Enid commissioner addresses concerns ahead of recall election
ENID, Okla. (KFOR) — A City of Enid Commissioner pled his case to Garfield County voters Tuesday regarding why he shouldn’t be voted out of his office.
News 4 has been following a grassroots movement to oust Ward 1 City Commissioner Judd Blevins. The recall effort is tied to claims that he has ties to a white supremacy group.
Enid Social Justice Committee has been leading the movement in Garfield County, first raising enough signatures through a recall petition, and now going door-to-door to advocate against Blevins ahead of the April 2 recall vote.
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“This is an issue that is spread across the country,” said Father James Neal, who serves as vice-chair for the committee.
He said Blevins has had years to atone for the accusations being made against him, but all he’s seen is doubling down.
Pictures of the commissioner involved in white supremacy groups surfaced in 2019, before Blevins was elected, in an article by Right Wing Watch. The article also detailed online chat conversations and events Blevins attended. He also allegedly recruited Oklahomans for the neo-Nazi group called Identity Evropa.
The report resurfaced a few weeks before Blevins was elected to office.
Blevins had the opportunity Tuesday to refute those claims, during a public forum at the Stride Bank Center, after being asked directly if he had any ties to supremacy groups.
“I’ve never identified as a white nationalist or white supremacist,” said Blevins, who also noted that participation in any groups in the past wasn’t important for the city of Enid’s future.
He also said that the groups he had been accused of having ties to had been disbanded.
He said he accepted the recall election, and attended Tuesday’s public forum to prove to voters that he believed they did have a say in who they elected; but noted he felt singled out for other reasons.
“Pushing back on this anti-white hatred that is so common in media and entertainment,” said Blevins.
Neal said he disagreed with that comment he was at the forum to hear himself.
“This is their dodge,” said Neal. “This is how they try to explain away their hatred, their fear, their ignorance, is to claim that there is some grand conspiracy against white people.”
Blevins was also asked and addressed concerns that he had attended a “Unite The Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia back in 2018.
“I fet it was important to protest the removal of statues of American soldiers, of American figures,” said Blevins. “If speaking out against what was being done to this country, what is continuing to be done to this country, is a crime then I would gladly plead guilty to that.”
Blevins said he didn’t look back on that day with any kind of “nostalgia,” and that he didn’t believe it was relevant to the next three years in Enid either.
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However, Blevins expressed the reasoning for any of his prior activism to issues he believes got Donald Trump elected: “securing America’s borders, reforming our legal immigration.”
Neal said he doesn’t believe Blevins explanation was good enough.
“What he failed to do was accept any responsibility for the loss of life there, the violence there, the hatred and the vitriol against Jews and people of color that was spewing there,” said Neal. “He didn’t have the courage to own his own ideology and never has.”
Polls in Garfield County open from 7 AM-7 PM Tuesday. The Garfield County Election board told News 4 it has seen an increase in registered voters, and expects the turnout to reflect that.
Neal told News 4 he expects the turnout to be higher than the last time Blevins was elected due to the public attention.
News 4 asked Neal what message he thought it would send to the country and the world of voter turnout wasn’t as high.
“That we’re apathetic and we don’t care enough about ourselves and our community to take responsibility and to do the work,” said Neal.
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