City swiftly disavows race-baiting propaganda

SANDPOINT — The city was quick Friday to disavow a flier sowing anti-immigration sentiments that is attributed to Mayor Shelby Rognstad.

The one-page flier turned up in city mailboxes this week. It features a mug shot of Rognstad with a purported quote from him which espouses the cause of multiculturalism and his role in bringing it to Sandpoint.

“Sandpoint is not going to be the homogenous society that it once was in the last century. I’m going to be at the center of that. It’s a huge transformation for Sandpoint to make,” Rognstad is quoted as saying.

What follows is a block of text that it ostensibly attributed to Rognstad which holds that Syrian immigration is cover for immigration from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and “black Africans” and portrays the rape of women and young boys as a fact of life which must be accepted.

“This is simply part of becoming multi-cultural, since other ethnicities have different values and behaviors. We must tolerate the differences. There is no other choice,” the text reads.

“Sandoint. Must. Change!” the filer reads.

The quote was never made by Rognstad and the views expressed in the paragraph that followed it are also not Rognstad’s, according to city Administrator Jennifer Stapleton.

“It was not something he had said,” Stapleton said on Friday.

It’s unclear how widely distributed the fliers are and there appears to be slightly different iterations of the document. They began turning up as postmarked parcels in people’s mailboxes in Sandpoint.

The return address is 207 North First Ave., which is the address of The Hive, a live music venue which Rognstad was once affiliated with.

Those who receive flier falsely representing Rognstad’s views or have information about the bogus mailings are urged to call the police department at 263-1482.

“They’re opening an investigation into it,” Stapleton said.

At the bottom of the flier is an Internet web address directing people to a You Tube video posted by a white supremacist group that has hitched its star to the coattails of President Donald Trump.

The same group is suspected of distributing racist fliers in Sandpoint last month.