The mayor of Marionville, Mo. is facing possible impeachment over his relationship with Frazier Glenn Miller, the white supremacist who allegedly shot three people to death at two Jewish facilities in Kansas last weekend.
Marionville resident Debbie Sallee told television station KOLR that she and others intend to go before the city council or board of alderman and ask for the resignation of Dan Clevenger, who was elected as mayor just last week.
If he doesn’t resign, Sallee said they’ll call for impeachment.
Voters were questioning the mayor’s worldview even before the April 8 election. A month ago, a resident drew attention to a letter to the editor Clevenger sent to a local newspaper nearly a decade ago.
In the letter, Clevenger described himself as “a friend of Frazier Miller helping to spread his warnings.” He also decried the “Jew-run medical industry” and the “Jew-run government backed banking industry.”
Clevenger tried to defend himself in a letter sent to the Aurora (Mo.) Advertiser days before Marionville’s election.
He denied that he was racist, writing that he “only pointed out the corporations responsible for destroying the United States are run by Jews.”
“The only group I dislike are liars and thieves,” he wrote in the letter, as quoted by KOLR. “Last time I checked, liars and thieves are not a race, but, every race has a large share of liars and thieves.”
The controversy didn’t derail his mayoral ambitions. Clevenger defeated the incumbent by 30 votes and claimed 55 percent of the vote, according to KOLR.
In the days following the deadly rampage in Overland Park, Kan., Clevenger has at times spoken fondly of Miller.
Clevenger denounced the violence and said he no longer considers Miller a friend. But Clevenger also said he “[k]ind of agreed” with Miller “on some things.”
TPM reached Clevenger by phone on Wednesday while he was working at the repair shop he owns in Marionville, but the newly elected mayor was in no mood to talk.
“No, I’m all done doing interviews,” he said. “You’ll have to find somebody else.”
Clevenger was willing to talk to KOLR on Wednesday after a group of Marionville residents picketed outside city hall.
He said he has “no doubt” he could fairly represent a Jewish resident and insisted that he’s no white supremacist.
Clevenger took his oath of office last week to become mayor of the Marionville, an Ozarks community with 2,220 people and a white squirrel population (“which is one of a handful of such populations in the United States,” the town’s website boasts.).
The tiny town has been thrust into the national spotlight following the shooting in Kansas. Miller lived near Marionville and was known throughout the community for his white supremacist views.
The Aurora Advertiser reported Wednesday on the furor that’s surrounded Clevenger this week.
“Utilizing his First Amendment rights, Clevenger has made what some term as anti-Semitic and racist comments,” the newspaper reported.
The paper noted that the group picketing outside city hall on Wednesday afternoon had caused an unusual amount of commotion for Marionville.
“For the small town, traffic by city hall seemed to be heavier than normally experienced at city hall,” the Advertiser reported.
(Photo via KOLR)
