A candidate for city council shocked her rivals with statements she made at a candidate forum.
Jean Cramer, one of five candidates vying for three open Marysville City Council seats in November, said Thursday that she wanted to “keep Marysville a white community as much as possible.”
Her remark came in response to a question about whether the city should work harder to attract foreign-born citizens, the Port Huron Times Herald reported. The event’s moderator had said earlier that half of the population growth across the Great Lakes region between 2000 and 2015 was due to foreign-born residents.
Incumbent Councilman Paul Wessel said anyone “should be allowed to live in Marysville.” Candidate Shawn Winston said new residents should be assessed on whether they’re “the best, the most qualified regardless of race.” Candidate Mike Deising said, “Just checking the calendar here and making sure it’s still 2019.”
Kathy Hayman, a council member running for reelection, said she personally took offense to Cramer’s comment.
“I don’t even know that I can talk yet, I’m so upset and shocked. My father was a hundred percent Syrian, and they owned the Lynwood Bar. It was a grocery store at that time. So basically, what you’ve said is that my father and his family had no business to be in this community,” she said.
The room where the forum was held was named after Hayman’s father, Joseph Johns, who served for 55 years as an elected official in the city.
“My son-in-law is a black man and I have biracial grandchildren,” Hayman told Cramer. “And I take this very personally what you’ve said, and I know that there’s nothing I can say that’s going to change your mind. … We just need to have more kindness — that’s it.”
Cramer said after the event that it was inappropriate for people of different races to marry each other, but insisted she’s not racist.
“What Kathy Hayman doesn’t know is that her family is in the wrong,” she said. “[A] husband and wife need to be the same race. Same thing with kids. That’s how it’s been from the beginning of, how can I say, when God created the heaven and the earth. He created Adam and Eve at the same time. But as far as me being against blacks, no I’m not.”
Mayor Dan Damman condemned the inflammatory comments, saying the “disturbing and disgusting ideology is flatly rejected by me, our entire City Council, all of city administration, and our employees.”
