03-26-12 Common Council Meeting Minutes

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REGULAR MEETING MARCH 26, 2012 Councilmember Dieter advised that this is a passionate subject and is sure that a lot of the things that were brought up that we would bring everybody in 10 or 15 years it would be about the same thing. He stated that what he did and he stated that he is not a scientist, but he tried to look through emotional responses at church, and what everybody believes and look at what is germane to him in making a decision on this. He stated #1 he hasn’t seen any economic analysis about this bill and how it would effect like Mr. King stated the new jobs; he hasn’t seen any part of that other than verbiage of how many people would suddenly come to South Bend because of that. Also, one of the questions that he has and he doesn’t want to go back and forth with Gavin, but will just get them out here on the record. If this ordinance is passed tonight what employers in the City of South Bend have six or more employees would be governed unless specifically exempt and that is one of the questions that he would have. Secondly, what notice would be given to those employers that the regulations would now be taking effect? He wonder if someone would be knocking on doors, sending out letters to make sure that every employer, every housing person in South Bend knows what’s going on. One thing if it does pass tonight and the Mayor said that he would sign it, does anyone in here know when that would take effect. He stated that date would be April 6, 2012, so is eleven days a reasonable amount of time for a South Bend employers, business owners, human resource personnel, etc. to comply with what we are taking about here tonight which is seen as vague language. Also is the City of South Bend when we put this information out to the public are we going to offer training and education to make sure that everybody is on the same page of what we are talking about in this bill. Each side had different variations from different attorneys on what it is. He stated that he is going to ask the Council Attorney on what her view is. But if we are going to do this and they want to have something that works, then he thinks you need to train the business people and all employers to know what should be done and what shouldn’t be done. There is a lot of other questions that he has, again he thinks that it is evident unfortunately, what were are asking is that when incidents occur and our own Human Rights people in 2005 put a statement together and in 2010 did a Resolution of this very issue, they don’t even write down the people that come through their doors asking for help. He stated that in his line of work he has a thing called probable cause and he would think that if he is so passionate about this issue, so passionate about this being a problem in South Bend, I would be marking down every time someone comes through the door to make a claim about this, so when I would come to the Council, I could say we’ve had 19 complaints about this. They don’t keep track, they don’t have any. He reiterated that there are a lot of questions that haven’t been answered. He appreciated everyone’s input and filed with City Clerk a statement from former Councilmember Timothy Rouse. Councilmember Gavin Ferlic asked Council Attorney Kathleen Cekanski-Farrand with respect to notice any ordinance that is passed is it published. Council Attorney Kathleen Cekanski-Farrand stated yes it is Councilmember Gavin Ferlic reiterated responding to vague language this language is almost identical to the language used in Indianapolis, establishing precedent at again that ordinance has not been successfully challenged. He stated that he thinks fear and misunderstanding a lot of times fuels one to think that this might have some unintended consequences but again, this has not happened across the country, this is passed in nearly every major city. He stated that this is not to say that we are doing this or sponsoring. This because they want to be like every other city, we are doing this because this is the right thing to do. Councilmember Oliver Davis sated that he is thankful that this was brought up. He stated that they fought hard in 2010. He stated that the City of Indianapolis is a growing city and he loves being in Indianapolis and seeing all the businesses when driving through the city. He stated that he is sure there are many businesses with Christian values in Indy and they have not left the city because of the legislation that they have passed. He stated other cities where this legislation is passed like Bloomington and Kalamazoo are not losing businesses. People have not all left because of these kinds of things. The bathroom stuff is just not that hard to deal with after hearing his father who grew up in Alabama talk about his mother who grew up with only white and only black bathrooms. 28