Talbot Council Discusses Work Session with NAACP, Community on Confederate Statue

In an unusual move, an organization’s request to have a work session with the Talbot County Council was read into the record at Tuesday night’s meeting, drawing questions from two council members.

In an Oct. 7 email to Council President Corey Pack copied to the other four council members, Richard Potter, president of the Talbot County Branch of the NAACP, asked the council for a work session on the Confederate monument on the courthouse lawn.

Potter wrote:

“I along with other community leaders of Talbot County are requesting a meeting with you to discuss next steps as well as how to appropriately move forward that embraces the spirit of inclusion and equity as it relates to the matter of the Confederate Monument known as The Talbot Boys that sits on the Circuit Courthouse Lawn.”

He concluded:

“It is my desire along with other community leaders that we take a proactive approach to this issue and matter, therefore we are requesting a meeting with the full council on October 20, 2020 to have authentic, transparent dialogue on how we can work together as one community to move forward in an effort in achieving a more inclusive, equitable and welcoming county that we all desire to see.”

The full text of the email may be viewed below:

Councilmembers Frank Divilio and Laura Price questioned the procedure, with Price saying a work session request had never been handled in this manner in her 10 years on the council.

Divilio asked if the other community leaders mentioned in the letter had been identified.

“What are we doing here?” Divilio asked.

“If we’re going to do it, we’re going to do it right,” he said. “If we’re going to schedule a work session, then we schedule a work session. But let’s have some council input on how we’re going to do that.”

This video is about seven minutes long.