PENDLETON — The Pendleton City Council was already in the process of reversing the city’s decision to preserve Confederate names along Southeast Byers Avenue, but local activists were not going to let the council off the hook.

A small group of people gathered in council chambers and the meeting’s video chat feed on Tuesday, Dec. 1, to protest Confederate sidewalk stamps, which were set to be preserved before the city reversed course and announced that not only was it going to halt the process of preserving the Confederate stamps, it was going also going to draft a new policy to prevent future sidewalk stamp preservation.

Among the speakers was Briana Spencer, an activist who had organized previous Black Lives Matter protests.

Mayor John Turner assured Spencer that the city would not reinstall or restamp the sidewalk etchings before it considered its new preservation policy. He reiterated that one of the driving factors behind the decision was the realization that most of the historic sidewalks stamps across town hadn’t been preserved when their sidewalks were repaired or replaced, despite city laws directing staff to do so.

But Turner’s comments didn’t prevent Spencer from pressing further. She inquired whether anyone from the city consulted with people of color or the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation before moving forward with the project. She asked what the council would do to avoid these kinds of situations in the future.

“If you want to preserve history, this land belongs to my tribe,” said Spencer, an enrolled member of the CTUIR.

Spencer’s questions were met with an extended period of silence from the council before Turner said the upcoming amendment ordinance was meant to correct the process.

Sidewalk stamps bearing the pre-World War II name of the street it’s on can be found all over the city’s older residential areas, but only several cross streets on Byers bore the names of Confederate figures like Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson.

The issue didn’t come to a head until the city decided to reconstruct Southeast Byers, which included replacing some of the sidewalks. The Pendleton Historic Preservation Commission approved preservation of the stamps, either by cutting out the original stamp and reinstalling it or reprinting it with a replica stamp.

That drew the attention of resident Joshua Walker, who smashed the Jefferson Davis stamp, and then nailed in a pro-Black Lives Matter sign onto it as an act of protest on Nov. 16. Walker was eventually cited by Pendleton police for misdemeanor criminal mischief.

The Dec. 1 meeting was the first time activists used a council meeting to air concerns, with Spencer joined by three other speakers.

Nastasha Stiles read from a prepared statement signed by several progressive organizations in the region and a few individuals, including two Eastern Oregon University history professors and Jamie McLeod-Skinner, a Terrebonne resident who unsuccessfully ran for the 2nd Congressional District in 2018 and Secretary of State in 2020.

“The consensus among our collaboration of coalition voices is that Pendleton being infiltrated with disgraced Confederate soldiers is shameful, not something we want to be re-captured in our streets forever,” the letter states. “Oregon was not part of the Confederacy and is no longer a sundown state. We feel that since the engraved stones are already removed, it would be less contentious to find a more appropriate new home for them. Relocate them to storage, state archives or a museum.”

When the city announced it was reversing its stance on the stamps, a press release stated the city intended to donate the remaining stamps to the Umatilla County Historical Society.

The public will get at least one more chance to comment on the issue. If the council holds a first reading of the amended ordinance on Dec. 15, then it will hold a mandatory public hearing on Jan. 5.

With no scheduled action items on the Dec. 1 agenda, one of the only other activities on the schedule was the swearing in of new Pendleton Police Chief Chuck Byram.

A former lieutenant with the Pendleton Police Department, Byram replaces outgoing Chief Stuart Roberts, who led the department for 18 years and is now retiring.