The City of Howell, Michigan, has hired a public relations firm to overhaul its image following a series of high-profile racist incidents, including one that occurred during the search for a firm to lead the image revamp.
According to CBS News, the city indicated in December 2024 that it would be conducting a search for a public relations firm to help rehabilitate its image due to racist and antisemitic incidents in the city, including a Nazi demonstration outside a performance of the play “The Diary of Anne Frank.”
Howell City Manager Erv Suida told the outlet that the city’s plans are intended to both counter the racist incidents and emphasize the story that the city wants to tell about itself.
“I hope that they give us some meaningful communication plans to help us tell our story. One of the things we all have to realize is that there seems to be a rise in racism and antisemitic rallies,” Suida told CBS News. “We don’t want to focus around those groups. We’ve had the White Lives Matter group that has been here and around other communities in Michigan. We want to make sure that we’re responding appropriately, but we don’t really want to give them that much attention.”
The city eventually hired a firm out of Holland, Michigan; Burch Partners to undertake the project, and paid them approximately $20,000 for three months of work, and agreed to be billed hourly for additional services, such as crisis communications.
However, in November 2024, Julie Ohashi, the co-founder of Stand Against Extremism LivCo, (SAGE) told The Livingston Daily that residents did not want an expensive bandage after the group organized a counter-protest of demonstrations by white supremacists in the city.
“We don’t want an expensive bandage; we want treatment of the actual infection,” Ohashi said, indicating that if local officials wanted to fix the problem of the town’s perception, they have to work at it themselves and that the community wanted help from them on that front.
“We’re trying our best to shine light on that and we’re begging — we need more help here. This is not a one-and-done deal, we have to keep working actively to fix this.”
Ohashi also told WKAR in December 2024 that in her view, the city leaders’ refusal to address white supremacist groups made it seem like the city accepted their actions as normal.
“Our assumption that the inaction and the silence are giving these white supremacist tactic acceptance to continue harassing our community members, making our marginalized neighbors feel unsafe and keeping folks away who would normally, you know, shop and eat here,” she told the outlet.
Ohashi continued, “That’s why we’re taking action, because if we don’t, we know the hate will continue to escalate. We have to find the source and get rid of it, and people don’t come where they’re not wanted. So, Livingston County needs to figure out why these groups think they’re welcomed here, and then solve that problem.”
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