Peru officials ready to move on from mayor’s comments, council open to have committee meetings online

A week after Peru aldermen said Mayor Ken Kolowski was not truthful in his apology statement after comments he made about Pistol Shrimp theme nights during an Oct. 2 committee meeting, the council said it’s time to move forward.

“It’s an unfortunate thing that happened,” said Alderman Tom Payton. “I believe that it is over and hopefully we’ve all learned a lesson from it.”

Payton said he asked the mayor to apologize during the Oct. 9 council meeting on the floor – which he did.

“He did what he was supposed to do – in my eyes,” he said.

The minutes from the Oct. 2 committee meeting were approved unanimously at Monday’s Public Services Committee. The record said Kolowski asked the council if anyone thought the city should have more input or oversight with the city park property. He said he had received complaints about theme night.

Police Chief Sarah Raymond said an officer was present at all games and she had never heard of any issues and asked Kolowski if there was a specific theme night he had heard about, according to the minutes. Kolowski answered Pride Night. Alderman Payton immediately said the council supports all groups and is inclusive.

According to the minutes, Kolowski asked if there were any groups the council would oppose, like BLM. The council took issue with that statement as well. Alderman Edgcomb said it doesn’t matter what groups.

Kolowski said the minutes reflect what was said and he has done everything he could do.

“I’ve pretty much said everything I can say,” he said. “I’ve apologized.”

Council members last Monday said the mayor should take responsibility for the way he made a remark about BLM and Pride Night, without pointing fingers at Raymond and the City Council for taking offense to his comments.

The Oct. 2 committee meeting was not recorded for the public, nor was it tape recorded for record keeping. The Clerk’s Office said the routine is for the minutes to be processed for approval at the next committee meeting, which occurred Monday.

Committee meetings were broadcasted live recently on Facebook when they were conducted the same nights as council meetings.

Kolowski said not recording the committee meetings anymore was “just something [they] talked about” but the council has seen a little pushback.

“I probably could address it with the committee chairs and ask them if they’d like to reinstate them back to Facebook live,” he said. “Because those are committee meetings, so it’s up to them.”

Alderman Bob Tieman said he has advocated openly in meetings for the committee meetings to be online.

“The committee meeting used to be online when they were the same night as council,” he said. “When we moved them, I asked multiple times, ‘are we going to keep these online?’”

Alderman Rick O’ Sadnick said he would be open to having the committee meetings online, and echoed Payton’s sentiments about moving forward.

“It’s definitely time to move forward,” he said. “It was an off-the-cuff comment made without a lot of thought behind it and he’s apologized profusely ... I understand why the [committee meetings] were that way. But, they aren’t run by the mayor. They’re run by the committee chair. I would not be opposed.”

Alderman Jason Edgcomb said he hasn’t been opposed or in favor of having the meetings recorded.

“I don’t really have a standing one way or another,” he said. “If everybody tells me they want to record it during Facebook Live then we do it on Facebook live ... I’m not in the business of trying to hide anything from anybody.”

Kolowski said he is willing to have the committee meeting back on Facebook live, as he uses it all the time.

“I don’t have anything to hide,” he said. “It’s just sometimes you’re going to have trouble with audio and video and things like that … I’m a team player and if the teams want to put them back on I have no problem with that.”