Lake Stevens mayor refuses to sign Pride proclamation

LAKE STEVENS, Wash. - Lake Stevens leaders have reversed a two-year trend, June will no longer be recognized as Pride Month in the city.

Mayor Brett Gailey made the decision not to issue the same proclamation he had signed in 2021 and 2022, the city council then elected to follow his lead. Efforts to bring the proclamation for a vote at Tuesday night’s council meeting failed.

A proclamation such as this is largely symbolic and carries no official policy change.

"Why did I sign this the last two times?" Mayor Gailey began during Tuesday night’s council meeting. "I’ll tell you what’s changed for me."

"My concerns are these, we are seeing policies implemented such as—In our own school district—that are detrimental to parent’s rights. We are seeing these types of policies that get government between their children and their kids, and I find that to be detrimental." He said.

"I see laws being passed, such as Senate Bill 5599, which removes parents from health and mental health care decision-making, so that’s one of the aspects I looked at when I decided not to sign the proclamation," he continued.

Mayor Gailey went further to identify women’s rights issues factoring into his decision.

"When we have biological males competing with biological females and that’s accepted and heralded, I find that to be a trampling on women’s rights." Mayor Gailey said.

Angela Riebli, who organized the first Lake Stevens Pride Festival, was surprised by the decision.

"I think that for some people in the community the presence of a Pride organization makes them uncomfortable." Riebli said. "When I was starting out planning the Pride Festival, I googled Lake Stevens Pride just to see like has there ever been a pride festival in Lake Stevens, and what I found was the proclamation actually."

"That made my heart warm, okay this is going to be a little bit easier than I thought because this city has already declared itself safe for the LGBTQ community." She said.

Still, Riebli believes this reversal will not change the efforts of volunteers working to bring Pride events to the city.

"A proclamation is one of the lowest level menial things a city can do," She said. "Whether the city government is going to be behind it or not is kind of beside the point."

But at the Lake Stevens Farmers Market, Manager Sarah Dylan-Jensen claims she’s already getting calls from concerned vendors.

"Do they want to keep coming back to the market you know?" Dylan-Jensen said. "They don’t know if they feel safe, they don’t know if they need to take a stand by withdrawing from the market."

In the view of former city councilmember Mark Somers and his wife Pam, this decision sets the city back.

"The reasons they didn’t want to go for it were feeble at best." Pam Somers said.

Mark then recalled his first time attending a Pride event earlier this month.

"It just really hit me," he said.

"There were a lot of wonderful people there. A lot of wonderful people. That’s what really got us." Pam responded. "They did that for two years before they had a chance to say we see you we value you, you are safe in this community, but not now.