SPRINGFIELD — Political rivals called for City Council candidate Christopher Pohner to drop out of the race Tuesday following revelations of racist, homophobic and transphobic posts in his social media history.
The posts — including references to Springfield as “Mudville” and former First Lady Michelle Obama as a “tranny” — were first made public by blogger Matt Szafranski on Western Mass Politics and Insight.
Councilors Marcus Williams, Orlando Ramos, Jesse Lederman and candidate Kelli Moriarty-Finn all said Tuesday that Pohner should drop out.
Mayor Domenic J. Sarno, who has supported Pohner, distanced himself from the retired city firefighter.
“First of all, I was not aware of these past comments or social media activity attributed to Mr. Chris Pohner," Sarno said in a statement. "If this is true, I find these comments disgusting and totally unacceptable. There is no place in our society for this hateful rhetoric. Based upon this turn of events, I certainly would not support any candidate, who partakes in this type of activity.”
Moriarty-Finn wrote, “There is no place in this city or anywhere else for his overt racism and hatred. If candidate Pohner is elected, given his statements and attitude regarding people of color and the LGBT community, he will NOT represent everyone in the city.”
The Western Mass Politics and Insight post includes this jab from Firebird on a MassLive story dealing with construction barriers at the MGM Springfield site.
"What does (Councilor and past council president Michael) Fenton know about construction, outside of his favorite village people singer,” the September 2015 post stated.
Fenton declined to comment when reached Tuesday.
Pohner, who described himself as a Fenton supporter, offered varying explanations and excuses in an interview with The Republican.
“Ninety percent of what you are seeing there is not me,” Pohner said. “Anybody can write anything on social media.”
He also said his political opponents are pushing the issue “all out of proportion.”
“I don’t go back through my Facebook history,” he said about posts made under his name to his account years ago.
He confirmed it was his Facebook account in question and that he was the MassLive commenter known as “Firebird.” However, Pohner said he didn’t write the controversial posts.
A retired firefighter of 30 years, Pohner said he had logged on to a communal computer in the firehouse over the years.
But then he backtracked when asked if he was accusing his fellow firefighters of posting the racist and homophobic comments.
“Anybody could have done it,” Pohner said.
Pohner said the city and its Human Resources Department investigated the social media posts at one point and found them to be “frivilous.”
He denied removing Facebook posts in the wake of the controversy or having anyone else do so — yet screen captures shows posts that are not to be found on his page.