City officials hope to review drafted anti-discrimination ordinance within month
Mount Pleasant officials could have a formally drafted anti-discrimination ordinance on hand to mull over as soon as next month.
A template for the proposed law was submitted to the City Commission last November by a local group backing the movement, and since, a medley of public comment, support and a presentation from the group’s leaders has spurred discussion over what protections and remedies are best fit.
On Monday, city commissioners dove into the second of two work sessions to hash out its details. After more than an hour, commissioners decided to keep the ordinance’s focus specific and instructed the city’s contracted attorney Scott Smith to spend the coming weeks developing a draft based on their conversations and the local template.
“I want you to come up with something that will have the least amount of cost and labor for the city but still have teeth involved,” Commissioner Jim Holton said to Smith at the end of the work session.
The template law, which local group spokeswoman Norma Bailey has said was based off of an already-adopted Kalamazoo ordinance, is aimed at preventing discriminatory acts against city residents who identify with an assortment of categories.
Particularly, the template was intended to prevent acts based on sexual orientation and gender identity, which the state’s Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act does not cover. Commissioners agreed on Monday to tailor the ordinance accordingly.
They also agreed not to include height and weight categories, because employment protection is protected under state law, as well as not to require compliance for contractors employed by the city.
Remedies for discrimination complaints
A large point of debate proved to be how the city would enforce solutions for discrimination complaints. Options according to the template law were private causes of action, infractions, misdemeanors and conciliation.
Smith said a private cause of action can have some negative effects, especially if conciliation is not offered as a prior step.
“Part of the reason why so many of these ordinances, I think, have not resulted in a lot of cases is because there’s not the economic value there,” he said. “It’s often times difficult to bring the persons together.”
In order to show the public their complaints will be taken seriously, Commissioner Nancy English said they need to provide “reasonable avenues.” Vice Mayor Kathy Ling said it would be useful to have a private course of action, though it might not help city residents who “are not in a position to go to court.”
Along with United Methodist Pastor Charlie Farnum, Bailey said she hoped remedies chosen written into the draft ordinance will involve choices.
“It isn’t right to just make it a private cause of action,” she said. “That means a person who’s lost their job or another person who doesn’t have a place to live has no capacity to sue anybody.”
Bailey said she thought commissioners did “exactly what they’re supposed to do” in dissecting the template’s content and asking for an official draft. She said she senses “clearly” they want an ordinance.
Some commissioners expressed hope to have another work session once Smith completes a first draft, and others expected to wade through multiple versions before they hold a public hearing.
Within a month, if not before, Smith said he hoped to have a first draft finished for review.
“I’d like to say your first meeting in April, but I’m not sure I can commit to that,” he said. “We’ll see. But I want to come up with something that is very well thought out, that is vetted a little bit.”
