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Who is bullying who?
For the last two years since I entered my Civil War Reenactment float in the Independence Day parade of 2021, I have been vilified by a Redmond City Council member and the media has been gleeful to print his opinions of me. This is in response to that Guest article by the City Council Member on March 30th, 2023.
In my public testimony on March 28th, 2023, I was interrupted by the Mayor first. Then some hecklers interrupted my ending. I was about to say, “We are in a Civil War of Values. On the back of our Civil War Reenactment float it read United We Stand, Divided We Fall. There is a political movement to divide America right now. We need to put a stop to it. We all bleed red. There is no one righteous, not one. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. We need to return to Him.”
On January 29th, 2022, I reached out to the Councilor Evelyn and asked him, “Would you be willing to meet for lunch or coffee? I would like for us to meet and discuss your comments about me. As you are aware, I’m running for Deschutes County Commissioner and I feel it is part of who we are as public servants to get to know one another in order to better serve our community.”
He responded and said “yes”. We scheduled an appointment but he cancelled it 2 days before we were to meet. When I tried to reschedule with him in several email exchanges, he finally responded with this statement, “Scott, I’ve made a decision to decline your invitation. Particular actions set into motion on your behalf have been instrumental in dividing the citizens of Redmond rather then uniting them and I strongly oppose those actions. I am also convinced that a meeting would only result in an agree to disagree outcome and therefore it would have no meaningful impact on uniting the citizens of Redmond.”
In recent interviews with KBND and Rock 98.3, the title of their article reads, “Councilor Evelyn denied allegation he refused to meet with Stuart.”
But when The Source journalist Jack Harvel asked me, “do you have proof that he actually declined meeting with you?” I replied “yes” and submitted the email exchange for his article. Then, in the Source’s interview with the Councilman, he was quoted, “I said yes at first, and then I thought about and I said, you know, what could you possibly want to talk to me about? Because he not only flew the Confederate flag, he actually wore the uniform. To me, since that isn’t the holiday, he only did that, in my opinion, to entice and cause division in our City. I emailed him back and said, you know, Scott, after thinking about it, I don’t want to meet with you. I appreciate the offer. But no, thank you.”
I was hoping to meet with the Councilor to explain that our Civil War Reenactment float was in no way an endorsement of the atrocities of slavery, racism or white supremacy. His judgment of me was completely erroneous. And I wanted to try to find some common ground with the hope that we could develop a good relationship for the betterment of our community. He decided to refuse my invitation, and since then he has falsely claimed multiple times that he never refused to meet with me.
So I ask, who is bullying who?
