Las Vegas Councilwoman Michele Fiore listens to Roxann McCoy, president of NAACP Las Vegas, during a city council meeting Wednesday, June 17, 2020.
Friday, June 19, 2020 | 2 a.m.
The effort to recall Las Vegas City Councilwoman Michele Fiore is gaining steam, this week picking up support from Black Lives Matter activists and the local branch of the NAACP.
The last straw for organizers of Expel Michele, a group seeking to recall Fiore from her Ward 6 post, came two weeks ago, when the Clark County Republican Party accused her of making racially charged comments, which reportedly included “white lives matter,” at its convention.
The party did not detail her remarks but issued a statement labeling them as “clearly inappropriate” and “counter to the thoughtful remarks of every other speaker and counter to the beliefs of the Clark County Republican Party.”
Fiore, when discussing Black Lives Matter demonstrations at a council meeting June 3, said “protesting does not give you the right of beating up white people,” Councilman Cedric Crear wrote last week in a letter to Mayor Carolyn Goodman. Crear also wrote that during the Republican event Fiore said that “I am a white woman and I should not lose my job because of their black asses.”
In response, Fiore apologized if she offended anybody but said she can “get a little Brooklyn when unscripted.” Fiore, who said she stood by her comments, later stepped down as mayor pro tem.
“You have advocated for citizens to point guns at police. You spoke out against affirmative action. You lied to the citizens of Clark County and Las Vegas. You have failed to protect minority constituents in your district when our black and brown children were under attack in their school system with racial epithets and intimidation,” NAACP President Roxanne McCoy said of Fiore.
Fiore has faced criticism for her words and actions over the years, including supporting Nevada rancher Ammon Bundy and other armed protesters occupying a federal wildlife refuge in Oregon in a standoff over federal land rights.
In 2015, when she was part of the Nevada Assembly, she opposed the resettlement of Syrian refugees in Nevada, saying: “What, are you kidding me? I’m about to fly to Paris and shoot ‘em in the head myself.”
McCoy said, “It’s not just one thing. It is a repeated thing.”
Expel Michele has 90 days from when it filed the petition June 11 to collect 1,911 signatures in support of recalling Fiore. Signatures must come from the 7,605 people in Ward 6 who voted in the 2017 municipal election in which Fiore was elected — a steep challenge considering they’ll have to identify residents who voted.
All signatures must be verified with the county clerk and forwarded to the secretary of state for approval, per state recall guidelines. A recall election would be scheduled for only Ward 6. The estimated cost of verification is $5 per signature, totaling $10,000.
“We’ve had a lot of people say, ‘Where can I send money?’” said Molly Taylor, the Expel Michele organizer.
Fiore said she stepped down as mayor pro tem this week in part to devote more time to healing the racial divide in communities.
But she also was reelected as Republican national committeewoman for the next four years and needs to devote more time to that role because, Fiore said, “I’ve got five more months to make sure we get four more years of Donald J. Trump.”
Those leading the recall effort were also critical of Fiore’s support of a pro-police Blue Lives Matter rally planned for earlier this month on the Las Vegas Strip. Fiore and council members Stavros Anthony and Victoria Seaman were listed as co-sponsors of the event, which was postponed over what conservative talk show host and organizer Wayne Allyn Root said were safety concerns.
“When the ex-mayor pro tem said she wanted to have a rally uplifting Blue Lives Matter, All Lives Matter, it was really dismissive,” Black Lives Matter activist Jameelah Lewis said during Wednesday’s City Council meeting.
Rallies have taken place nationally since George Floyd died last month when a police officer in Minnesota pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck during an arrest. Demonstrators are calling for police reform and racial justice.
“Nobody is saying blue lives don’t matter, so let’s not muddy the water. For (Fiore) to help plan a protest in the middle of what we have going on, that’s wrong,” McCoy said.
The event, a counterprotest to the nearly daily Black Lives Matters demonstrations, was canceled because “if there were a chance somebody was going to get hurt, there was no reason to put it on,” Anthony said. Anthony has been part of the council since 2009 and took Fiore’s spot as mayor pro tem.
When asked if firearms would have been allowed at the Blue Lives Matter rally, Anthony said, “We weren’t advertising, ‘Bring your firearms,’ but obviously if somebody has a CCW permit, where they have a right to carry a gun, they could bring it.”
There are significant concerns about armed counterprotesters crashing peaceful protests, as they’ve shown up at Black Lives Matters events across the nation to intimidate nonviolent demonstrators, including shooting one in Albuquerque, N.M. In Las Vegas, three self-proclaimed “boogaloo” members are accused of plotting to terrorize a protest last late month.
Anthony stressed, “We’ve done hundreds of these and never had a problem. I don’t know how it could be offensive to some people.”
Seaman said supporting the police doesn’t mean she doesn’t support Black Lives Matter.
“I will not accept that in the issues facing law enforcement and the black community I have to choose a side,” she said. “I wholeheartedly believe that every life matters.”
Fiore didn’t comment directly on the recall attempt and left the City Council meeting during public comment as an activist was berating her in a long rant.
