Chacon’s inner activist comes out again — leaving our community behind
A few months ago we reported how Ward III council member Renée M. Chacon disrupted Commerce City’s beloved Memorial Day parade with some of her well-known political antics on issues far removed from our community.
Chacon and her family members donned T-shirts bearing anti-Israeli slogans and then rode a city-sponsored float in the parade. Her shirt declared, “END THE OCCUPATION” while “FREE PALESTINE” was on another family member’s shirt, and another shirt essentially accused Israel of “genocide.”
Dragging such extreme views into the middle a cherished event like the Memorial Day parade — which honors fallen Americans and is supposed to unite the community — was divisive to say the least and probably offended a lot of Americans, including members of the Jewish community.
Chacon’s activism also extends to her support for an extreme environmentalist agenda, and she’s been known to make an even bigger spectacle of herself on those issues. The latest example is a recent opinion piece she and some of her fellow activists penned for the news media, tearing into one of her favorite targets, the energy industry, and demanding more restrictions on it. Among other things, she accuses the industry of “environmental racism.”
She’s entitled to her views, but it’s noteworthy how the piece trades on her status as a City Council member in the bio at the bottom of her comments — but makes no other mention of Commerce City. It kind of makes a case that her priorities are with her movement rather than her own constituents.
As part of her green agenda, she has been railing against Commerce City’s Suncor refinery — oblivious to the jobs and economic development it long has meant for the city. A six-year resident of Commerce City, she was appointed to her seat and then elected to a two-year term last fall.
She also is director and cofounder of a group called Womxn from the Mountain. It has crusaded against the refinery and describes itself on its website as, an “Inclusive group open to women of all colors and backgrounds, including those that identify as women and the feminine identity.”
It would be nice if — as an elected City Council member — she would show as much concern about our local economic climate as she does about the global climate.