Roy Mayor Kimber Ivy hoped to close out the Roy City Council’s July 8 meeting with a simple vote for an adjournment. As she gathered favoring votes from each council member, she was unable to see or hear Councilor William Starks and asked for his vote.
After his wife Councilor Yvonne Starks interjected and stated that he voted in favor, Ivy once again asked William Starks to confirm his vote. He replied silently with a gesture that appeared similar to a Nazi salute, which gathered gasps and nervous laughter from the crowd in attendance.
“I’m just clarifying, sir, I don’t think that was very appropriate,” Ivy told Starks after his gesture.
“I think it was appropriate totally,” Starks replied.
In a statement to the Nisqually Valley News, Ivy condemned Starks’ gesture and said that she found his actions to be “reprehensible.”
“I am a firm believer in the right to free speech, but I also believe that City Council meetings should be focused on the very real problems facing the City. As representatives of a diverse community, I believe that we, the elected officials of the City, should hold ourselves to higher civic standards such as integrity, respect, professionalism, conscientiousness, and a sense of duty,” Ivy said. “Performing a Nazi salute alienates our community members and shows a complete and utter lack of respect for our democracy and its order and rules.
“Furthermore, this gesture minimizes the suffering of the millions of victims who experienced the atrocities of the Nazi regime, and those who continue to be oppressed under actual authoritarian governments,” she continued. “Divisive symbolic actions, like the council member’s Nazi salute, have no place in our community or in any chamber of government. While I find his actions to be reprehensible, this nevertheless provides all of us with an opportunity to think about what kind of community we want to be as we move forward. I hope this incident encourages more people to get involved in their local government, to step up and serve in leadership roles, and share their positive traits with one another.”
During the July 8 study session, Starks accused Ivy of “trying to cover stuff up” after the mayor told councilors that recently departed City Clerk-Treasurer Michael Malek had returned to help acting City Clerk-Treasurer Beth King with her duties and help the city with its payroll and accounts payable. Yvonne Starks also called Ivy an “authoritarian” after the councilor claimed that the mayor took decisions out of the council’s hands, including deciding on the city’s engineers and the city attorney.
“This seems to me that you’re trying to cover stuff up, in my opinion. In my opinion, you’re trying to do things underhandedly by not passing information,” William Starks said. “I feel that you’re trying to cover things up and keep things beneath where we don’t know where it’s at and where we can question them.”
The Nisqually Valley News has reached out to Williams Starks and Yvonne Starks for comment. This story will be updated as more information becomes available.
