A Phillips community activist played ‘Karen’ earlier this month and hectored Franklin County State Representative Michael Soboleski (R-Phillips) out of a local chamber of commerce meeting, going so far as to accuse the elected official of ‘trespassing’ for attending a meeting of the town’s business boosting group.
Susy Sanders of the Phillips Children’s Foundation demanded on July 6 that Rep. Soboleski leave a Phillips chamber of commerce meeting that was being held in a building she owned.
“You threw this town under the bus,” she reportedly told him, referring to an effort the lawmaker had made some years back to help address storm damage. It seems clear from multiple reports that Sanders and some of her allies bore animus towards Soboleski.
Soboleski had showed up at the meeting in his hometown after hearing the organization was considering not allowing elected officials to participate in the annual Phillips Old Home Days parade. There he questioned why organizers were planning to ban elected officials from participating in an upcoming parade as they’d done since time immemorial.
Chamber officials backed off their plan to bar politicians from the Aug. 15 parade after Soboleski challenged its logic and constitutionality.
But Sanders ordered Soboleski out of the building as he was speaking, he explained to the George Hale and Ric Tyler show on WVOM Monday. The fact that he stayed just long enough to finish his sentence seemed to “trigger” Sanders, who called the Franklin County sheriff’s office.
The state legislator said he was shocked when a deputy sheriff knocked on his door and served him with the trespassing notice.
“I was stunned,” he said.
Sanders maintained that chamber meetings are closed events and require permission to attend, which seems somehow incongruous to the whole purpose of a chamber of commerce.
The First Amendment of the Bill of Rights appended to the U.S. Constitution bears not only on the freedom of speech, but also the freedom of association. Technically, the chamber meeting was held in a private venue, but its activities and the parade it sponsors are very much public-facing enterprises.
As it turned out, the proposal to bar politicians from the parade stemmed from an incident before last year’s event, when Democrat U.S. Rep. Jared Golden saw a threatening online message against his planned appearance.
Golden apparently defused the threat not only by defiantly showing up at the parade but then handing out cold beers along the route.
After the parade Golden posted pictures on his X account showing him handing out Bud Lights. Sounds like Sanders could have used one of those beers at the Jun 6 meeting.
