ROYAL OAK, Mich. (WXYZ) — Royal Oak Mayor Michael Fournier has asked City Commissioner Kim Gibbs to resign after she was spotted protesting the stay-at-home order at the Capitol building earlier this week.
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According to Fournier, he asked Gibbs to resign saying she "willfully violated the law and put countless lives at risk."
Gibbs, in a statement on Facebook, said she attended the gathering in Lansing to support the voices of small businesses, adding that many "are facing permanently losing their businesses or their jobs due to Governor Whitmer's near total shutdown of the State."
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Fournier's entire statement reads: "I have the moral obligation and duty to stand with the victims of this pandemic, their families, and the people I swore to protect. Commissioner Gibbs willfully violated the law and put countless lives at risk. She lacks the judgment and empathy to serve the people of Royal Oak. Her actions and words do not reflect the majority of our city commission or our residents. There is always room for debate on how to safely and effectively open our economy, however there is no excuse for endangering others by deliberately breaking the law. If she cares about Royal Oak she will resign so we can begin healing from this black eye she has placed upon us."
Gibbs entire statement reads:
"On April 15, 2020, I attended the gathering at the Capitol building to support the unheard voices of small business owners and those who work for them. Many of them are facing permanently losing their business or their jobs due to Governor Whitmer’s near total shutdown of the State. The rules of her lockdown have become arbitrary and capricious.
We must still be careful and make plans that protect the safety of everyone in Michigan, but I believe there is a way to slowly reopen parts of our economy safely and with surgical precision without resorting to punitive executive orders that takes a sledgehammer to the entire economy of the state of Michigan.
I fear that the Governor and our County government are satisfied with this overly simplistic approach of taking a blunt object to the entire state instead of developing plans with surgical precision that will keep us safe while still preserving hundreds of thousands of jobs and businesses. It is their duty to develop these plans immediately, so that we can begin phasing them in as soon as it is determined that safety can be maintained. Hopefully this can begin on May 1st.
Unfortunately, we have not seen or heard of any details or plans to keep us safe and save the jobs we will all need to survive. Instead we have recently seen plans from Oakland County, run by Chairman David Woodward, one of the Governor’s go-to people, promoting the gruesome idea to use local ice arenas to store dead bodies. This is unacceptable and needs to stop. We need to help our residents survive, not make plans for their dead bodies."
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