Several members of the local community shared their thoughts with the Lewiston City Council on Monday about Saturday’s Black Lives Matter and Liberate Idaho protests, with most saying the latter group’s heavily armed presence downtown was disturbing and kept customers from patronizing many businesses.

Lewiston Mayor Mike Collins said that because the city received more than 50 emails regarding the protests, only those that specifically asked to be included during the virtual meeting’s public comment period were read. And City Manager Alan Nygaard assured the council and viewers of an earlier work session Monday that the selected messages were representative of those that weren’t read.

Ed King, who owns a Main Street secondhand and antique furniture store, said he was unnerved to see people from the heavily armed Defend Lewiston gathering, an event organized by the group Liberate Idaho, walking around downtown and that he didn’t need anyone’s help to protect his business.

“If the well-intended people were downtown standing in front of businesses without brandishing their weapons, it would have had the same impact,” King said of the group’s stated goal of protecting downtown from the violence seen in some American cities over the past two weeks. “Saturday is usually my best day for business, but not this last Saturday. Basically, this event ran off any customers I might have had. If these well-intended do-gooders really wanted to help, they would have come in and bought something.”

Kason Seward, of Lewiston, wrote that he saw Defend Lewiston members act with hostility to business owners and residents downtown, and heard some of them use racial slurs. He pointed out that one member asked a resident to show identification to prove that he lived downtown. Lewiston Police Chief Budd Hurd confirmed that incident, and said officers made contact with the individual to tell him he had no right to ask for such information.

Ryan Carter, of Lewiston, attended the Black Lives Matter protest at Kiwanis Park Saturday, and described it as “100 percent peaceful.” But the atmosphere changed after the protest ended and he went to Main Street.

“All sense of peace left as I left the rally and headed downtown,” Carter wrote, noting there was a distinct lack of police presence.

In response, Hurd said his force isn’t nearly large enough to cover all of the affected locations. But he said the department spent the week in advance meticulously planning for the protests with all city departments and law enforcement partners from other agencies.

Several others wrote that they witnessed unsafe handling of firearms by some members of the Liberate Idaho group, and Hurd said having that many guns downtown made him uncomfortable. He added there was a police presence downtown, but there was nothing the police could do to keep the Liberate Idaho group out.

“I had no choice but to allow these people to occupy downtown,” Hurd said. “I had no reason not to.”

Two Liberate Idaho supporters from Lewiston, Brad Manau and Susan Irby Perez, agreed the city has no ability to ban legally owned and carried firearms from its downtown. Irby Perez said she was downtown with her son for an hour Saturday and saw nothing that scared her.

“Everybody was very respectful,” she said in a voicemail left on the council’s comment line. “Everyone had their firearms in holsters or down at their side, and mostly everyone that I know of is well-trained because they had been in the military. These people were down there protecting our businesses from rioting and burning down buildings.”

Councilor Bob Blakey — noting that he owns the same type of AR-style weapon most of the Liberate Idaho members carried and has “put a lot of lead downrange” — said the council should consider a resolution asking the Legislature to give cities more authority to regulate firearms at protests.

City Councilor John Bradbury and several councilors commended Hurd and other city officials and employees for their handling of a “dicey” situation. And Bradbury asked that all the emails and other messages from the public be posted on the city website at cityoflewiston.org so the protestors could see how they were perceived by the town.

“I think the genius of the constitutional right to assemble is that not only are we exercising our right, but we expose ourselves — whether good or bad — for what we are,” Bradbury said. “And I think it’s really important that the demonstrators were viewed by the citizens that they were here trying to influence. I think Black Lives Matter will look very good. I think Liberate Idaho should be ashamed of what it did.”

In other business:

Councilors got the latest information earlier on Monday on how the COVID-19 pandemic will affect the city budget. City Administrative Services Director Dan Marsh said much of the impact will be with revenues collected and shared with cities by the state of Idaho, such as sales, gas and liquor taxes.

Marsh said that with slower retail sales, an expected 8 percent increase in sales tax revenue pre-COVID-19 will likely be half that size. Liquor taxes apportioned to the city are forecast to drop 2.2 percent. And gas tax revenues suffered the most because of the economic shutdown forced by the pandemic, with a 4 percent drop expected this fiscal year and a 15-20 percent drop expected in the coming fiscal year.

Overall, the city could lose about $423,000 from just those revenue sources, he said.

The council also got an update on the latest effort to form a joint dispatch center with Nez Perce County and possibly other emergency response agencies. Hurd and Lewiston Fire Department Chief Travis Myklebust said the local board that governs E911 services is forming a task force to explore hiring a consultant to fully vet the issue.

City Manager Alan Nygaard said the council should prepare for the cost of that consultant to reach into the six figures. But he anticipated the cost would be shared with the county and any other agencies that may want to join the new center. The cost of the consultant will be worth it, he added, since a joint center will likely cost tens of millions of dollars.

“This is not a minor decision to make,” Nygaard said. “We don’t need to put the pedal to the metal.”

Public Works Director Chris Davies notified the council that the long-awaited project to resurface the Southway Bridge is set to begin June 22 and take approximately two months. The bridge will remain open throughout construction, with traffic shifted onto the north two lanes while work is done on the south two lanes. That arrangement will be reversed to complete the work, Davies said.

The bike and walking path on the bridge is expected to remain open during construction. The 40-year-old bridge is jointly owned by the cities of Lewiston and Clarkston and Nez Perce and Asotin counties.

Mills may be contacted at jmills@lmtribune.com or (208) 848-2266.