Lewiston officials react to receiving white supremacist letters
Apr. 14—LEWISTON — Elected officials Friday denounced letters sent to them at City Hall from white nationalist organizations — copies of the same letter sent to several Democratic lawmakers in Augusta.
The one-page mailer includes mention of white supremacist conspiracy theories like the "Great Replacement," which posits that immigration and multiculturalism are displacing and "erasing" ethnic Europeans, and how to identify other "AntiWhite" policies.
It's unclear how many Lewiston elected officials received the letters. Councilor Scott Harriman said he believes the mayor and all seven councilors found them in their individual mailboxes at City Hall prior to a budget workshop Thursday, but Councilor Rick LaChapelle on Friday said he hadn't received it.
Harriman called the letter "despicable" and "cowardly" due to the lack of identification of the sender. He said he threw it "straight into the trash," and that he is "fully behind our immigrant and refugee community."
A copy of the letter provided to the Sun Journal said it was produced in collaboration with Way of the World, Anti-White Watch, Solidarity Europa and Klaus Arminius, a Twitter account that posts anti-immigrant content.
Councilor Bob McCarthy said he looked at it and "dropped it into the trash can."
"When it talked about anti-white policies, I just don't need to look at that garbage," he said.
Councilor Linda Scott said it's difficult to respond to the letter without knowing more about its origins. But, she said, she's adamantly against white nationalist groups and is "proud" of Lewiston's "extremely diverse community."
"I do not want to see any group like that come into our community," she said, referring to an incident last fall when a neo-Nazi group assembled outside City Hall. Members of the same group, Nationalist Social Club, marched in Portland on April 1, assaulting several counterprotesters in front of City Hall.
"It's quite unfortunate if we have any of these groups in our state," she said, adding that some of her closest friends are Somali.
"I received this anonymously in the mail earlier in the week," Mayor Carl Sheline said. "I reject its hateful message completely and I stand with our BIPOC (black, indigenous, and people of color) community. I'm proud that Lewiston is one of the most diverse cities in Maine and I will continue to work to make sure that our city is a welcoming place for all."
Angelynne Amores, Lewiston's director of marketing and communications, said a staff member in the city administrator's office retrieves the department's mail and places the mail in councilors' boxes, where the letters were placed Wednesday.
Scott said the letter was folded into a small envelope.
Officials in Auburn said they did not receive the letter.
Democratic leaders in the Maine House and Senate issued a statement to the Portland Press Herald early Friday after receiving the same letters.
In a joint statement, Senate President Troy Jackson, D-Allagash, and House Speaker Rachel Talbot Ross, D-Portland, said, "We cannot state this forcefully enough: We have zero tolerance for white nationalist groups' behavior or intimidation. The groups issuing these messages masquerade as seeking social justice, yet in reality distort information to create false equivalency to misdirect the public and stoke racial tensions."
