From Vol. 90, Ed. 08 May 2, 2024
In a meeting on April 11, Sylva’s Board of Commissioners voted to deny Sylva Pride a parade permit for their 2024 pride celebration.
“Sylva Pride is saddened by the recent denial of our parade permit by the Town of Sylva,” said Burgin Mackey, Sylva Pride president. “This decision overturned the precedent of our festival and parade that has occurred annually, without any major logistical or safety issues, for the past three years.”
The town board denied the request for the road closure for the parade quoting fears of safety issues as the impact of closing the road for local businesses.
In response to the denial, Leighanne Young presented a letter to the board written by her and other local business owners. In her statement she detailed why the board should consider allowing Sylva Pride to hold their parade.
“Sylva Pride is not the only downtown festival that requires road closures. To honestly evaluate the economic impact, we need to consider all festivals that impede traffic,” Young said.
Greening Up the Mountains, WCU Homecoming and the Christmas parade are all events that Young cites in her address. These events have not been denied a permit to close portions of Sylva’s downtown. They do close the roads for longer.
Greening Up the Mountains closes the entirety of downtown sylva’s road for over six hours. Sylva Pride’s parade lasts under two hours.
With the letter, Young and other downtown businesses wanted to make it clear they were not the reason the board denied the permit.
“This decision confuses many of us in town,” Mackey said. Not only is there confusion, but Mackey also says based on the rapid decision to vote on the matter and deny issuing Sylva Pride a permit, there is an underlying tone of discrimination.
Former commissioner Natalie Newman made remarks at a follow up town board meeting in response to the permit denial.
“I am deeply hurt and disappointed following our last meeting and the recent decision and vote to deny Sylva Pride’s application for a two-block street closure,” Newman said. “It is not the denial that has been so troubling to me, more so it is how flippantly and hastily this board made that decision with little to no consideration to what was before us.”
Newman details that the issue began with Commissioner Jones presenting a motion to deny the permit outright and refused to resend this motion, as requested by Newman, to allow the Sylva Pride board to convene and discuss options that had not been presented to them prior to the meeting.
“Sylva Pride was not offered an opportunity to discuss footing the bill or to move the closure to another time of day. Road closures may be a headache for a day, but when the majority of your local businesses sign a letter of support, it’s clear that this town wants Sylva Pride to continue as planned,” Mackey said.
Newman also requested that the commission look at Pride’s application at a future meeting to allow all commissioners to be present in response to commissioner Waldrop being absent at the decisive meeting. This would have given the board time to speak with constituents and the community on the issue instead of deciding on their behalf.
Votes were cast nonetheless, and Sylva Pride was denied the permit.
“The handling of this vote by this board does not reflect our proposed town values and our claims to be committed to inclusivity and for me at least that is hard to swallow,” Newman said.
Members of the pride board recognize how denying a permit for the parade puts a damper on how members of the LGBTQIA+ community feel within their community.
“The visibility of a Pride Parade along Main Street has had a lasting impact on how welcome folks feel in our town,” Mackey said. Without the parade, members in the community lose the symbolic freedom of being out and proud in the main street of Sylva.
Though the commissioners mentioned not wanting to set a precedent for denying these types of permits, Mackey says they may have inadvertently done that anyway.
“As a town board, I think that any precedent they set should be to support local businesses and to listen to the will of the people. Sylva loves our festival,” Mackey said. “Voting against the wishes of taxpayers and local businesses is disheartening to me.”
Newman also is concerned about the denial vote considering that previously commissioners delayed a vote to choose new streetlights because two commissioners were not in attendance. When in the same circumstance with Sylva Pride, a commissioner was absent, and commissioners proceeded with the vote regardless.
“I find it very sad they we can take the extra time to choose streetlights but refuse to give a moment more to the consideration of permits,” she said.
Mackey says that the bottom line is Sylva residents need to pay more attention to local government to prevent things like this from continuing to happen.
“During the last local election, we lost two key supporters on the town board and [if] they maintained their seats, we would not be having this conversation. Former town Commissioners Ben Guiney and Greg McPherson served as advisors to Sylva Pride Board and are still consulted today. It is imperative that we vote in our local elections at every opportunity,” she said.
A statement released from Sylva Pride days after various responses from the initial controversy, describes the pride board’s disagreement with the Sylva Town Board. Though disagreeing, they chose to present an inspiring message to their followers on social media.
“We have decided to not reapply for a parade permit with the town of Sylva, we will improvise and overcome as we always do, however Sylva Pride weekend is still on,” said Sylva Pride in their social media statement.
For more opportunities to connect with Sylva Pride, consider joining the Queer Volunteers and follow them at @sylvapride on Instagram or Facebook for more information.
