Updated at 7:01 p.m.

At least seven households in Richmond have received mailings this month that falsely claim to come from the town and that officials say are likely targeting people who have engaged in contentious local debate over a Black Lives Matter sign and flag.

Josh Arneson, the Richmond town manager, said local police are looking into the spate of mailers. 

The U.S. Postal Inspection Service, which investigates mail fraud and other crimes, has reviewed at least some of the mailings as well but did not deem them enough of a threat to warrant further scrutiny, an agency spokesperson said Tuesday.

A brief discussion about the mailings brought a Richmond Selectboard meeting Monday night to a boiling point. The board’s chair, Jay Furr, declared at the meeting he would step down from that role after other members criticized the way he sharply rejected a resident’s attempt to speak about the mailings. Furr had said the board was not taking public comment on the issue, though the person tried to speak, regardless.

Another board member, David Sander, said during the meeting he had been “harassed” by members of the public about the recent mailers going around town. 

“Everybody just needs to dial it down. Be civil,” Sander said. “This is not Richmond.” 

At issue is a 3-0 decision the board made last month, with one member absent and another abstaining, for the town to display a flag and a sign that say “Black Lives Matter” year-round, rather than only for the three months each year following Juneteenth, as was the town’s practice before, according to Arneson. The town first started displaying a Black Lives Matter sign and flag, Arneson said, in the wake of the May 2020 murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police.

Arneson said residents have voiced a mix of support and opposition for the board’s decision in recent weeks at public meetings and on the online message board Front Porch Forum. At least some of those people now appear to have been targeted with the misleading mail. 

As of Tuesday, the town was aware of three different mailers that were sent out. Town officials did not yet know who sent them, or whether that person lived in town.

One mailer includes a photograph of protesters surrounding and vandalizing a police car with text overlaid that says, “We are the Richmond Selectboard and we support this message.” Another includes text reading, “We got this Richmond!” over a photo of a masked protester waving a Black Lives Matter flag, with flames in the foreground. 

A third shows an image of a clown saying, “Say ‘Black Lives Matter!’…or else!” It also states in large text that “respect for our selectboard” was “missing” during the board’s Aug. 18 meeting, at which it voted to make the flag and sign display year-round. 

All of the mailers that officials have seen so far listed the town office as a return address. At least one used the phrase “Richmond Police Governance” in the return address, which Arneson said could refer to a joint municipal committee the town has with neighboring Hinesburg that has been discussing the feasibility of both towns sharing policing services.

The mention of “police” was what confused Richmond resident Jean Haskin when she received one of the mailings last week. Haskin said her first thought was that she had somehow been issued a speeding ticket, unknowingly, while driving down a hill through town. 

But in fact, she received the mailer depicting a clown and referring to the selectboard’s Aug. 18 meeting. Haskin said that on Aug. 18 she posted on Front Porch Forum saying she was among those against the town putting up the Black Lives Matter signage on public property.

“The town should remain neutral and display only the American and Vermont flags and post information related to town activities,” she wrote in the post, which she shared with VTDigger. She said she was confused to get the mailing because it seemed to come from someone who, like her, opposed displaying the “Black Lives Matter” signage. 

“It’s extremely sad,” she said in an interview. “And in light of what recently happened in the world,” she said, referring to the shooting last week of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, “it’s a little bit scary.”

Furr, of the selectboard, said in an interview that others in town who have received the mailers have voiced support for displaying the flag and sign year-round.

Near the start of Monday’s meeting, Furr made a statement saying, in part, that “these letters are addressed as having come from here when they did not, and they contain, essentially, hate speech depicting Black Lives Matter members as rioters who are setting things on fire and saying this is what the selectboard endorses.”

After he made the statement, town resident Cara LaBounty spoke from the audience to raise a “point of order” that public comment should be allowed.

“We will not be taking public comments on this. You can sue us later,” Furr replied, then adding, “Cara, listen. We know you love attention. You crave it. But right now, we’re going to move on.”

At that point, several people in the room started speaking at the same time, and two other board members raised some opposition to Furr’s comments. Furr then apologized for “snapping” at LaBounty, who had left the room, saying that “there is no excuse whatsoever for having replied that way. And I should have kept my mouth shut.”

The board then continued with its business for the night, but about a half hour later, Furr brought up his exchange with LaBounty again. He told his colleagues that he had decided he could no longer handle the role of facilitating board meetings. 

“I think it would be wise if I resign as chair,” Furr said. He said he would ask his colleagues to appoint a new chair at the start of the board’s next meeting. 

LaBounty said in an interview Tuesday she had planned to tell the board about how she’d received what could have been a similar letter, also with a misleading return address, a number of years ago. She said Furr’s comments Monday night were hurtful.

Furr, also in an interview Tuesday, said he is considering resigning from the board entirely. He had been questioning for some time whether he wanted to continue serving as chair, he said, and the exchange with LaBounty on Monday was a spark that prompted him to leave the role.

He said local politics have always been divisive, but he’s noticed town-level discourse become even more contentious since President Donald Trump took office for a second term in January. He said he had received a small number of calls from residents asking about the mailers, but noted the overall tenor of debate has been overwhelming even on far more mundane topics. 

“Things get very, very tense,” Furr said. “I’m sorry that the climate is like that. I’d like us all to get along and be able to equitably, openly discuss policy — without making all these aspersions.”

Sander, who has served on the board for the past decade, also said during the meeting he had noticed a recent shift in tenor.

“I have people calling me, swearing at me. I’ve been harassed at the transfer station. I’ve been heckled at the market. I’ve been heckled at the post office. I’ve been heckled at the hardware store. I have people honking the horn, flipping the bird, screaming obscenities at me,” he said. 

“If anybody has any issue with anything that I do or this board does, please call me,” he continued. “But damn it — I do not like living in a community that has become this divisive, this nasty, this mean, this partisan. It needs to stop.”