_{Del Norte Triplicate News Editor Roger Gitlin says his goal is to get all major government bodies in Del Norte County to open their meetings with an invocation. | Screenshot}

Crescent City Councilors agreed to discuss a proposal to incorporate prayer into its meetings.

Former supervisor and Del Norte Triplicate news editor Roger Gitlin made the request. In a public comment that went longer than the three minutes normally allotted to speakers, Gitlin said several times that his ask wasn’t “a religious thing.” He pointed out that the Crescent City Harbor District Board three weeks ago voted to hold an invocation prior to its meetings. Gitlin said he’s also encouraging the Del Norte County Board of Supervisors to do the same.

“This was substantiated and supported in April 2014 in a Supreme Court case, the City of Greece, New York vs. another party [that] allowed for denominational and non-denominational prayer,” he said. “I want to make it very clear that our Assembly, State Senate, House of Representatives and the United States Senate also invoke an invocation and it’s a very simple one: It’s a matter of a few lines and it invokes the name of God. [It states] ‘give us the courage, the experience and the wisdom to make decisions which benefit our citizenry.’ That’s about all of it.”