Fridley Cancer Cluster Facebook Group Barred from Health Fair

At Wednesday’s public health fair, Fridley residents will be able to pose questions about the city’s water testing, Superfund sites and cancer rates.

Officials from a variety of organizations—including the City of Fridley, the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH), the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPS) and the —will be sitting at tables, answering questions.

But one group that will not have an information booth is the Fridley Cancer Cluster. A member of the Facebook group, , but she was denied by Fridley City Manager Bill Burns.

“I have always thought of both the and the health fair as being city/state events where we talk directly to the public,” Burns wrote in an email to Facebook group founder Jason McCarty. “I also think that it is in our best legal interest to parallel play rather than confront each other in public settings.”

See a new 90-minute video on from the City of Fridley.

Reynolds called “unfair” the decision not to allow the Facebook group an official role at the fair.

“After all if it were not for this group the Health Fair would not be occurring,” she wrote in an Aug. 16 email, adding Tuesday: “I'm guessing, that like me, members will attend as members of the general public.”

(An invitation from the led to an appearance by famed consumer advocate Erin Brockovich at a townhall-style meeting at in June.)

last week that Reynolds was banned from participation since she was running for office. But Reynolds said she was not seeking election and that a "snarky" comment she made online about waging a write-in campaign for mayor had been misinterpreted. (McCarty said Jenny Petersen, a Fridley resident and Cancer Cluster group member, had also volunteered to staff a table.)

Brungardt could not be reached for this post.

, Aug. 22, 2012, at the gymnasium.