At yesterday’s Holland City Council meeting, members of the Holland Peacemakers called for the resignation of commissioner Carolyn Marquis from the city’s Leisure and Cultural Services Commission, or failing her resignation, a recall of her appointment by the city council. At a Leisure and Cultural Services Commission meeting last week about the Holland Peacemakers plan to erect a “peace pole” in Holland’s Kollen Park, Marquis described the Holland Peacemakers as an “anti-American organization.” She went on to say that the group’s proposed peace pole, which would feature the words “may peace prevail on earth” in 16 different languages, would function as a code for “hate America, hate capitalism, blame America, blame the military, defeat the military.”
Following Marquis’ comment, members of the Peacemakers and their supporters decided to go to the next City Council meeting and call for her resignation or removal from the committee. Twenty members and supporters showed up and explained how they believed that city officials are “ethically required to practice respect for its [the city’s] citizens” and that Marquis has failed in this basic practice. While many council members quoted in today’s issues of the Holland Sentinel and the Grand Rapids Press acknowledged that her remarks were “inappropriate,” none supported the call for her resignation.
Marquis has since written a letter to the group and apologized for her comments and attempted to clarify her intent. In a letter sent to the Holland Peacemakers, the Sentinel, and the Press, Marquis explained that she did not mean to call the Holland Peacemakers “terrorists” or say that “they hated America,” but rather got caught up in “the context of making the point that the HPM is a political organization of the left and that the peace pole initiative is really about politics” and that most of her specific comments were directed towards Cindy Sheehan, she has concluded that the Holland Peacemakers support. Marquis has apologized and offered to remove herself from any further discussion of the topic at committee meeting and will not vote on the peace pole once it comes up for a vote.
