All but one member of the Ypsilanti City Council thought it was a good idea on Tuesday to remove the Pledge of Allegiance from meetings.

“Really, our role is to our residents here in the community, here in the city of Ypsilanti,” said council member Desirae Simmons, who brought the resolution to do away with the pledge she said is redundant. “And so I guess that’s what I took my oath of office to, and I think that that’s sufficient.”

🇺🇸 Ypsilanti, Michigan City Council votes to remove Pledge of Allegience from their council agenda. One council member spoke out saying no. pic.twitter.com/QSaqYyfLpR

— Dave Bondy (@DaveBondyTV) December 4, 2024

Go Ad-Free, Get Content, Go Premium Today - $1 Trial

The proposal to remove the pledge first surfaced at the board’s organizational meeting last week, but members delayed a decision until Tuesday, WEMU reports.

Simmons told council members she believed the pledge was a waste of time.

“I know I don’t feel comfortable pledging allegiance to a flag,” she said. “And so, I don’t participate in that, so I wanted to bring it up as a formal change to our agenda.”

Go Ad-Free, Get Content, Go Premium Today - $1 Trial

Council member Roland Tooson was the only member on the six-member board to oppose the proposal at the Dec. 3 meeting, according to MLive.

“If anybody doesn’t want to say it, I feel like we just individually take the stance and not say it,” he said. “I don’t think we should take it off the agenda completely.”

The Ypsilanti City Council meetings previously started with a moment of silence and the pledge, and Mayor Nicole Brown told the board she’d prefer to keep the moment of silence to “maintain the few moments that we have for us to center ourselves.”

“I do enjoy the quit for a second,” she said. “For me, I feel like I need that.”

“It’s possible that the moment of silence at one point was prayer,” Clerk Tracey Boudreau said, suggesting an “invocation” to start the meeting. The council also considered “grounding” practices and breathing exercises to replace the pledge, MLive reports.

“Often councils will do an invocation where it could be interpreted as religious, but they would invite a member of a different religious organization to every meeting,” she said.

Council member Me’Chelle King supported the prayer, but the idea met resistance from Brown.

“I like it just because again, we would be bringing community from different spaces – Not just Baptist, not just non-denomination,” King said. “I like that we would be including the greater community as a part of our meeting.”

The council ultimately voted 5-1 to remove the pledge, with Brown, Simmons, King, Steve Wilcoxen, and Patrick McLean in favor, and Tooson opposed. Council member Amber Fellows was absent. The council did not vote to replace the pledge with something else.

City Manager Andrew Hellenga told MLive the vote was necessary to remove the pledge because it’s tradition, but Brown sets the agenda and can replace it with something else, if she desires.

Folks online were not impressed by the decision to ditch the Pledge of Allegiance, with dozens sounding off on X.

“It makes sense,” one user posted. “They don’t like the constitution, this country, or the flag. So every meeting they are forced to lie by making the pledge.”

“They hate America and American values,” wrote another. “They are eliminating one by one.”

“Seriously? Who the hell do they think they work for?” yet another post read. “They should all be fired.”

Other reactions:

“They don’t want to be part of America, then they don’t need federal tax (dollars).”

“OMG Michigan is getting as ridiculous as California. Ya’ll have real problems yet here you are. (Clown emojis)”

“What is wrong with people!”

“Vote the whole council out”

“Disgusting”

“This state is really taking a turn for the worse”

“This kind of stuff has got to stop!”