Mayor asks to keep man off city board

In the cramped board room before last week’s Carrollton City Council meeting, Mayor Becky Miller opened discussion on a serious note. She asked the seven council members to remove a Carrollton resident from their list of appointed boards, saying that she would be “very embarrassed” to have him serve the city.

Against Miller’s will, Paul Kramer, a Carrollton resident who ran for city council in December 2006, was appointed to the Construction Advisory and Appeals Board.

Kramer’s appointment came two days after he was pictured in The Dallas Morning News protesting Muslim Family Day at Six Flags Over Texas. Three board members did not want him to be appointed as a city representative, but the motion was overturned by a 4-3 vote.

A member of “Americans Against Hate,” Kramer said he was involved in the peaceful protest Oct. 14 because he believes some of the attendees at the Six Flags event were tied to terrorist organizations.

“It wasn’t about Islam or Muslims,” he said. “We were just trying to expose terrorist organizations that are active in the United States.”

But organizers of Muslim Family Day, a regional sect of the Islamic Circle of North America, said they just wanted to have a fun day with their families. The Sunday event — in which 9,000 Muslims attended — was two days after the end of Ramadan, which is a month-long period of fasting for Muslims. Generally, families celebrate when the month has finished, said Mohammad Barney, president of the DFW chapter of the Islamic Circle of North America.

“What they were saying was totally false,” Barney said. “ICNA is not a terrorist organization. Our primary purpose is education and social services.”

Members of the city council disagreed on whether a person on a city board should be able to publicly protest. Herb Weidinger called Kramer’s actions “bigotry.” Matthew Marchant called them “diversity.”

“You can have a strong belief about Muslims, but you don’t have to go to Six Flags and protest,” council member Larry Williams told the group. “I think it would be prudent to wait.”

Pat Malone, Weidinger and Williams voted to remove Kramer from the appointment. Although Miller can’t vote, she also wanted Kramer’s name struck from the list, she said.

Tim Hayden, John Mahalik, Terry Simons and Marchant voted to keep Kramer on the board.

“I don’t think it’s going to affect his appointment,” Mahalik said.

Members who voted in favor of Kramer’s appointment said the construction board probably will not face diversity issues that would hinder Kramer’s ability to do his job.

Kramer said he is glad to be able to serve the city, but that he won’t stop acting upon his personal beliefs.

“It’s nice to be able to serve the public, and that’s something that’s admirable. But, if it’s going to mean I can’t participate in something on my own personal time, it’s not worth it,” he said.

Kramer has been vocal about his opinions in the past. He wrote in to the Carrollton Leader to protest a Carrollton-Farmers Branch school’s celebration of the International Day of Peace, which Kramer cited as a weapon of United Nations propaganda.

He also called Miller during a city election and told her the Freemasons — an organization her husband is involved in — is a “cult,” Miller said.

After Miller rode in the Dallas gay pride parade in 2006, Kramer wrote a petition and spoke against Miller at a city council meeting in April, according to city records. Miller said the personal attack did not affect her decision to oppose Kramer’s appointment to the construction board.

Kramer said Miller overstepped her boundary as a public figure.

“I couldn’t go to that rally last weekend (at Six Flags) and say, ‘By the way, I’m a board member of Carrollton.’ I would have to be sensitive to the fact that I’m a board person,” he said.

However, he said he still should be able to protest on his own time.

This is the second year members of the Carrollton City Council have publicly discussed board appointments, said Ashley Mitchell, city secretary. Before that, council members deliberated over citizens’ appointments in a closed session.

Miller said she received six to eight e-mails and 15 phone calls about Kramer’s appointment.

There are about 100,000 Muslims in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, according to figures from the Islamic Circle of North America. In Carrollton, there are about 20,000 residents who identified themselves as Asian on census records. Carrollton does not keep statistics for residents’ religious preferences.

“My job as mayor is to reassure the Muslim community that we will make sure that there is nothing that happens, that there will not be any instances where Mr. Kramer can use his beliefs against them,” Miller said.

Kramer stood firm, saying his protest at Six Flags was not anti-Muslim. He also said he cannot ever be completely unbiased.

“I don’t know how you sanitize your life to eliminate all conceivable world views from life to become this perfectly neutral person,” he said. “Everybody has a life, and everybody has a world view. It drives everything that they do.”

Kramer’s appointment to the Construction Advisory and Appeals Board became active Oct. 16. He will serve until Oct. 31, 2009.

Contact Community Editor Sarah Blaskovich at 972-628-4074 or SBlaskovich@acnpapers.com.

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