Post Falls City Council Drops Juneteenth, Restores Columbus Day in 4-2 Vote

The Post Falls City Council voted 4-2 Tuesday night to remove Juneteenth from the city’s personnel holiday schedule and restore Columbus Day, a change that will end paid Juneteenth time off for city employees and close municipal buildings such as City Hall on Columbus Day instead. Mayor Randy Westlund put the proposal forward as a revision to personnel policy and holiday schedules.

The council roll call on both the holiday change and a separate measure to add a mayoral invocation was recorded as four yes votes and two no votes: Samantha Steigleder, Aaron Plew, Jack Mosby and Marc Lucca voted yes; Joe Malloy and Nathan Ziegler voted no. Both agenda items passed by the same 4-2 margin.

Mayor Randy Westlund defended the holiday switch at the meeting, saying, “My own view is that Juneteenth is something nobody had heard of until 5 years ago and was pushed for political purposes.” Westlund also framed Columbus Day as more fitting for the city, saying, “I believe it’s a more appropriate holiday honoring our American heritage.” Westlund presented the invocation proposal as well, telling the council, “My proposal was to add a very brief non-sectarian invocation to the beginning of the meetings to ask for the divine assistance and wisdom in the very weighty matters that we deal with. I think it’s sorely needed these days.”

Council Chairman Joe Malloy argued against removing Juneteenth and suggested alternatives during debate. Malloy said, “Juneteenth celebrates the actual end of slavery in the United States, and the abolition of slavery, I believe, is one of the crowning achievements of Western civilization [and] is certainly worthy of celebration.” He also urged compromise, saying, “On the flip side, North America as we know it and the United States entirely would not exist if we're not for the expeditions of Christopher Columbus and other European explorers, which are also worth celebrating. So I don't know if you consider doing it every other year type of thing, but I think both are very relevant to our history and worth celebrating.” CdA Press noted a lighter moment in the chamber as Malloy “dons a tinfoil hat to laughs” during the invocation discussion.

The vote drew immediate criticism from civil-rights leadership. James McDay, president of the Kootenai County NAACP chapter, said, “This was a very subtle but overt display of the racial bias in leadership in our community. It is just going to make it hard for the playing field to be leveled for people to come into the community with ethnic diversity.”

Legally and administratively, Juneteenth is a federal holiday that became official in 2021 and is recognized as a public holiday in Idaho; the council’s action affects only city operations and does not regulate how residents may observe either holiday. Columbus Day, noted during debate, has become controversial nationwide and many cities have substituted Indigenous Peoples’ Day.

The decision generated intense local response online. A snapshot of the Post Falls story on KREM’s Facebook page showed 2.4K reactions, 943 comments and 107 shares. Sample public comments included Jarrod Lowe, whose post that drew 281 reactions read: “Columbus Day = Celebrates the day an Italian explorer arrived in the Bahamas. The discovery began the European colonization of the Americas, starting with the creation of a bunch of Spanish (and later British) colonies. Juneteenth = Commemorates the day the US finished freeing all the slaves in confederate states. Further paved the way for the 13th Amendment which says, Constitutionally, no one in the U.S. can be made a slave. Hm... which one really honors "American heritage" the most?” Other commenters ranged from “Juneteenth IS American heritage” to “They can remove it if they want. It's still a federal holiday so it's not going to change anything.”

The meeting drew broader public attention beyond local outlets; a video of the council action on YouTube registered 1.6 million views on the posting captured in coverage. The council did not announce an effective date for the personnel-policy change in the meeting record provided in media accounts; city meeting minutes or an updated personnel policy should clarify when the holiday schedule change will take effect.