MOUNT VERNON — A City Council usually devoted to such matters as zoning disputes, sewer fees and fire protection found itself dealing Wednesday night with the Glenn Beck factor. About 100 people packed the meeting room to either support or object to Mayor Bud Norris’ decision to award the key to the city to the fiery Fox News commentator.

The council unanimously voted to disconnect themselves from Mayor Norris’ event with Beck, which will take place Saturday at McIntyre Hall on the Skagit Valley College campus.

Speakers at the council meeting were passionate on both sides.

Phillip Holder, of Mount Vernon, presented a petition to the city he said was signed by 16,000 people protesting Norris’ plan to honor Beck.

Among the speakers at Wednesday’s meeting was Damien Lasard, who doesn’t own a television, and didn’t know who Glenn Beck was until she learned the mayor was handing him the key to her city. The Mount Vernon businesswoman looked him up on the Internet to see what he was about, and then, she told the mayor at the evening’s meeting, she realized “he’s not a very nice person.”

“I was really disappointed that not a nice person would be given the key to the city,” Lasard said.

Her comments were tame compared to most of the area residents who spoke both for and against Beck’s appearance. Beck grew up in Mount Vernon before attending high school in Bellingham.

City Council members have pointed out that Norris acted on his own to confer honors on Beck.

Councilman Dale Ragan introduced a resolution at Wednesday’s meeting that passed unanimously.

“Mount Vernon City Council is in no way sponsoring the mayor’s event on September 26, 2009 and is not connected to the Glenn Beck event in any manner,”the resolution stated.

Norris said the resolution was redundant, since he already took full responsibility for the event and its organization during the last City Council meeting.

He also said that as many as five media representatives would be allowed to cover the event after earlier reports that only one journalist would be allowed to attend.

Meanwhile, some of Mount Vernon’s residents stand behind Norris’ commitment to honoring Beck.

Connie Munsey, of Mount Vernon, thanked the mayor for finally giving the city its 15 minutes of positive fame — rather than being in the national spotlight for puppy mills or a mass shooting like it has in the past year.

Another supporter, Jim Lyon of Big Lake, said President Barack Obama has given the keys to the White House to the “Marxists and socialists,” and Beck has exposed the alleged communists who work there and should be honored with the key to his hometown.

But most of the comments from the public came in protest to the mayor’s decision. Many of those residents wore bright orange T-shirts saying “Hate is not a Mount Vernon Value.”

Anna Oommen shouted her disgust for the mayor’s decision to hand over the key to the city, saying Norris ignored the resounding opposition to the Beck event.

“Our own mayor would rather see our city fail,” Oommen said, rather than take back his decision.

Oommen would not stop shouting when her two-minute time limit was up, leading the Mayor to order her from the room after her outburst.

“I don’t want Anna back in the room,” Norris told Ken Bergsma, the Mount Vernon police chief.

Alice Holtrop told the mayor she believes more people in Mount Vernon are in support of him and Beck, like her, than against.

“Opposite people are just a little bit more rowdy,” Holtrop said. “We tend to be a bit more quiet.”

Holtrop said during a break in the meeting her father was the man who sold Beck’s father the bakery he ran for years in downtown Mount Vernon.

“I’m proud of that fact,” she said.

Others are embarrassed about their new identity intertwined with Beck’s.

“It disgraces Mount Vernon,” said Holder, a Mount Vernon resident and member of FUSE, which collected 16,000 signatures in opposition to the event.

“You have hurt this community,” said Marc Oommen, Anna Oommen’s brother and the president of the Young Democrats of Skagit County.

Cathy Pfahl, a longtime Mount Vernon teacher, said she tries to teach her students what a politician should be in school.

“You’ve made it very hard to teach,” Pfahl said.

Pfahl said the mayor acted without taking into consideration those around him and pushed his own personal agenda.

“That’s a hard one to explain to our students,” she said.

But Norris has no regrets about his decision.

After the meeting he said the comments at the meeting were what he expected.

He said he’s looking forward to Saturday when he can hear Beck’s perspective of growing up here, and hand over the key.

Tahlia Ganser can be reached at 360-416-2148 or at .