The Arlington City Council voted 7-2 to approve a revised anti-discrimination chapter in the city’s code and unanimously passed a resolution disavowing discrimination and hate.
The new chapter strays from the original passed in 2021, removing the authority of city staff to investigate claims of discrimination and mediate the situation.
Mayor Jim Ross said the new chapter and resolution were a compromise between those who had voted to suspend the original ordinance and those who had voted to keep it.
“Tonight’s vote is an opportunity to demonstrate that even when a decision is difficult, we can still choose progress over paralysis,” Ross said ahead of the vote.
The new ordinance and resolution came forward as a result of the suspension in September of the city’s original anti-discrimination chapter of the city code.
The original chapter was flagged by the city’s legal department as putting the city at risk of losing federal funding due to anti-diversity, equity and inclusion directives from President Donald Trump.
In December, the ordinance reappeared on the council agenda but was voted down 5-4.
Here’s who voted for and against the new anti-discrimination chapter of the city code:
For:
Mayor Jim Ross
Mauricio Galante
Raul Gonzalez
Andrew Piel
Rebecca Boxall
Long Pham
Barbara Odom-Wesley
Against:
Bowie Hogg
Nikkie Hunter
Ross previously said he spoke with council members about next steps before bringing the ordinance and resolution to a vote, and that he felt there would be enough support from the council to pass it.
The new ordinance no longer allows city staff to investigate complaints of discrimination based on protected classes or mediate the situation. It also no longer clarifies which classes are protected, rather deferring to state and federal law like the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Under the new ordinance, city staff will still receive discrimination complaints but will immediately refer them to resources to “provide assistance to the complainant” or refer them to state or federal agencies that can escalate the complaint.
The ordinance was also shared by Arlington Strikes Out, a campaign created by HELP Center for LGBTQ+ Health CEO DeeJay Johannessen in November to urge council members to restore the original ordinance.
The posts said the ordinance had been stripped of its powers and urged council members to vote against what Johannessen previously called “an educational pamphlet mocked up to be policy.”
Johannessen said the fact that the new ordinance did not retain the original investigation and mediation process made it effectively useless.
Fourteen speakers went before the council, urging members to vote against the new ordinance and resolution and either restore the former chapter or bring a new one that is actually enforceable to the city code.
The topic received plenty of discussion from council members, including Rebecca Boxall and Ross, who both asked Johannessen questions and responded to his concerns.
Other community members said they wished they were involved in the revisions.
Whitney Rodrigue, the executive director of the Dream City PAC, a progressive political action committee, said she wanted the council to hold community sessions to allow the stakeholder groups affected by the changes a chance to speak to them.
“Don’t continue to go to the back room and bring solutions to us, because this keeps happening,” Rodrigue told the council. “You bring us a solution, we fill the room, we come and talk. Bring us in before a solution is proposed.”
Council member Mauricio Galante told Rodrigue that he reached out to stakeholder groups following the December meeting and did not receive a response. He encouraged those groups to reach out to talk to him on the subject.
“It will be my honor to hear everybody, but I want to be heard too,” Galante said.
Council member Nikkie Hunter told the Arlington Report that she voted against the new chapter due to the lack of enforcement it included, adding that she felt the council should go back to the drawing board and table the item.
“It was a compromise that just really didn’t hit the mark,” Hunter said.
Hunter, who voted in September and December in favor of keeping the original chapter, said she hoped the council would host a town hall for residents to speak their mind on the subject.
During the meeting, Johannessen said he feared that the passage of the revisions and resolution would close the door on future discussions of the chapter.
Hunter said she felt the door was “somewhat closed” now that the two items had been passed, but said she wouldn’t rule out the possibility of it coming back for discussion at some point.
Council member Bowie Hogg said he voted against the ordinance but for the resolution because the new city chapter is effectively unenforceable.
“I believe this is a governance decision,” Hogg said before the vote. “I do not believe an ordinance is effective. I do not believe it’s enforceable, and I believe it gives false hope and false protections to people, especially when we’ve balanced that with what legal opinions we’ve received.”
Chris Moss is a reporter for the Arlington Report. Contact him at chris.moss@arlingtonreport.org.
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This article first appeared on Arlington Report and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
