd. The equal application of the law honors the man.
…
And as mayor, this is a commitment I make to you, indeed, the only one I am capable of making: I will treat all Oregon City residents with respect and equality.
This is my commitment to you, to do everything to make sure that the citizens of Oregon City have the assurance that I will stand with them and with the rule of law.
I will not endorse any unlawful acts done in the name of George Floyd. He deserves better. You deserve better.
I will not ratify riots.
And I will not bend the law to protect rioters nor will I bend a knee in supplication to an enraged mob.
I will stand and will commit to you my continued commitment to equality under the law. I will commit to you that you will be treated equally under the law. I will endorse peaceful protest.
In his comments, he played the voicemail of an outraged woman who called him every disgusting, despicable name in the book – including “racist” – for Holladay’s failure to sufficiently address the George Floyd murder and sufficiently kiss the ring of the mob. Holladay left the meeting early saying he wasn’t feeling well.
I’ve been somewhat acquainted with Holladay over the years and have never known him to be any kind of racist whatsoever. I was asked to listen in to the Zoom meeting for the possibility of doing a story and then I was called on to make a comment. I did, but wasn’t expecting to do so. That’s my dog in this fight.
But there was something else I wanted to see. I wanted to see what it looks like when a mob takes a man’s words, twists them into something he did not say, or punishes him for not parroting their words, in order to ruin his reputation and his life’s work.
Holladay has now said what should have been obvious. Will the mob take a recitation of logic and law for an answer?
Here are Holladay’s comments.