After the issue simmered for nearly five years, then heated up for more than five weeks, City Council took only an hour Tuesday to debate and then expand the city’s human rights ordinance.
By a 12-6 vote, council added protection against discrimination in employment, housing and public accommodation for the LGBT community.
About two hours later, Mayor Lenny Curry sent the bill back to council without his signature, but with the message he would not veto the decision.
After consulting with the general counsel, council President Lori Boyer declared the new law was in effect immediately.
Council member Tommy Hazouri, who sponsored the bill in January along with Aaron Bowman and Jim Love, said the law won’t make Jacksonville a perfect city, but the vote was a step in the right direction.
“Discrimination didn’t stop tonight, but we took a giant step forward,” he said.
Most of the discussion was about amendments seeking to change the language and scope of the legislation and who would make the decision to enact or reject the proposal.
An amendment offered by council member Scott Wilson to remove incarceration from possible penalties for failing to follow the law was approved.
Bill Gulliford, one of the most vocal opponents of the ordinance, offered two amendments Tuesday: one to put the issue to a vote of the people and another to remove protection based on gender identity. Both failed.
He admitted he had little confidence his colleagues would support a referendum.
“This may go down in flames,” Gulliford said. “But citizens have a right to know if City Council would allow the voters to decide.”
On the gender identity issue, Gulliford said he thought the language of the bill was vague and there’s no definitive test for how someone feels about themselves and their identity.
“Feeling and not fact is not the way to pass this,” he said.
Another amendment was offered by Danny Becton that would have made all privately owned businesses, regardless of how many employees, exempt from the ordinance.
He said he saw the bill as “silent discrimination” against small business owners who would be particularly vulnerable to lawsuits that might result from the ordinance.
“All I see is more discrimination,” he said.
Becton’s amendment also was defeated.
After an hour of debate over the amendments, Bowman called the question and the ballot was cast.
Before the meeting adjourned at 9 p.m., council members who did not have the opportunity to put their position on the record before the question was called spoke on the issue and what’s next on the city’s agenda.
“This isn’t the biggest issue we’re facing,” said Garrett Dennis.
He said children are taking guns to school and poverty, violent crime, homelessness, human trafficking and HIV remain problems the city must face.
Reggie Gaffney said he agreed with Dennis and was glad to see the city move forward on expanding protection from discrimination.
However, “we still have a long way to go,” Gaffney said.
In his statement, Curry also talked about moving on to other issues.
He invited council members and residents to “join me as we confront serious issues like the final steps of pension reform to bring us financial security and increase our efforts to end the violence and crime hurting innocent people in our city.”
The mayor also said he still believed the expansion legislation was unnecessary.
“But this evening, a supermajority of the City Council decided otherwise,” he said.
“This supermajority, representatives of the people from both parties and every corner of the city, made their will clear,” Curry’s statement said.
How council members voted on HRO bill
Yes: Greg Anderson, Aaron Bowman, Lori Boyer, Anna Lopez Broche, Reginald Brown, John Crescimbeni, Garrett Dennis, Reggie Gaffney, Tommy Hazouri, Jim Love, Joyce Morgan and Scott Wilson
No: Danny Becton, Doyle Carter, Al Ferraro, Bill Gulliford, Sam Newby and Matt Schellenberg
Did not attend: Katrina Brown
(904) 356-2466