California city council votes to remove noose from its logo

The city council of Placerville, Calif., voted unanimously on Tuesday night to remove a noose that was a part of their city logo, according to local media reports.

“This meeting has been a long time coming,” said Mayor Dennis Thomas during a livestreamed Zoom meeting. “It’s my desire and our council’s desire that everybody has a chance to get heard.”

It’s unknown exactly when the logo was created, but the city’s manager said they have done research suggesting it dates back to the mid to late 1970s, local NBC affiliate KCRA reported.

“I am horrified and deeply hurt that we have a symbol of a noose in our logo,” said one of the 173 commenters on Agenda Item 12.1 in the meeting.  “A noose is a symbol of death. A noose is a symbol of lynching. A noose is a symbol of racism … I think we’re better than that.”

“I would like us to keep our noose,” countered another. “It’s taking away from our history. We need to keep our history. This world right now is taking inch by inch little pieces of our history and throwing it away. If you guys are gonna change anything it needs to come out to the people and the people should be able to vote on it.”

The city manager said the cost to change the logo will be around $5,300, which will be come out of the current year’s budget.