- A Fort Worth city marshal removes a woman identified by Elizabeth Pax on Facebook as Nicki Kerksieck is removed from the Fort Worth City Council chamber during Tuesday’s night’s council meeting.
I was at the Fort Worth City Council meeting last night. Stayed there until almost 1 a.m. when the discussion over the Rainbow Lounge raid was complete.
There have already been some updates here, thanks to John Wright, about what happened, and I am not going to just repeat that info. Instead I am going to concentrate on getting a full story written for the paper this week.
I do want to repeat, however, that Fort Worth Police Chief Jeffrey Halstead did announce yesterday that he has appointed Officer Sara Straten, a 17-year veteran of the police force, as liaison to the city’s LGBT community. And he did tell me last night that he would arrange for Dallas Voice to interview Officer Straten as soon as possible, probably by the end of the week.
Chief Halstead has also promised to sit down for an interview with Dallas Voice himself, although I believe that probably won’t happen until the investigation into the Rainbow Lounge raid is complete.
Also, the second person removed from the Council chambers for disrupting the meeting last night — in addition to Blake Wilkinson of Queer Liberaction — was identified by Elizabeth Pax in a Facebook post as Nicki Kersieck. Elizabeth was not at the meeting but was receiving constant updates — via text, I think — from people who were there.
And it was noted by city officials that TABC’s investigation is likely to be complete before the Fort Worth PD’s investigation, and that officials do not want to rush the PD investigation. They think it is more important that the investigation be thorough and accurate rather than fast. (I can’t remember exactly who said this; it’s in my notes and I’ll have all that in the story.)
Mayor Montcrief should just resign and move on………..
The investigation is proceeding as it should at this point. Let’s remember however that the “key” difference between 2009 and 1969 is that we have openly gay elected officials (and allies) in office to put political pressure on Police Departments and Alcoholic Beverage Commissions and stuff today that we didn’t HAVE 40 years ago. We have achieved this progress and elected these individuals thanks to committed activists working INSIDE the “system” for many years.
Do you think there would have been an immediate call for an independent outside investigation
if we hadn’t elected people like FW Councilman Joel Burns and allies like FW Mayor Pro-Tem
Kathleen Hicks to office ? NO. So we’re one step ahead of the game regarding investigations and in seeing a liaison appointed as well as insisting on attention to policy changes
(and diversity training) within these organizations.
Who do you think got us to the point where we have openly GLBT elected officials ?
Do you think it was a bunch of screaming anarchists in the street ?
No, it was due to long term activists like the Stonewall Democrats and DGLA who have worked
tirelessly over several DECADES to get GLBT people and GLBT allies elected to office !!!
Even the late great Harvey Milk realized that screaming on a soap box on the street corner only
gets you so far …. real progress was made when he was elected to the San Francisco
Board of Supervisors. Even Harvey knew he had to get off the soap box, register voters, organize them, turn them out at the polls , and got elected to a position of power and authority on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.
So while Blake Wilkinson and QueerLiberAction may be successful in getting their name and face in the media – they accomplish little else. Meanwhile, the REAL WORK is being done behind the scenes “out of the media spotlight” and yet Blake is too naive to know that.
We need committed activists and his passion is to be admired….but it takes a lot more
than putting on a pink bandanna and getting on a megaphone to manifest “real” change.
Now there is a photo to be proud of and put on a resume, Nicki!
Thank you Texas Liberal for an excellent post.
We are seeing progress in Fort Worth thanks to the work of Q Cinema, Stonewall Democrats of Tarrant County, Fairness Fort Worth, City Councilman Joel Burns and our other elected allies. QL is a sideshow, circus attraction that is taking the spotlight off what happened, and placing it on themselves.
My opinion wasn’t formed about QL before Tuesday night, but it is now, and I will not be participating in anything they organize. This is a group of hacks. QL will put themselves in front of any camera they can find, and say anything they can say to make the evening news. Regardless of rather or not it hurts our community. It is just about getting on TV for five seconds.
I find them totally disingenuous, and an embarrassment to the LGBT community.
I stand with Brandon in regard to QL and the disrupption and rudeness he demonstrated. Shouting the same nonsense over and over at our mayor and continuously interrupting him as he tried to respond. The issue of was the agenda and it was not relavant that it was near the end of the agenda. Mr. Blake Wilkinson, we can do without your grandstanding in Fort Worth unelss you have something relavant to bring to the table, like common respect for everyone involved – especially the gay community.