[MainstreetTowns] Political Question

[Main Street Duncan]

Chelsea, 
We, too, have experienced the “political factor” in recent events and have had to ask our local attorneys, City, etc. 

From what I’ve learned and the board has decided, we don’t take a political stance but we aren’t going to censor our community from politics. If we remove pics and make special exceptions, then can the Mayor even ride in the Christmas parade?! It’s gets too ridiculous. 

As long as they aren’t campaigning (vote for me T-shirt’s are an exclusion), then we allow anyone to participate UNLESS we find the other platform to consist of hate speech, discrimination, etc. This is a serious issue... 

On a funny note, I once had an elderly lady tell me I shouldn’t allow the Exotic Toy Motorcycle club in the Christmas Parade... I had to explain to her Exotic Toys aren’t anything, um, inappropriate. Exotic Toys is a slang term for foreign vehicles... ha! We gotta laugh sometimes! 

Sent from my iPhone

> On Jul 5, 2018, at 2:47 PM, Mainstreet <mainstreet at claremore.org> wrote:
> 
> Chelsea,
>  
> How frustrating! I haven’t had anything like this happen, but I’d love to hear feedback from others in case this comes up in the future. To me, this seems like a nonissue. If they participated, they should have their face out there to show they support Main Street!
>  
> Were the candidates/teams wearing “Vote So-in-So” shirts or buttons or in any way advertising their candidacy? If so, maybe you could photoshop the advertisements away and re-upload? (I can help with that if you need.)
>  
> Jessica
>  
> From: MainstreetTowns [mailto:mainstreettowns-bounces at lists.onenet.net] On Behalf Of Chelsea McConnell
> Sent: Thursday, July 5, 2018 2:34 PM
> To: Main Street Towns
> Subject: [MainstreetTowns] Political Question
>  
> I recently had someone reach out to me about photos from our Battle of the Burger event that I posted on Facebook on our PCMS page.
>  
> We had 17ish teams.  A volunteer took pictures at the event, including shots of all the teams.  I put all of these on Facebook.  Two of the teams are candidates running for office.  Posting their photos was not a political stance.  They were posted with all the other event pics.  So, now I’ve had someone reach out and say I need to delete the photos of the candidates because it looks as if we might be taking a political stance.  The pictures were posted in an album.  In no way were the ones of the candidates made to stand out.
>  
> Does anyone know if there are any laws regarding something like this?  I hesitate to take them down, because as someone who had a team in our event, their participation helped make our event successful.  Additionally, one of the candidates running for office also owns a local radio station and does a ton of in-kind advertising for us.  I certainly don’t want to hurt our relationship. 
>  
> Have any of you experienced something similar? 
>  
> Chelsea McConnell
> Executive Director, Ponca City Main Street
> 516 E. Grand Avenue
> Ponca City, OK 74601
> (580) 763-8082
>  
> “Our mission is to serve Ponca City and its citizens by promoting quality of life through efforts focused toward economic growth, historical preservation, cultural development and revitalization of the downtown and surrounding area.”
>  
> _______________________________________________
> MainstreetTowns mailing list
> MainstreetTowns at lists.onenet.net
> https://lists.onenet.net/mailman/listinfo/mainstreettowns
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