Previous post on this. Shame that City of Glen Rose *Christmas Town* is only for Christians. Glen Rose (Texas) not tolerant or welcoming of those who celebrate Christmas for other reasons
Let me say at the outset that both Somervell County and the City of Glen Rose have acted badly and shown themselves a place that excludes others and embraces non-American values.
The Mayor of Glen Rose, Joe Boles, told me in my questions about why there is a nativity on the Somervell County courthouse lawn that it was not his responsibility, it was the the responsibility of the County. This despite that fact that Boles asked for permission to put the nativity on the lawn, which is, of course, a taxpayer funded public area. You can read below; my take is that although Chambers is the one who decided to arbitrarily okay Boles list, Boles showed initial contempt for non-christians in his list of what he would put on the courthouse lawn if accepted.
I had gone down to the Somervell County annex, in person, to speak to Somervell County Judge Danny Chambers, about my ability to put up a sign on the courthouse lawn and participate in the event. This was after he had been included in some emails back and forth that had Joe Boles and also all the City of Glen Rose Town Council members in it (Boles had added these, not me) Chambers told me in person to send him an email showing what I purported to put on the lawn. That told me that Chambers believes himself to be the person in charge of approving or censoring items in a public area.
This is the email I sent back to him on November 19 (note that is about 3 weeks ago.)
On the 21st I also did a public information request for the following AND sent an email to Chambers asking him to reply that he got the email I had sent on the 19th.
I did an open records request to the City of Glen Rose regarding Christmas Town and got back this email between Boles and Danny Chambers, which included a list of exhibits for Christmas Town.
I wanted to thank you for allowing the city to place Christmas decorations on the County courthouse grounds
Although, as you see below, Chambers did not keep a copy of this email available from the County, Boles did, and clearly Chambers okayed the list of decorations Boles submitted, which included a nativity scene.
On Friday Dec 6 2024 sent a 3rd email to Chambers. Now, let me say that there is no obligation, other than professionalism, for the judge to send me back a reply. However, he is the one that told me to email him, only to ignore responding to what I assumed was a request made in good faith.
On 12/9/2024 I got a reply regarding public information request from Chambers. Note that his answer did not include the email he got from Joe Boles. At best, this is sloppy and doesn’t show a commitment to preserve records for the benefit of taxpaying citizens.
P.s. As a side note on how grossly divisive the City’s Christmas Town is, look at this letter Joe Boles had sent to Christian churches to participate in Christmas Town, without any apparent recognition that Christmas, as a secular holiday, is also celebrated by other than christians. People WERE invited to participate, as long as they fell into the ideal viewpoint of christianity. Bigotry at a political level
