[MissoulaGov] Committee Update 3-24-10

[Bob Jaffe]

Greetings,
This morning we started off with the newly reconstituted Economic Development Subcommittee.  Mayor Engen gave us the longer form pitch for his Best Place Project. The basic idea is that we have a number of organizations in town who work on economic development type issues. There is the Missoula Area Economic Development Corporation, the Montana Community Development Corporation, The Missoula Job Service, The Missoula Redevelopment Agency, the Chamber, and the Convention and Visitors Bureau. The theory is that we need some entity that serves as the umbrella and coordinator of these efforts. The first steps have been to bring in a couple of consultants who do this sort of stuff to do an assessment of the community and make recommendations.

We then moved into Public safety where we set a public hearing to adopt the new International Fire Code. In the past we have used the Uniform Fire Code. This code cross references better with our building code. We were assured there is no significant difference between the two.  There are some changes coming on the horizon to the Residential Building Code that will be significant. It is still being considered at the national level so we won't see it for a while.

In Conservation we received an update from the Mount Jumbo Advisory Committee (MJAC) by Giles Thelan and Janet Sproul. Giles explained the various activities on the mountain including the efforts to fight the weeds. There are herbicides and weed pulls and fire and sheep. He said the sheep are the sexiest of the options and get most of the press. Generally folks in Montana don't use the words sheep and sexy in the same sentence but Giles said it at least three times this morning. He also talked about where the fire retardant was sprayed a few years back. It turns out the stuff encourages the growth of the annual plants over the perennials. In the case of Mt. Jumbo this means the cheat grass is taking over in the retardant areas.  We also talked a little about the fire on Mt. Sentinel. The jury is still out on whether it was good or bad for the weeds.  It appears that it cleared out all the duff and exposed a bunch of ground to water and sun. So whatever seeds were there are what will now grow. There was of course a lot of invasive seeds but there was also an effort to plant natives. We will have a better idea of the outcome in a year or two.

Our only item in PAZ was the extension and phasing of the Wratislaw subdivision. This one is at the end of Short Street out in Orchard Homes.  The original subdivision had a deadline of April, 2010.  The request was to break it into two phases due in 2015 and 2017.  The committee was a bit concerned about pushing it out this far.  We understand that folks are not too confident about the market for these kinds of subdivisions right now, but a lot could change by 2017. Our regulations and expectations for this area could be different. Generally, when we approve a subdivision we give the developer a two year window to commit to the project. The request was amended to accept the phasing request but with due dates of 2012 and 2014.

Our main item for the day was in Administration and Finance when we discussed the discrimination ordinance.  The proposal is to amend our discrimination ordinance to include protection for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender folks (LGBT).  There was an earlier request to also include protection for veterans but both Dick and Jon said they had received mixed reviews from the veteran community on this idea. So the veteran part may get pulled.

Jon Wilkins came out with strong support for the ordinance. He expressed some concern about the word "perceive" in this section:  "It is the intent of the City of Missoula that no person shall be denied his or her civil rights or be discriminated against based upon his or her actual or perceived race, color, etc.." He was worried about someone being accused because it was perceived that they were discriminating. But the ordinance is clear that this applies to a person who discriminates because they perceive that the target of their discrimination belongs to one of the protected classes.  So if you are fired from your job because your boss thinks you are gay, this is a violation regardless of whether you are gay.



The opposition to this has taken three basic approaches. The first is that homosexuality is a sin and therefore providing equal rights to homosexuals is also a sin.  Next is the argument that since this would require business owners to hire and serve homosexuals we are actually discriminating against the business owners. One guy today even cited Martin Luther King Jr. while making this argument. The last, and most "sexy" of the arguments is that all chaos will break out in women's bathrooms.  They claim that this ordinance will allow any man who is feeling like expressing their feminine side on a given day to go hang out in the women's locker room at the Y.  It is probably true a person could do this and claim the ordinance as their defense. But as far as I know there is currently no law on the books that prohibits a man from entering a women's bathroom today.  Hell, I do it all the time. If the men's room is occupied, I'll just use the women's. The toilet is the same. I just make sure I put the seat down.  Our indecent exposure law may cover the issue of a guy hanging out in the women's locker room but the whole thing is really a non-issue.

This ordinance is about providing protections for a vulnerable sector of our society who suffer a long history of discrimination and abuse. I'm not sure why folks are so threatened by this. The way I see it is that life is difficult enough with the standard challenges we all face. Be thankful you don't have this one on your plate. Why make it harder for them.



The public hearing will be April 12th.

If you want to read more, the ordinance can be found here:

http://www.ci.missoula.mt.us/DocumentView.aspx?DID=3167



No shit, the bathroom people actually have a web site: notmybathroom.com



Thanks for your interest,

Bob Jaffe
Missoula City Council, Ward Three
1225 South 2nd West
Missoula, MT 59801
(406) 880-2052


Messages and attachments sent to or from this e-mail account pertaining to City business may be considered public or private records depending on the message content. The City is often required by law to provide public records to individuals requesting them. The City is also required by law to protect private, confidential information. This message is intended for the use of the individual or entity named above. If you are not the intended recipient of this transmission, please notify the sender immediately, do not forward the message to anyone, and delete all copies. Thank you
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://www.cmslists.com/pipermail/missoulagov/attachments/20100324/558eb123/attachment.htm>