Boise council member wants to replace moment of silence, acknowledge indigenous people
A Boise City Council member has proposed dropping the moment of silence the council observes at the start of each meeting with an acknowledgment of the Native American tribes that lived in what is now Boise before being forcibly removed.
Lisa Sánchez proposed what is known as a land acknowledgment during a public hearing Tuesday on whether to overturn a conditional use permit for a building in Boise’s North End.
“Madam Mayor, I hope that moving forward, we may consider changing the way we start our council meetings,” Sánchez said. “Perhaps we could consider doing away with the invocation and replacing that with a land acknowledgment, acknowledging the original inhabitants of the Boise Valley.”
The topic had not come up previously in the meeting, but Indigenous Peoples’ Day, a holiday some observe in lieu of the federal holiday Columbus Day, was Monday.
Sánchez said that after the city was unable to celebrate as it typically does, because of the coronavirus pandemic, the proposal felt “important to bring up.”
Local governments vary in how they begin meetings. The Ada County Highway District Commission, which meets weekly, starts only with the Pledge of Allegiance.
The Boise City Council doesn’t have a true invocation, a message at the start of a meeting calling on a higher power for support or inspiration, although council agendas do list an invocation at the start of each meeting. People may use the council’s moment of silence to pray or otherwise reflect.
The moment is followed by the Pledge of Allegiance.
Sánchez told the Statesman on Wednesday that she was not proposing replacing the pledge, just the moment of silence.
“It’s not unusual,” Sánchez said in a phone interview. “I think other municipalities, other government organizations do it before they start their meetings. I think it’s something we could do in the city of Boise.”
The City Council had a land acknowledgment in January, when Lauren McLean was sworn in as mayor, Council President Elaine Clegg was re-sworn in, and now-Council Members Jimmy Hallyburton and Patrick Bageant were sworn in for the first time. Other than that, such acknowledgments typically aren’t observed by the council or other Boise governmental bodies.
Randy’L Teton, a spokesperson for the Shoshone-Bannock tribes that once occupied the Boise area, said the tribes “would be happy to hear of this land acknowledgment ... at the city council level.”
But not everyone likes the idea. Council Member Patrick Bageant told the Statesman on Wednesday that a land acknowledgment would “inherently rank and prioritize political issues and moral issues in a way that just gets really dicey.”
“The broadly applicable, equal, neutral moment of silence provides equal opportunity for everything,” he said. “Once you start calling out, emphasizing or raising issues to prominence during something like a moment of silence, particularly in every meeting, that’s a big deal.”
Bageant said it would be better to allow everyone to use their moment of silence to think about what they choose, be it a land acknowledgment, religious beliefs or anything else.
He added that it “would take a lot to persuade” him to support Sánchez’s proposal if it ever came formally before the council.
It’s not clear that it will. No member of the council commented Tuesday night in support or against. McLean said she felt the moment of silence was “an appropriate way to bring their own reflection to the meeting,” while Clegg and Council President Pro Tem Holli Woodings did not immediately respond to a request for comment for this story.
It wasn’t clear who between the council or the mayor has the ability to change the moment, but McLean, who sets the weekly agenda, said she would be willing to have a conversation about a potential swap if council leaders said they wanted it.
Sánchez said she hopes people will think hard about it.
“Boise is older than a lot of us think,” she said. “I would like for us to be grounded in that. This is the home of the original inhabitants of the Boise Valley. And so when we’re making our decisions, we could think a little further back into history to ground ourselves.”
This story was originally published October 14, 2020 at 2:54 PM.
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