Bemidji Residents Address Refugee Resettlement To City Council

The Bemidji City Council chambers at City Hall were packed with concerned residents during today’s City Council meeting to discuss a topic that wasn’t even on the agenda.

People took to the podium to tell council members to take a stance on the executive order of local involvement in refugee resettlement, an item that is on the Beltrami County Board agenda for tomorrow. There were people both for and against the agenda item. Bemidji Mayor Rita Albrecht says the council has never discussed the idea of refugee settlement.

“We would be entertaining any idea of moving any refugees here, opening any refugee settlement, providing housing for 1,000, 2,000, 100, 200 Somalis or  Syrians or any other kind of immigrant. There is no thought to that. No one has talked about it, nobody has suggested it. I have never suggested it, no council member has never suggested it to me,” Albrecht said.

Beltrami County Commissioners will vote on this topic tomorrow in the County Board room at the County Administration Building at 5 p.m.