Hamtramck city council voted unanimously to relieve the commissioners of their duties on Tuesday, with City Manager Max Garbarino confirming shortly after that the flying of the Pride flag was the reason behind the decision.

“This Council believes in fairness, neutrality towards our residents, and the rule of law, amongst other things for this community,” Council member Khalil Refai said in a statement. “We passed a resolution recently to do just that, and two of our sworn commissioners outright defied it, and did what they wanted.”

“We were elected by the people of the community to make these decisions,” Refai continued, “and they not only violated the resolution but the trust of the whole community by doing this. For this reason, Council felt the appropriate response was to remove them from their public positions of trust.”