TALKS OF REVIVING a version of the defunct CornFest — now tentatively called “Farm Fest” — consumed a significant majority of Tuesday’s Brentwood City Council public comment period.
But Brentwood resident Melissa van Ruiten said the conversation appeared to be more about discomfort with the city’s growing diversity. She criticized other public speakers for calling diverse cultural events exclusive and separatist and using Farm Fest as a means to replace them.
“The rhetoric that the other festivals that happen in the city of Brentwood aren’t family friendly is straight up wrong,” van Ruiten told a reporter Wednesday.
Holding matching signs that read “Farm Fest,” most of the speakers Tuesday urged the City Council to consider reviving a version of the annual downtown CornFest, which the Brentwood Chamber of Commerce ran from 1992 through 2012 each July and included carnival rides, fireworks and a general celebration of the annual harvest for the once-small ag town.
During the meeting, many spoke about the importance of elevating the agricultural community and agritourism through a family-friendly event that would also boost the local economy.
Edna Hill Middle School teacher Tara Randall spoke about preserving the farming heritage of a town that’s made her feel at home after leaving Dayton, Tennessee.
“The youth of this community really care about our history and about keeping Brentwood Brentwood, and I think the Farm Fest would do that,” Randall said. “And there’s other options that I think have been talked about that I don’t feel like we would be able to bring our children to, and so I strongly encourage you to think of something like this that would draw all of our community together.”
Speaker Sandra White expanded on why her group had gathered that evening to speak to the City Council — she had received a notice about a possible LGBTQ pride parade.
“The reason we are here is because we would like to promote a Farm Day — something that all the families can come to, because with LGBT, there’s a lot of division,” White said. “There’s a lot of division in that, because a lot of us don’t feel like that is appropriate for our children, and we don’t feel like we can have our families come to this event, because it is against our moral values, and so that’s why we are promoting, rather, Farm Day.”
Speaking to a reporter after the meeting, van Ruiten explained that she’s supportive of reviving a version of CornFest — she’s worked on three farms and previously attempted to rally people who would be willing to head the committee needed to organize it — but she doesn’t support using the beloved town event to disguise hate.
“So for people who, from the looks of it, were gathered by a local church to come and essentially have public comments that were dog whistles against the other cultural festivals, it was ugly and it devalues what a farm fest should be,” van Ruiten said, noting that the supposed agricultural advocates didn’t stick around for the Farmers Market agenda item that followed. “Don’t prop up agricultural history for your own agenda.”
In her remarks after the meeting’s public comment period, Vice Mayor Pa’tanisha Pierson echoed Mayor Susannah Meyer and Councilmember Jovita Mendoza, who said everyone is invited to all cultural events.
“I would so happily like to invite you to have everyone join us at all of our city-sponsored events, especially Juneteenth, where people were safe and had fun learning about America’s history, especially the history of Black and African Americans who built this country on their backs,” Pierson said. “So please join us, where there’s a fun kid zone, there’s a lot of kid activities, there’s a blood drive where 75 people were saved last year, because with love and kindness, do we draw thee.”