With the passing of an English-only ordinance Monday night, Lino Lakes became the first city in Minnesota to require all government-related public meetings to be held in English.
Also in accordance with the ordinance, the city will only produce city documents in English — which is what the city has been doing all along.
The ordinance was passed by a 4-to-1 margin because council members are concerned about possible financial ramifications of producing government documents in multiple languages, according to Lino Lakes Mayor Jeff Reinert.
Many local cities, such as Minneapolis, for example, translate information regarding many of the city ordinances into other languages — iincluding Hmong, Orono, Laotion, Russian, Spanish, Somali and Vietnamese — for those who do not yet speak English.
According to Reinert, the city currently does not spend any money translating or producing foreign-language documents. But that doesn’t mean the city never would, in absence of this ordinance, he said, comparing the situation to the emerald ash borer problem plaguing parts of Minnesota.
"Right now we have zero expense in the city for emerald ash borer," Mayor Reinert told the crowd that filled the council chambers, "And yet we're spending all kinds of time, staff time, no doubt eventually money, for a problem that doesn't exist. But it's something in the future you can see."
While Reinert and the council largely supported the idea, many in the audience disagreed with the council’s action. Dora Garza Salazar-Rolfzen was one of those in opposition.
"I did some quilting in Saint Bonifacious with the ladies out there at the church for two years and I sat there and listened to them speak German back and forth," she said, "I never once said, 'Hey, you're in America, don't talk German'!"
Eventually, Salazar-Rolfzen had to be escorted from the room, as she continued to voice her opinion after her time at the microphone expired.
Of the council members, Kathi Gallup was the only one to vote against the ordinance. Reinert, Jeff O’Donnell, Dave Roeser and Rob Rafferty all voted in favor. According to the council, essential documents such as education, health and public safety documents will be translated to other languages when necessary.
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Comments
If "essential documents such as education, health and public safety documents will be translated to other languages when necessary," then why the need for this ordinance? What circumstances will dictate "when necessary"?
Hate and ignorance seem to be sweeping the country -- how very sad indeed.
This has nothing to do with hate and ignorance. This is the United States of America. Official business is done in the English language. If you can't speak or understand English, you had better learn it!
I think this ordinance is just common sence. We have made no considerations for the millions of other cultures. Such as and not limited to German, Italian, French, so why Spanish?
Oh the irony. Manny can not spell or seem to write English effectively but advocates for English Only. LOL
White Bread Religious Conservative Irony:
They want less government except when it comes to women's bodies, sexual orientation and Language.
Not only that, if I lived there I would complain about the concil wasting their time and money. The money it cost to pass this resolution far outweighed its benefits.
The salaries of the concil members, the lights and whatever money it costs to have this meeting to pass this ridiculous resolution that has yet to even need translations of this kind. A 97% plus white community that has never even had the need to have a document translated to date claims to do so on the basis for economic hard time.
So what is the real motivation: xenophobia!
Now the citizens feel emboldened to dicriminate against those whose first language is not English.
council not concil typo.
Governments do not need to pass laws to regulate language. People come here and want to make a success and therefore people come here and learn to communicate in the language that will allow them the opportunity to succeed. That is learn English.
This stuff takes care of itself, we do not need an ordinance to mandate it.
The language we speak is not determined by the government it is determined by the culture. Hell, that is why this white bread community has never had to translate a document. Duh?
The fear is that this country is going to end up brown and speaking spanish. The passing of this ordinance will not change the diversification of this country.
The only way the government can mandate the language is at the end of a gun.
Funny how the people that seem to support the English only ordinance have such great mastery of the language At least use a spell check you dim wits!
Manny> It's sense. Not Sence.
What do you care if something is in English or not? You disrespect the very language you are attempting to defend. Keep your ignorance to yourself! Please. Why are all haters so damn illiterate?
I'm starting a new petition for an ordinance that requires a grammar test before people can post their 2 cents on the WWW!!
:)
Give me a BREAK! Let's go back to the 1920's in the country. You have tons of immigrants from numerous countries that speak several different languages. Common sense does not tell you to have things in 20 different languages to serve 20 different native tongues. Get a clue, we need to have ONE language for simplicity sake. It's not racist. Our grandparents were thrilled to be here and didn't expect everyone to cater to them.
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