Now we can continue on. I think we're using the same zoom link. There's no changes with all of that. So it was everyone can stay on. And that brings us to our originally scheduled meeting, which is a work session. We've got a number of items down there. We still have a call us to order. We still have the same members present.
You see the agenda in front of you. We have the four items there. I'll hear a motion to approve it.
agenda when you're ready, please.
Oh, make a motion to approve the agenda as submitted.
I'll second.
Thanks.
Any discussion?
Anything we've missed or overlooked?
All those in favor of approving the agenda, please.
Give me a sign.
Thank you.
That's a no.
Also, Bonnie.
I guess we'll dive right in.
Our first order of business rip.
No, excuse me.
This is Jackie.
Good evening.
Everyone, I'm really excited to be here.
I am here to officially kick off the planning period for Economic Development Strategic Plan in May, the Economic Development Department released an RFP and in August, the Mayor and City Council awarded the contract to KB Advisory Group.
I want to thank Tucker North Lake CID, Tucker Summit CID and the Tucker DDA who all have come together to support this plan.
With that, I want to introduce Jeff Koski with the President of KB Advisory Group who will be kicking this off with the presentation.
Very much, Jackie.
Marin Council, thank you very much.
It's good to see you again.
I was here not too long ago as you approved the beginning of this plan and now we're getting going.
So we wanted to kind of give you a short update and dive in a little bit.
And most importantly for me, I want to introduce my team to you because the hard work is going to be done
and by all of us, but mostly by the people
that you'll be introduced to later tonight,
but as well as your staff and yours.
Again, we appreciate the opportunity to be here
and to work with you all.
We've had a great day here.
You graciously hosted us a city hall.
We've been doing interviews.
We've been touring.
We had lunch at local seven.
So we're getting to really know you.
We're starting to got a long way to go to get there,
but we will get there.
Again, just as a matter of sort of review, if you will, of who we are, again you can
see the project lead is my firm KB Advisory Group.
We are local, we are offices are in Midtown, Atlanta.
We do real estate market analysis and economic development consulting throughout the region,
throughout the state, throughout the southeast.
We have put together a team that we're really happy and proud of, and they will hear from
them. My public engagement is being led by Urban Pulse and Christopher Pike is a former
economic development director of the city of South Fulton, so also a fairly new city in
the Atlanta region. So he has a ton of experience and understands how to sort of go through the
first economic development strategic plan. He led that in South Fulton. So he's on the consulting
side and leading our public engagement. So he will have a lot of great insights. And then
And Molly McKay is with Will Dan out of Washington DC.
She brings national insight as well as being a certified economic developer.
So she's got a lot of experience and is already bringing some wonderful ideas to the table.
I'm excited about that.
So again, just to give everyone just a brief kind of introduction of what we're doing here,
this is the city's first economic development strategic plan.
But really, it's obviously, you know, you all know you've been through a lot of work.
to get to this point and have done a tremendous amount of wonderful planning that we will build on.
And I think that's important to think about and to name that we're not showing up here,
you know, starting to ground zero and you guys have laid a fantastic groundwork for all of that that will come next.
And so again, the kind of the big idea, the vision statement, if you will, is that this plan,
the EDSP is going to create the foundation for the City of Tuckers near-term economic development
policies, programs and investments. So that's really kind of the crux of it. What should Jackie
be focused on and her staff? And you all really, I mean obviously everybody's involved in economic
development. So it really sets the stage and again the goals, so if you think about strategy, right,
you've got a big vision statement and we kind of drill down the goals. And so again the goal of all
this is to really guide the planning and again it does bleed over into zoning and other
elements within city hall but we're taking we're taking a look through the economic
development lens hopefully to attract quality investment going going forward and then
obviously to really kind of shape not just just to attract development but to really kind
of shape who you are right as kind of on an economic from an economic standpoint to sort
to build some consensus about what is your community's vision for the future.
And that's a big word that we want to try to keep on the table if you will's consensus,
right?
Not everybody agrees with everything.
Not everybody's going to agree with everything, but can we find some consensus that really helps
define your vision for your future, again, from an economic development standpoint?
And then, of course, once we've got a vision, once we've got a plan, a strategy, and then
it's about implementation.
And so that's key to all of this is that, you know, everyone knows about the proverbial
plan that sits on the shelf and never gets to use, and of course that's what, and so
focusing on really implementing this plan that will be developing over the next six months
is hugely important.
So with that, that is as much as I really want to say because I want you to, again, to meet
the folks that are going to be doing the work, so the hard work, the hardest work.
And so I want you to meet Tate Davis, who is a project manager.
So Tate is really the person who is Jackie's main point of contact.
And so that's why I want to show up and let you meet Tate a little bit,
and she'll continue to tell you a little bit more about the plan.
But again, thank you for your time.
Good evening. I'm Tate Davis.
And so I'm with Kaby Advisory, and we'll be the project manager for this project.
And so I just want to walk you through the expectations,
what it is we're going to be looking at to answer,
to get to this ultimate deliverable to the city of Tucker and walk you through the timeline,
so what you can expect and what that looks like getting to the finish line in March.
So first, I kind of like to explain this in three buckets.
So the first is really, our community engagement and our public engagement for the citizens
of Tucker.
What is the data that we can collect from them, both qualitative and quantitative, and of
course Christopher Pike with Urban Pulse will be a part of that process too and is a wealth
knowledge and public engagement. And the second is Tucker has many assets in one of which
is an engaged business community. And so we want to hear from the business community and from
that side of things and make sure that any visions that come from the community, any visions
that come from the business community, let's find this common ground and the common vision
for that. And finally, the economic profile report in that competitive benchmark so you can
understand where you will be going, what's the trajectory and where are those goals that you
want to hit once we've set the vision.
And so this next slide really is what are the questions
that we're going to answer. So I've kind of outlined the audiences that we're going to be, you know,
getting these answers from, but what is the it factor for Tucker?
And obviously the amount of assets and the amount of plans that have already been laid out are wonderful and great,
and how can we use all of those and bring that synergy together to understand what industries exist here,
what industry should be targeted, and how can we align that with all of the other initiatives that are going on?
the expanding trail system, how is that an asset for economic development, if it's just
one example?
And then how do you, that's Tucker internally, but where does Tucker sit regionally?
And that's the next kind of viewpoint that we're going to look at, and making sure that
all of these come together in a way that we're getting best practices, the best policies,
and really the best programs that Jackie and her team can implement moving forward that
are tangible.
Again, the plan, the shelf does nothing for anybody, and so we want to make sure we're
building that consensus throughout the entire process from all parties to ultimately
get to something that can be acted upon for the betterment of Tucker.
And so this next schedule kind of shows you where we are.
So this is a kickoff, which is wonderful.
I'm very excited to be here.
We've started to kick off our public input and engagement plan, so we've got that running
through the end of November and that's let Christopher Pike give him to that so it won't steal
his thunder. But really going through November to do that outreach both to the community
at large and to our strategic stakeholders that are important in the dialogue of Tucker's
future. The second that we'll be working on in the early term and really these the demographic
and economic profile report and the Tucker and regional industry evaluations are really
think of those as the baseline. Where's Tucker today? What does that look like? And that
makes with the public engagement, we'll all feed into our SWOT analysis and consensus
building. So once we've collected the data, we understand the many paths that could be taken.
How do we narrow that down? How do we really all agree on what is the story to be told?
And
I mean, Jackie, I've had lots of conversations that toolbox should be concise and be
able to be implemented effectively.
And so finally, the plan creation and the presentations will work through the end of March.
So that's really looking at next year.
Once we've kind of set the stage in the beginning, and let's work through iterative policies
on programming, and does that fit, make sure everybody's on board.
because we're not all in board and then it doesn't get blended, that's not what we want.
And so, that kind of outlines the entirety of our process here, but the public engagement
is where we are right now, so I do want to hand it off to Christopher Pike, he's going
to go through the public engagement and outreach program and-
Mayor council good evening, I'm glad to be here, excited to be here.
This plan is a little bit personal for me.
some of y'all may know that actually grew up in Tucker. I moved to Tucker when I was about five
and went to smoke rise and Brockett and then graduated from Tucker High School in 97. So it's been a
while since I've been back to Tucker but definitely familiar with the community and it's been a big
part of my life. So very excited to be here and to be involved with the first economic development
strategic plan for the city. One of the things is an economic development professional that I always
say is the hallmark of a good plan is only as good as community involvement, community engagement.
And what community engagement does is allows you to create a plan and when you start implementing
the plan, you don't have citizens coming to meetings and pitchforks upset about something that you're
doing in the plan. And so as long as citizens have input in that plan, you generally don't have
a lot of pushback when you start implementing things. I'm not saying all the time,
I'm not giving you 100 percent guarantee, but it's always great to have public input when
you're creating a plan.
We want to make sure that this plan is something that represents the city.
As I tell people, as an economic development professional when you come in, our job is to
help the city be the best version of itself, not to be a community like somebody else's.
So our job is to create a plan to make the city of Tucker the best version of itself and
what it wants to be.
So having said that, we've created four opportunities for the community to engage in person.
Those meetings will be between City Hall and the City Hall Annex in downtown.
There will also be a community survey so folks who aren't able to participate in the in-person
meetings, we definitely still want to receive feedback from them and so the survey will be released
this week and then citizens can go and take the survey which will give us
similar information that we receive in a in-person meeting. So that gives
everyone an opportunity to engage either a lot virtually or in person at one
of our focus meetings. The other thing that we're going to do is speak with
stakeholders. We will be setting up meetings not only with community stakeholders
but also with the elected as official as well. We'll have one-on-one meetings with
each one of you all to get your input and your thought processes as well as
relates to the strategic plan and those all of those comments that we get
back from the stakeholders and also the community will inform some of the
next steps as it relates to actionable items in the strategic plan which is
when it's delivered to the to the city. So having said that we definitely look
forward to working with you all to create one of the best strategic plans for this
community and something that you all can be proud of and so at this time we will
answer any follow-up questions if it's desire of the mayor and happy to answer
those questions at this time.
I see you know I've got her hand up know I'll go ahead.
Hey good evening how are you planning on engaging the businesses that we already
they have.
You know, the community, but because it is what it is, I would like to know how you're planning on pulling the existing businesses and to see what they have to say as well. Yes, absolutely. So we have asked the city to identify individuals that we will create. We will basically have these stakeholder engagement meetings. And so that will come from the list that we receive because obviously local folks here on the ground would know better who we need to talk to.
but definitely want to make sure that we're engaged with the people that are brought to our
attention and having those those would be the stakeholder meetings that we would coordinate.
We also have the ability to do a business focused online survey as well.
And so if they're not able or not part of those stakeholder meetings then they can also participate in that survey as well.
Those meetings are different from the before you just had off.
That's correct.
The stakeholder meetings are different than the before community meetings.
Yeah.
Just one last question on that.
Are you planning on using any of the data that we already have for the businesses that we have in Tucker?
Yeah.
We are as part of the process reviewing all the plans and all the data that the city already has.
And it's positioned to help us guide as we move forward with the plan.
Yes.
Okay, and I guess my last question is, are you going to do a stakeholder analysis on these
groups when they come in?
Are you just going to take names from whoever provides them?
When you say stakeholder analysis, I guess we could provide some more context.
Well, like, you know, sample data.
When you're doing statistics, you have sample populations and data that might form like one
certain group, you just make sure that you had a sample population that was unbiased.
Yeah, absolutely. We will definitely make sure that we have a cross-section of folks that participate, because obviously we want to get as much broad feedback as possible, so definitely the more broad that we can be with the feedback that we get the better the plan will be.
Wonderful. Thank you so much.
Thank you.
If I could just add to say that we are, you know, by weekly meeting set up with Jackie,
we are very interested in working with you all and taking as much input from you all as we can.
So if at any point along the way you feel like we're missing the mark, if you feel like we've had a meeting,
and there were populations that were underrepresented in some way, shape or form, complaint to us.
Call me, buck stop with me.
I don't want to leave out of here in March and say there were certain people who didn't get touched in a way that their input wasn't provided appropriately.
So you have my word that we will get it right, and if we're not getting it right, please let us know.
I have two questions. One is just a clarifying question. On the survey, we'll go to the community.
When you say release this week, is it going to be only online or will it be mailed?
The plan is to be only online and that there will be in mailing, the link will be provided in
mailers, but there's not a plan for...
But there will be a mailer that goes out, shoe, everybody, or...
Well, I mean, we were hoping to maybe get it into possibly into something that might be going out, but...
So, as it stands tonight, there isn't a specific mailing that it's intended to, which is there was an idea
that could we
again hadn't hadn't thought closely about you know a particular
male mailing for this particular survey so that could be something. Well it kind of
leads into my next question or comment which is as we all know we have the
public referendum that we're all public works referendum that we're also
looking at I am seeing like two dates on October 18th right we think our next
referendum meeting is in the morning on the 18th and this is saying the evening of
the 18th, so I think what I've witnessed my question is how are we getting clarity
to the community when we're putting out these opportunities for engagement about what
they're engaging on and why it's important and that might be something to like brainstorm
a little bit. I just I want to make sure that we're reaching people fully. We have a lot
of messaging that's really important for our whole community in Asheville and so that's
My, I am very anxious for us to do this, so I'm not, I'm positive towards it.
I just want to make sure that the message gets to the places that we want to.
Absolutely, and I appreciate you saying that, and we spent some time with communications
folks today.
So I think, you know, that's just going to continue to be an ongoing conversation.
So if I don't have a great answer for you tonight, I'll tell you that we're working on it and
we want to work on it.
So, and I hear you that there's a lot going out there for people to pay attention to.
So we just got to kind of cut through that, get the messaging, right?
You could provide us content for emails.
Absolutely.
We can put up ourselves.
That's our own.
Right.
And that's kind of the idea.
That's usually how we work, right?
And then you all know who gets what message is the best.
But we can provide the content.
Yeah, I think just as a follow-up, I think kind of to the same thing with the business community.
Doing that kind of analysis of who did we get feedback from.
I think that that would be really helpful for us to see on the community side because there are people in our community that we aren't always reaching and so I think we want to make sure as we're thinking about equitable economic development over time that we're making sure we're reaching all as many hours as we can.
So just having a sense of who we are reaching and then how do we be creative about people?
Yep, I heard you.
Well,
I'm just excited that Christopher Pike is coming back home to do some work here in Tucker.
I don't know if you all know him, but he's amazing.
I followed your work in Villa Rica.
I don't know if people know that you are a former mayor pro tem and commissioner, right?
And Albany.
And your work that you did with South Fulton as they were in New City, I think years ago,
I shared it with John, right?
Their community plan that you guys took off on, so excited to see that you're even more amazing
because you grew up in Tucker, so I appreciate you being here very much and looking forward to
working with the rest of the team as well. Thank you very much.
Anything else before they go?
They're going to be getting harder work.
We're local and our doors are open and you know we're
available to you all as much as possible and we will be reaching out to you to formally get your input.
Yeah I'm sorry before you go you've got meetings scheduled or to be scheduled with each of us and
We're part of that input process right at the front end.
Yep, yep, yep.
We're just getting going like literally today.
This is the kickoff, right?
So we've got a lot of work ahead of us, but we look forward.
Thank you.
Thanks to all of you.
I look forward to seeing you around here.
Appreciate you coming out tonight.
I'm going to move on.
I called Rip a minute or two early, but now's your time,
Rip.
Love the green.
They don't theme.
Going to simply introduce the barge team.
They're going to go through the presentation
and answer questions and get your feedback so that we can move this plan forward.
Welcome back.
We have no sound on our side.
I think that's because we're just being quiet.
Bear with us and then we're working on the presentation. Good evening,
Mr. Mayor.
Council, thank you for having us here again this evening and inviting us to share our ideas with you.
We are here to discuss and present the concepts
that's for the Tucker Town Green.
I am Reagan Carr.
I'm a Senior Landscape Architect with Barge Design.
And I'm here with my colleague, Laura Bradford.
She is a Landscape Architect Associate with our firm.
And she and I have been working together
to develop the concepts for this plan.
And tonight we're going to tag team on the presentation.
So
we do have a brief agenda.
We already went through introductions.
And so basically, we want to just kind of want
to run through a project update to bring you up to date
what has been done on the project thus far and then we're going to run through some of the
things that we learned from the last couple of meetings information that we gained from
the public meeting that we had and as well as the council meeting that we had with y'all.
Then we're going to run into, run over our concepts and we'll go over those each and hopefully
by the end of the evening we'll be able to settle on a consistence of one concept or bits and
pieces of concepts that y'all might want for us to further develop into a master plan.
So where are we right now?
As you can see, this is the existing site, and it's roughly two acres, as y'all are familiar
with it.
Railroad Avenue and CSX are to the southern part or the south, the lower part of the site.
Main street is over to the east, and then second avenue is to the west.
We have a whole list of things that we have already done.
We have done a site survey.
At the last meeting we saw that we did a site analysis based on our site visit that we had done with city officials as well as numerous site visits that we had conducted ourselves.
We have, Lauren, I went out and went out and visited several parks that were put together
from a list that you all had asked us to go visit, put a video walkthrough together, came
back, presented that with y'all.
And then, you can see this side analysis that we had done, and then these, from the meeting
that we just recently had last month, I believe, may have been a month before, we put together
a series of graphics that illustrate the top elements that were
listed based on the public input as well as your input. So that first table at
the top because it's a little bit difficult to read and I can't see it even with
my glasses on. So I'm just going to let you know what came out of it. For the
first table where the top desired park elements express verbally during the
public input meeting. So from the upper right, making sure that's the same
the blue square, the element listed in the blue was a linear space or gazebo for vendors,
food trucks, and restaurants. The orange, as you come down clockwise, were requests for
playgrounds. The gray was a restroom building. The yellow was live music. The blue again,
public art, green, a stage. The dark blue was a connection to the existing path that's
currently being constructed and finished out, then the dark orange there was
requests for lighting and then finally the dark green was for shade. You go to
the next table over that second one was based on the top desired park
elements from comment cards. Now they're similar because we have the same
people the meeting. They may have been a little remiss to state them verbally and so
we took the comment cards. So you're gonna see a lot of the same type of things but
the blue again starting at the top almost for a great lawn that could be used for
recreation, and then the orange was a great lawn that could be used for performances, so
those kind of dual uses. The gray was for play space, yellow, restroom, blue, seating
nooks, green, the permanent covered stage, blue, again, public art, dark orange was the
stage for music, dark grapes, shadeboss, and then the top of the dark yellow was for shade
trees. The smaller, the next one down with just the three colors were the biggest concerns
of people had shared. The blue was for limited parking. There was been some discussion about
not having enough parking in the area. I know that your economic development folks have done a
serious study on that in the last couple of months over the year and have put together a pretty
comprehensive look at how that might be rectified over the next few years. And one of them in particular
dealt with a short-term resolve at Railroad Avenue. And we have incorporated something
that would fit that bill in our concepts, which we'll see in a few minutes.
The next one was potential one-way, and we had discussed about potentially changing the
alignment or the route of railroad avenue to bring it down to one-way, taking it from
Main Street and then having it going one-way to West and then coming out on second avenue.
That was a big proponent.
We had several comments that were a lot of people thought that would be a good idea.
be easier to shut down the road itself for bigger events, food trucks, shuttle, drop-off pick-up,
or even port-a-lay locations during big events.
And then finally, in the gray, there was some
discussion about having water feature. Now we got mixed messages on that. Some people were very
for an interactive fountain. Others were not so much, but yes, we need to have it as long as it's not
a type of water feature and so we've I think we picked up most of these
comments in the concepts which you'll see here in a bit and finally that fourth
table.
Elements that we saw or heard from y'all at the last meeting. And that was, again, blue, starting in the upper right there, bench swings, and then the orange picnic areas, gray was a restroom, yellow was a water feature, preferably interactive, blue was a shade boss, and then finally the shade trees. So shade in such a large open space was was a key component.
So concept review. We took the information that we got from both the public and y'all and we brought them back to the office. And we had a little
a bit of a design charrette.
And we developed three different concepts
based on what we heard from y'all.
And one of the things to keep in mind,
as we're going through them,
is you don't have to settle on just one concept.
It's oftentimes it's bits and pieces of them.
We bring them together to make a hybrid
before we move to master plan.
So that's perfectly acceptable.
It's been done hundreds of times,
and we've done it ourselves.
So some of the things that we should mention,
the concept similarities,
I already mentioned reconfiguring Railroad Avenue into one way, all the concepts show that.
We've envisioned Railroad Avenue being as a potential for blocked off for festivals, as
I mentioned, utilize food trucks, shuttle drop off, portally, site events.
It does, as I mentioned, address a parking issue.
On each of the concepts, we have between 45 and 50 parking spaces, and that was in a short
term, short-term solution to parking in the downtown area.
And then each concept provides a connection to your existing path that's currently being
constructed and finished up.
It provides an opportunity for stormwater management underneath both the lawn areas and along
the edges.
I know there isn't an issue along railroad avenue.
So we do have ideas in mind that they have not been fully developed at the concept level,
but as we move forward those will be remedied.
Also, each of them illustrates the desired park elements
that we just reviewed and finally each one
provides a restroom facility.
So I'm going to turn this over to Laura,
just one last brief thing.
This is the base information that we received.
We do have the survey information with the path
overlaid on top of it so that we could tie everything back in.
So this first concept is called R
&D.
it uses a series of concentric circles to form the different areas of the park with each
arc representing a different area.
Okay, so you enter and through the park from a series of wide concrete steps down into
a versatile, flexible, plaza space with a shade box, then the knife's arc is movable seating.
I see this being an area where people are hanging out when nothing's going on, but also
is something where you know there's an armors market or benders or whatever they
could set up in not space. Then the next arc is the art walk and this would have
sculpture bases and those could either be permanent or rotating just kind of
whatever the city decides works best with their art program. So the not space
moves through this half semi-circle of trees and down into this lawn area. That's anchored
by the stage in the southern central area of the park. In the lawn area, when there's
no performances going on, could easily be a recreation lawn. It's about 0.4 acres, so it's
a pretty decent sized open space. So moving across the park, he moved out to the trees and
Oh, the trees would have about, I'm thinking tall trees with a 10 foot clearance, so when you're sitting in that space you can still see out what's going on in the rest of the park and you can still see in to what's going on on the lawn.
So then, excuse me, moving to the western edge of the park, you have another flexible seating area, movable seats, a restroom building, and then this is where I put the interactive fountain.
and so I'm envisioning parents coming having, you know, little picnics or having lunch with
their kids or sitting there watching their kids play in the fountain and then beyond that
is a play area in the purple and it has a concrete seat wall around it so you keep the kids
contained, they're not running out into the street, they're not running out into the water
feature and then on the western and northern edge of the park is going to be heavily
vegetated just to provide visual interest, a noise buffer, and then similarly on the south
edge of the park, this would be heavily densely vegetated with evergreen vegetation, just to
help provide some sound buffer from the trains coming through when there's performances going on.
And then these linear arbor's, they also could be set up for different vendors, or it could be just
simply having benches underneath. I know that was something that we talked about
you guys wanting. And then as Reagan said, we all wrote Avenue this one way and
there's about 48 10-foot wide head and parking spaces in this design.
Oh yeah. So
these are some of the precedent images for this concept. So the stage area which
I'm envisioning to be permanent. But like we said, you know, you can take what you
want and leave what you don't want. So it could be just a space for a stage, a temporary
stage. This is kind of what I was thinking for the the boss, the shade boss with
movable seats, interactive fountain, the plate area, you know, just having really
fun, vibrant colors, more modern-style play structures, the artwork, just
having really cool interesting pieces out there for the public to enjoy.
and then just another image of some shape, the shade boss.
Okay, so in summary, concept one has a large line to accommodate performances
at the stage with evergreen vegetation.
She creates a noise buffer from the train.
Performance areas visually and spatially defined by the tree arc.
The east side of the park is geared more towards adults with arts and sculpture.
feeding areas, shade, boss, and tree plows in the terrace steps. While the west side of the park is more
geared towards children or kids at heart, with the interactive fountain in the play area,
and the new and enhanced vegetation around the western northern edges to create, to help create,
which is to create not great, a noise buffer and provide shade and then a linear arbor to help kind of define
that southern edge of the park from the parking area.
Do
you want to pause for questions about that or do you all like to get all the way through?
The
second concept that we're calling is its festival walk.
And this one is more, it's geared towards a community and potential for festivals.
The concept kind of shows an angle parking.
Well, it doesn't kind of, it does.
It shows angle parking, 45 degrees, roughly 42-foot wide parking spaces.
It shows the island zero, some existing power poles there.
So, there's the potential that those may or may not need to be relocated.
So, we've accommodated for that.
The main feature of this concept is the main spine that runs through it.
It's calling it a market walk.
It's a 12-foot wide concrete walk that would allow vendors to set up on either side
so that you could have this whole market spine walking through or
located through your park.
It can also be used for, you know, just displays or even little parades, maybe there's
a staging area, so there's all kinds of things that could happen with that.
This concept provides various entrance, a variety of entrance points into the park.
The one that you see in this upper northeast corner here provides a terraced seating area
right now as the path comes in, there's like a three to four foot drop, and so this makes
that grade by pre-creating a terrorist seating area under the shade of some shade sales there.
It is high enough that you can overlook the rest of the park and those shade sales are intended
to be cantored back so that the front is a bit higher than the back so you can still see under,
as Laura had mentioned with the trees, the same situation with the shade sales.
It functions as an extension of the path system. It allows for a variety of seating options,
movable tables, seating walls and it steps way down into the park and it
provide areas for dining or whatever. The large chase sales, as I mentioned,
create a cooler environment, I mean that's a wide open space as it is now and it
just offers another option as far as shade within the park.
The southern
Plaza area. There is, it can function as a stage during musical events. There's a opening
up at the front where you can see where it's at stage. Or it can just be an inviting entry
for other days when there's not something event-wise happening in the park. You can have
that function as just like another cool spot because of the the arbor structure in there.
We've also located kind of a fountain. It can serve as either an interactive fountain or
just a water feature. Also it has the option to be flip-flop right now and
showing a larger pool on the inside but if it's not going to be interactive or
whatever you could flip it and just kind of have a small trough happening
there which is some some white noise to kind of what deaden the sound of the
train not that you know the train's not loud and then just landscape behind it
so there's just some versatility going on there in addition to the to the
The harbor, we've included some bench swings that would hang there so you can sit either
facing the plaza or looking out onto the lawn.
The northwest corner up here off the second avenue, there's nothing that really announces
that there's a park happening there and so we've included a little entry there and it has
a plaza along the second avenue with the stairs that's kind of stepped down into it with
another plaza at the bottom that serves as a terminus to the spine trail, spine path.
And then in the
entry to the north, sorry I got lost there for a second, the entry to
the north coming off the path, you meet great right out about this location as if you
all have walked out, had the opportunity to walk out there, and this just kind of reinforces
this axial relationship from this plaza area down to the stage area, and then you would walk
through an order bird to, again, announce that you're entering into park and it becomes
a special place.
The spectator lawn that is all through here is roughly three-quarters of an acre.
Based on where the stage is located, there should be ample opportunity to see from any direction
as you sit on the park. The three-quarter of an acre is a little bit larger than one of the projects
that we have in Sandy Springs where they use that for their festival lawn, their event lawn.
It's about half an acre and during their events they can just moderate events they can see between 3 and 4,000 people on
Larger events and say do you have like another half acre of hard how would escape around it?
They can fit up to 8,000 people within that park
So there is a lot of opportunity to have things happening within this town green
We've cited a restroom building, which is typical in each of the concepts that you that you'll see
This one I've located over here in the South East corner
25 by 25 so you get probably two regular stalls in an accessible stall for men and women
or if you wanted to go gender neutral, that's an opportunity as well.
Let's see.
We've also included a 12,000 square foot playground at this western edge.
And the intent here is for it to be just a single piece of playground equipment.
If you're familiar with the Berliner type playground, something that is sculptural, but
provides a lot of play value, that's what we envision for that location.
And then finally to help connect all the elements of the park and kind of create a continuous
loop so you could do circuits if you wanted during lunchtime or whatever.
We have a eight foot wide garden walk that kind of meanders through linking all the elements.
as I mentioned, a landscape to bring color and soften the edges and also add some noise
abatement along the edges. Each of those landscape beds can also be used for water infiltration,
as the lawn also can be used as infiltration or storage.
As Laura had, I also had precedent
images. These are just kind of some of the things that you can see, the market walk, whoops,
the shade structures, interactive fountain or just a trough type fountain, this is the
Berliner type play feature that I was speaking of, there you have a whole selection of interesting
things, and then of course the garden work that I meant to mention.
Again summary geared towards the community, there's a wide central spine for vendor displays,
provides an expansion of the existing path and connection to business district via the
Here's Plaza, as a versatile temporary stage at the park entrance.
There's also a versatile spectator lawn that includes stormwater management.
The garden walks off and so hard edge is agent water infiltration and noise abatement
and then the sculptural plague equipment with a lot of plague value.
Okay, so our final concept is called Art Pavilion.
And the main feature of this concept is a large overhead shade structure,
so here, so it's
It's about 3,200 square feet, so it's very large.
It would definitely be a kind of defining piece in the park.
It could either be an arbor, it could be shade sales, whatever would work best in that
space, but it does provide a lot of flexibility under and around it.
and so you could have markets, dining areas, events.
And there's also a space for public art under the structure. So this plaza is accessible from
the new path on the western edge as well as the northern edge. There's a connection here.
And over here,
the shade structure is surrounded by vegetation, shade trees, flowering trees,
and then these two playpods with movable seating and then the rest of the buildings.
Same size as the one Reagan talked about about 25 by 25.
So let's see.
Then there's space here in the central area of the park for a temporary or permanent stage.
And it's accessed from the path by another axial path from the north of the park to the south of the park.
The western side of the park is occupied by a large event lawn surrounded by shade trees again.
There are small secondary paths coming off of the new path with seating knicks and then there's another play pod.
And then again, dense vegetation on that western edge, which will provide shade from the
setting sun, as well as provide a visual and spatial buffer for the park on the northern
end.
And then there is a stairway as well on this one coming down from second avenue into kind
of a landing plaza area going on to the path.
And
so some preset images for this concept, you know, really fun, vibrant are a large event
one.
You know, we're kind of envisioning something like this for that shade structure.
I mean, it might be more of a dynamic shape, but that kind of scale.
You know, you have fun play structures like this in those play pods, temporary sage, and then just a fun image
of how that main plaza area might look with the vegetation kind of meandering around it.
So in summary, Concept 3 is rich in the art focus as large art dining pavilion as the park center,
flexibility with the stage, a versatile event one, multiple play areas disperse throughout the park,
flexible seating areas, and enhancement vegetation to provide noise abatement and visual interest.
Those are our concepts.
That is the end of our our concept presentation. So we can take questions
We
can tell us go ahead with this one. Yeah, what you like to end up with is some feedback from us that helps you to the next step, right?
You have a question of thought?
A little question. We're out ahead. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. You have a ability to switch back and forth between those
pretty quickly because I have some questions.
Should we start as everyone should start with?
The first one would be okay.
would work. So I guess actually for all three of them and thank you for pulling all this together
and hosting the public community meetings. I think we received some really good feedback.
I'm just curious in each one of these how large the stage is,
concept wise, when it comes, you know, how many musicians can stand up on that stage and, you know,
What's the flexibility in hosting at, you know, we host the events here in Tucker, Tucker.
So the stage in this concept is a typical band and
stuff.
Square footage wise, but I mean,
great.
And then when it comes to the restrooms, you've located them in each one in different places.
Is there any reasoning for placing them just for options or should they be closer to one place in the park?
versus another ideal well we we place them in different places just to show
well variation but also I mean you what you would like to do is keep them
based on on septid issues you know everybody has a reason to go to the rest
room and it's a safety thing so in this one for example we're located near the
playground for for parents yes but in that in this case the doors would be faced
towards the parking lot so you have that passive policing so there's not you know
someone creepy person kind of hanging around with when you have a playground and
then you have a restroom and the second concept is over in the southeast
corner situated away from the playground it's so proximate but again it's it's on
the on the parking lot so that there is that passive policing I guess it's the
same on the third concept over just moved over a bit more so but I think we could
we could accommodate it.
Pretty much.
All right.
Thank you.
And then when it comes to the water feature in Concept 1 and 2,
they are play features for kids to play in the water that
are fountains.
Is that correct?
Or did I'm...
Okay.
And then in Concept 2, you have the option.
It could be interactive, or it could just be...
There's a water feature.
It could just be...
Okay.
just something to make noise.
I'm going to start with water feature and backwards. I think,
so mom of three small kids, I get why having an interactive water feature is appealing. Also don't
personally care if I have it or not, but I would like to see more of the passive water feature
if it's possible more throughout the park. So not just in one place where you would have to travel
do it, but where it's providing that ambient experience, micro-environment, while you're
kind of in the park and spaces. So, I just, even if there was one other one, or, I don't
know, in some other other place, that would, I think, something that I would enjoy. I really
liked the site visit y'all did, where they kind of had, like, runners of water features,
like, up on a, oh, yeah, remember which one that was. So, that, that's just some feedback
back on that for me personally, moving, staying with the mom, the mom side of things, I also
think that I'd love to see those play areas be more passive play, because I will tell
you that as fun as playgrounds are, if there are rocks for my kids to climb on, that's
what they're climbing on, right?
And so, when you see swing sets, only a few kids can swing on those, so it doesn't really
like open it up to multiple people in the community.
You know, Piedmont Park has that one kind of pocket playground that's really art sculptures that kids can climb on.
They're painted bright colors, but they look art, but they're not sort of what you traditionally think of.
And the types of playgrounds that we have in other parts of our community.
So I like the idea of because I know that that was something from the public input meeting.
There are people on kind of both sides like full on playground.
No, we don't want kids at all.
And I think maybe a happy medium is finding a way to make those be like built-in, like,
to topographically into the space.
It's just something I'd throw out there as I think would be interesting.
And then my last question is about the bathroom as well.
And I'm a North Lake CID plan that they had kind of explored had a built-in restroom
so it kind of had a way to meet the restroom piece,
but you also were still using some of the, again, the topography and built-in.
And I think, again, at Piedmont Park in that same area,
they've got something like that.
I don't know if there's any way to incorporate that,
but I think it's an interesting idea.
I know that there's probably like logistical reasons
why not, too, but if there's a way to maximize height space,
I think that's interesting.
But the last thing I wanted to say is I just really appreciate
that you have thought about, although I think not on the first one,
the different points of entry to the park.
So it's not like, oh, there's one entrance to the park.
So that when you're coming in different places, I like that you have that north-western corner entry point
I like that you're thinking about from the path or trail coming in. What does it look like that way?
Not just what does it look like from the way that sort of we're currently using so
Thank you for your work. I'm going to agree with you on the water features the interactive fountain
gives me heart palpitations not that I don't like little children
This is not a place for preschool buses to pull up and have a play day
We have areas for that, so I know Swanee gets like 10 preschool buses and they're having a lot of fun.
This is an economic development driver in our downtown.
So we want to make sure it is welcoming in that aspect, but you know, it's not an amusement park.
So I like that.
And then I agree with you also on the play features, right?
like fun interesting play features something artsy but we already have I
think what 10 playgrounds across the city as well so let's make it unique and
different and maybe like a destination. And then just last number two I just
felt like there was a nice flow like a welcoming flow to that so if we had
seniors over there and they wanted to walk around you know the smaller portion of
that path you had the shade there it was like it was a little bit more
accessible from different angles yeah and then also I am concerned a little bit
about maybe maybe some more seating features you know I don't know people could
walk off of them but you know in New York City and Bryant Park right it can be
totally clear or during the day they put out some tables and chairs and in some
little seating so people can come up or lunch you know then they they take
them out at night or or whatever so but I thought that flowed really nicely and
And it was accessible to a lot of different people.
Yeah, I just want to agree with Anne since she brought that out because I forgot.
I do like that there's multiple walkways and pathways on that one.
Well, I see you got a hand up.
I did like on the first one that they had seating because there's a lot of restaurants
that people are going to walk off of Main Street 2.
I like the concept of 2 because you can kind of walk through it and I do like that walkability.
I'm wondering if there's something that you can kind of do in a concept that may be
combine those two things.
The thing that I didn't care for very much on one and two is we need more trees on
the railroad side just to block that noise as it comes through because if you're sitting
down there and that train comes through, they're going to blow the horn and it's a little frightening
so if we slow that noise down a little that's fine.
I'm going to agree with Alexis on the water features and the play structures, so let's
kind of keep it interactive and fun for everyone.
But I also like what Ann had to say for the connectivity on that.
So I don't know if there's some kind of hybrid that you can do, that kind of maybe has that
path through it, maybe that's something that you add to the other, but I really think
that seating is super important for that area.
I think it will really bring in a lot more people
in downtown to have lunch.
Roger's menu, you got some comments to add?
I actually, Noel kind of brought it all together for me,
but I agree with Alexis that the Tucker North Lake CID
had that design with the restroom built
into the topography, such that it's not
not that much of a standalone feature and I thought that could be something positive
in any of these designs other than the third one.
That's it.
I had some questions just to understand what you're showing us.
Can you go back to the first iteration?
So on the far eastern side that's right up against the trailer, are those concrete steps
down that we're seeing there?
and are they shallow? Is this like a six or eight inch kind of set them?
Yeah, about six inches but they're 12 inches wide.
12, sorry, 12 feet wide.
So they would be like you could hang out there, meet your friends.
You could sit there and have lunch.
No, no, you could put it there.
It's like a tourist seating area.
Right, so you come down into the level where those trees are.
And then another step down to that gray arc.
No, so I imagine not being flat.
That would all be one.
Yeah, and then the lawn area would almost be cold, similar to the topography out there
now, where it slightly dips down in the middle, so that the stage is sitting at the lowest
point.
So you've got three, twelve foot wide step down, but then all, both of those arcs, section
were in the top right where the trees are.
That's all on a single level, there's no step downs from one to the other.
So it all be accessible.
I mean, it might slightly slow.
Well, I feel that sort of community gathering area, but there's no other than some trees which might provide shade in 10 years.
There's this scorching hot out there, and in all of these, we really got to think about shade in the short term, you know, to draw people and make a call.
I'll echo the comments, I'm not sure if I'm saying just the same thing, but about playgrounds or play areas.
I've visited Peachtree Corner's part, which is actually just being finished, there's some new stuff being added.
So they have one area that's like the biggest craziest playground equipment kind of zone that I've seen
But they had another couple of areas where it's just sort of undulating ground, right?
It's rolling
And kids just get up in a ball and roll down. And that's the fun of saying it did all day. So they'll do it over and over. So that kind of play appeals to me more than a lot of big, you know, visually, I'm going to say, God, I know there's different types of guys. But I like that sort of play in this play
was hoping to see some version of the restroom built into the topography as well. I don't quite have a vision for it. But I think we're talking about that Northeast top right corner.
In some way, it would give us some way to increase the land space, right, if the top was a plaza or a gathering space or an overlook of some kind.
It saves the place, you know, it increases the amount of ground space that we can use and
believes this doesn't have a separate building somewhere else, so it puts up some possibilities.
I'll say about water. I also like the idea. I'm kind of ambivalent about interactive.
When we say that, I'm taking splash pad. Maybe that's an old term. I can see the appeal.
If we're going to have it, I'd like it to be relatively small, but I'd like to see more water
throughout as well so that you get the sound, the cooling aspects, some sense that you're
in a place that's got motion in it.
I really think, maybe just because I've been out there this summer, it's barren and we got to take the edge off of that.
I guess that's the comments that kind of front of mind. What else?
Karen, you've heard all this other, what have you been inspired about?
I'd actually like to see the second one kind of have an incorporation maybe the shade area
be even larger there, but I like the walkway and the green because it is going to be hot.
And I also think we could put more water features in there, but I don't really think we need
that a play area for families.
I think that we've got plenty.
If we can do play features throughout for kids,
I think that might be the better plan.
And there are so many great play features.
I mean, with the pictures you shared.
And I see them in other parks and kids are all over them.
I mean, we have this, right now on the town green,
we've got this workout fitness thing.
And when we did our Friday night concerts,
the kids were always on it, so we have to incorporate that no matter what.
So, if we could make it all bigger, then we could add, you know, a variety of other things
that would be good additions, but that would mean we'd have to buy property and move
buildings, but they're wonderful concepts, I like them, all three of them, but I like the
green space in the middle one the best, and I think that's almost what everybody's saying
with different other features.
Can I go back and ask a specific question I forgot about parking.
I thought angled parking, if we're going to make it one way, the angled parking seems
like an easy call.
Do we lose spaces with that?
Only because I've made them 10 feet wide and I've included the parking islands.
I mean, what we, what an option what we could do is actually have a landscape strip, oh,
I'm sorry.
We could have a landscape strip between the parking rather than going parking sidewalk.
We could do parking, landscape strip, sidewalk, get more trees in there and then take those
islands out.
You'd still end up with about 45, 48 parking spaces.
Oh, we get some consensus that we want to maximize.
Sure.
We don't want to feel like it's a look like a parking lot, but everyone we can get makes
a difference.
I know at the public input meeting, I had conversation with some folks privately, but I don't
I don't know if it came across to the whole meeting around what are ways that we could
do passive education.
So I think you kind of talked about that maybe with the garden area, but I know that was
another feature of the North Lake Planner.
They were thinking about, which you kind of have, I think, that second avenue is the middle
of the park in some ways, but I think either sort of natural education, what's the opportunity
to do that, again, like placards, not like whatever, or history of Tucker education or
a combination where we're kind of, I think that we are always saying we're a new city
but we're not a new city, like we've been here forever.
So I do think if we're having something that's a centerpiece, finding a way to highlight
some of the history of our community, again, passively, would be an interesting thing to do.
I'm not thinking, like, just so everyone is not thinking, like, giant, person-sized bronze
plaques or anything, but it just be something I'd be interested in exploring further.
Or are we helping you?
That's all right.
That's all the time.
So, I think what we're hearing, and you can say, no, you're completely wrong, Reagan,
you're just dreaming things.
But I'm thinking that what we're hearing is, you like the form of concept two with more
more shade, not a specific playground area, just like family playground but more sporadically
throughout, more water, more shade, more trees, more parking.
Let's see what else, did I hear that correctly so far, and then look to incorporate,
you
I like their being a set aside play area.
I just don't think it has to be a playground.
So what the mayor is talking about,
I don't want to lose spaces for families.
I just don't think it needs to be a traditional playground.
Right, right.
Yeah, I like those kind of mounds and things like that.
I actually attempted to roll down a hill with my son
and it didn't really hurt.
Or the previous retirement program.
So in this one that the purplish area way out to the west, is it play area?
Play area.
Could be anything.
I'm sorry. The only thing I didn't hear repeated was seating.
Oh, yes.
Seating.
Yeah.
With shades.
That's important.
Yeah, I think you can boost shade across the board.
A reference in design.
Tell me just because I'm an ignorant.
We built a park and we put trees at it.
I guess given enough money, you could put any size tree you want.
Alright, where's the starting phase?
We have had, I think the most success that we've had on large trees, we've done this
down at Georgia Tech and I believe the largest that they want to transplant, big trees,
or 8-inch caliper, that seems to be about the max before they really decline.
Granted, you're going to pay a premium for trees like that, but you have instant landscape
no doubt, because they do have to bring in tree spades and cranes.
It's a tree like that big enough to have a clearing underneath of six or eight feet,
maybe more.
So it's useful for shade, you can see under it if there's an event, you can see your
kids across the lake around the lawn.
And ideally what you would want to have with trees that large is kind of like a maintenance
program as they get reestablished, just to make sure that they're fertilized, their optimum
type environment for them.
And
I've got to tell us that you got enough to go away and put it all together.
I need you to tell me, yes, what we want you to do, head off with those or, yeah, I
need a consensus, that's all.
And we can move forward.
Yeah, I think you're capturing what we've said, you guys nodding along online, I see
nodding.
If you think you've got a clear enough idea, I think we're in good shape, or you can ask
us some more questions.
I think we
will work something up and get that to rip and he can share it with you.
Is the stage in this case covered or you've just left it up and we could do whatever?
It could be whatever.
I mean, I've left it open so that you can see that there's an opportunity there but I mean
that stage structure could be anything.
Again, it could be shade sales or it could be a complete roof structure.
but I just wanted to make sure that it was prevalent at the front of that arc so that you could see.
But it might be a flatter arc for a better way of saying.
So it doesn't extend as far into the park.
Maybe a little bit of views from the sides of it.
Yes.
And big enough to think about
it.
Do you have a...
You've got to be covered either something we can erect for an event or...
Do you have a square footage that you're looking for for a stage area?
I think what you think, what is palatable there with the space is what I think we need
you to tell us.
I mean, it's not, I mean, it's not very-
I think it's not a pretty small one in Norcross, right, it's the first stage area.
We saw a huge one and I don't know the footage, but maybe something.
Why don't we ask our bands that have come and played and set up their own stages, right?
And Virginia happens to be one of those people, yeah.
Thank you.
I'm sorry, we can't do town hall styles.
I know you'll get an opportunity with us afterwards or in breaks or somewhere long
way before we make decisions.
That brings us to our third item.
Is it going to be you, Tammy?
It's that time of year again.
We need to start thinking about next year, so largely driven by planning zoning cases and
trying to get ahead of that and which brings up the issue when we're going to close City Hall
and observance of holidays.
So we've talked about this in the past and we got together with the mayor and some staff people and we tossed around a lot of different ideas, looked at different schedules.
We looked at the federal schedule, we looked at the state schedule, we looked at school schedule, we looked at other cities, and it all happened to be different, by the way.
Every single one is different, so there's a lot of different ways to approach this.
And the consensus of this group anyway was that what we should do is get on a schedule
and be predictable year after year, and that it made a lot of sense to follow the federal holidays.
But having said that in the past, we've always observed Christmas Eve and the day after
Thanksgiving, which are, in fact, not federal holidays.
So if we go ahead and follow mostly the federal schedule, we would be adding one day, which
is Columbus Day, which we have not closed city hall for.
So that's a starting point in recommendation that we look at these this set of days for closure of City Hall
and then the other meetings have been scheduled in around those closures. With that I'll turn it back over to the mayor.
Yeah, but I'm in the calendar that you see on the left and corporates all those dates which is always the
complexity of all the boards and commissions and the reason we have to do this so early because they had to have
advanced notice to do their advertising and tell applicants when they need to be here and when very
things will be heard. So simplicity of nothing else says take the federal calendar, add the day after
Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve,
each generous to staff as well as recognize it. That's not particularly busy on
those days if they're here anyway because nobody's coming to the city to do
business. We have a few you know we had to go all through well does this day
always get celebrated on a Monday because that day always follow you know a
calendar day of the month and what happens so it would allow us to be consistent
for a year to year we would just still have to make adjustments in and on what day
certain of those holidays falls on.
Noel?
Um, I can't. I don't have access to what you guys are looking at.
Oh.
When you get the agenda, there's nothing attached there.
And I read Roger Slips, he said same here.
We have the means to throw it up,
sorry about that. We'll get it where you can see it. So
Columbus Day, for example, is pretty much always going to be the second Monday of October. And so we'll observe the holiday and meet on Tuesday.
Some of the other sort of protocols that we went over when we were designing this was always move the meeting, whether it's council meeting or one of the board of commissions.
If it lands on a holiday, it would always move to the following day.
There were a couple cases where our meeting moved to the following day, and that stepped on somebody else's meeting,
which we moved to the day after that.
So, you were seeing the end result, but there was a lot of tetris sort of action on the calendar tiles.
Does anybody like to see you on the national championship game?
that was in fact discussed as well as the CC Championship and this year because
those bulldogs are looking good again. Thanks Bonnie. I got an email.
Oh, we emailed it to y'all.
Did you get it? No,
I've always asked. This is an R calendar because we don't work here nine to five.
So, if staff is good with it, and it serves our constituents, I mean that's what it's about,
right? I've said that since the first time we've approved a calendar, it's not about us,
it's about the others.
I think, so for me, so I'm already, my child's birthday falls on that particular weekend.
And so, I don't have a problem being here, but I do know that fall break for the schools falls
in that same time period. So I appreciate that. I would like to check into the federal
nomenclature because I know that there are going to be people that reference in Digitus
People's Day. I think I've seen it as a Columbus Day slash in Digitus People's Day for
people that don't feel comfortable with that, but I'd like to make sure that we're following
whatever the kind of appropriate current naming for that holiday is.
For
comments, we're not going to act on it tonight, get a check closely, but that's kind
of the rationale, and as you're part of your question, staff, as the 10 days to begin
with, but shortly thereafter they get 15 PTO days a year, plus one floating holiday,
as
far as their individual time off.
And
we were able to clarify that the Jacobs folks, I believe, inter-deaf folks, they get the days off that if they're on a client site, they get those same days off.
So, everybody gets the same benefit as the point.
Other questions? Anything at all?
We're going to move on.
So
the last item on our agenda is rather unique in our history.
I'm going to get some introduction and I think Ann may cover some of the same ground,
but I want to give you a little bit of background on what's unique about it and what we're doing.
So as far as I know, the idea of some kind of non-discrimination ordinance arose in summer of 2019, maybe spring of 2019.
So, well, over three years ago now, I had meetings as far back as that summer, late summer
with the three original proponents in October of that year, I met with all three of them
together in a meeting in December of that year, it's worth noting that those three people
not only, they all served on our boards and commissions at the time, but actually at various
times each of them was chairman of their respective board and commission.
They were all appointed to their positions by me personally or in my first and second
terms as mayor.
They were all confirmed or approved unanimously by the council.
In those meetings, I expressed my opposition to the suggestion of an NDO, but we had very
civil conversations.
I did make some promises about what I'd be willing to consider and what timetable or circumstances
circumstances that included things like review and what we're at the time expected or potential
decisions from the US Supreme Court, the Congress was working on various laws, the State
of Georgia's legislature was working on those laws, and we could talk about that at some
time, but I've kept those promises.
The idea of a non-discrimination ordinance kind of hung around and underwent a lot of
various degrees of conversation and discussion, but the previous counsel, previous to this
current group never reached a consensus on moving forward in some formal way.
We never had two members get together to avail themselves of their prerogative to put it
on the agenda or even present specific draft for consideration.
So last fall, nobody on this board or on our Zoom call needs a reminder that the issue
was kind of front and center during campaigns for mayor and for city council.
So, on October 12th, last year, just about, well, it'll be a year ago at our next meeting.
I brought forward a resolution, I brought some copies, I'll put them on the table over
there, you can pick them up on the way, the actual resolution that we passed back then.
But I want to share with the members who weren't part of that council, and maybe members of
public who've heard about it but haven't heard it itself what was said and done
immediately before and after that resolution.
This
is the text of what I
read into the record at the time in introducing the resolution. My fellow
council members for over two years now with some interruptions by COVID we've been
educating ourselves and talking with many many members of the public about how to
to ensure not only that Tucker is an inclusive, fair, and welcoming community, but that we find a way to make clear to our citizens and to the world beyond that that is the case tonight. I'm asking you to take action with me.
During the Tucker Business Association, Tucker Civic Association mayoral candidate forum a few weeks ago, I said like I have many times in the past that I fully support the intent of a non-discrimination ordinance and have long wanted to pass a resolution confirming that we as a city embrace our diversity and seek to protect all people from discrimination.
I've not pursued a resolution, I said then, because some voices had said it was not enough.
Well since the forum I've heard from many other voices in homes and neighborhoods across
Tucker and the grocery store and on Main Street, these voices have urged me to present such
a resolution to Council because it does have meaning.
It's what's in their hearts.
It's what's in my heart.
It's in your hearts and most important, it's in the hearts of our community.
Those people encouraged me emphatically to do what we can do now.
They urged me to remove politics.
the politics of the matter, and make it about what it should be, which is people and people
over politics. We've always said, well before cityhood that it's our people that make
Tucker a special welcoming place, and when we say people, we mean all people. We should
always seek to draw strength from our diversity, and when we do, we accomplish great things.
At no time was that more apparent than during the cityhood movement when we all came together
to keep Tucker, all of Tucker as one community, as others sought to divide us and pit us against
one another. Instead, we united and made history, and we have continued to make historic progress
ever since. I'm grateful for all of you who took time to reach out and support our resolution.
I also want to thank the cities of Stone Mountain, Pine Lake, and Columbus for sharing their own
resolutions, which inform and add greatly to this one. So with that, I move the following resolution,
and that's what I've brought as a copy of that resolution that passed unanimously at the time.
After the motion was made to pass it, I said this, which is important to kind of where we're headed.
I want to add one other step here.
Two of our members have recently offered to help create the framework for a working group that can further study this issue.
Pat and Matt, that was Pat Sultis and Matt Robbins at the time.
If it's all right with you, I'd like to ask you and Anne Learner to follow through on that and bring me a proposal for how that working group would be constructed if you're willing, we can start working on that right away.
Well, time passed. It was the end of Pat's and Matt's terms. There was an election going on. The holidays came.
That was mid-October of last year and nothing really got underway with that group before the end of the year.
So back in April of this year, with a new council in place, I asked Keras Schroeder and Virginia Reese who's not able to be with us tonight to take on those roles with Anne and they're here tonight to report on their work.
So I mentioned this was a unique circumstance in our history in several ways, and I want to point those out as we discuss our process on the matter.
First, I've never appointed a work group like this before.
So exactly how they should report out and what we'll do with the results is something
that we're working out now.
Second, I can't recall, I could be wrong, but I don't recall that we've ever had an ordinance
interrupted by council members as opposed to our staff and legal council.
Ordinarily we have staff, we've discussed to talk about the need for it.
Staff presents, it's been vetted in a lot of ways before it gets to us.
So I can't recall a case like this where the members of council have actually written
the ordinance.
It's a nice just a work session, so the item has not yet been introduced as a business
item, but if it is, we'll have to work out how it'll be presented and debated and what
sort of public input we'll have and public hearings if that's going to be the case.
So we'll have to vet it and do our duty to make sure it's legally defensible, does what
So it's intended and doesn't produce negative unintended consequences.
That's all what is beginning tonight.
So I don't know if everybody had a draft or a draft of a proposed ordinance a week or
two ago, but we're about to see their report and the current and or final draft of the ordinance
tonight.
And we'll all have an opportunity to ask questions about all of that and how we're going to proceed.
So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Ann and Kara and Virginia later, I guess.
And I'm so sorry, thank you, Mayor.
What I want to say, you know, I wholeheartedly agree with your words and your comments
from when you presented that resolution, it was true.
And I was one of those loud voices that said, now let's have an ordinance instead of a resolution.
So, I apologize for that earlier in that and I just loved hearing your words again because
that is what was in everybody's heart at the time and appreciate you bringing that back
to the forefront.
I'm sorry Virginia.
Reese could not be here.
She has worked super, super hard.
We talked about she had a little accident so she was in the hospital, she'll be okay, keep
her in your thoughts and prayers and just know that she has worked very hard on this as
well.
I'll carry you to, Mary, you give a little bit of that background and so I pass out a
working group report.
We'll have this online later on to be shared with everybody and I want to bring up the working
group members.
They are members of the community.
They are here tonight.
One person can't be here, so I'll speak for him real quick, Don Serrino.
Don has a retired U.S. Department of Labor, Office of Federal Contract Compliance.
He was an investigator, human resource manager, spent 30 plus years there and, you know, invaluable, and just, you know, this group asked him to come up and introduce themselves if that's okay because they've worked on this and just say a few comments.
So, Andrew, if you want to kick it off for us, we'd appreciate that.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Good evening, Mayor and Councilor.
I really appreciate the opportunity to be here.
I'm not going to try to summarize everything that's announced report, just to hit a few comments
that I think are important.
Number one, I really appreciate the powerful statement that your Honor made last year regarding
so I think it was a perfect, really hit almost every nail in the head, but I want to add this.
I think an ordinance takes it further.
an ordinance has moral force and legal force as well. You're saying this is not just our intent,
but this is where we are legally. And what I like about this, and we've had a very careful process,
I think, we've worked very hard over the previous months, but I think we've got a framework now to deal
with complaints that might come up for discrimination.
I frankly think that there will probably be
relatively few complaints that we brought into this, but to the extent that there are any,
we've got a way to deal with it. I think that's pro business, I think that's pro consumer.
I think it's frankly good for everybody. Our approach, as we've tried to put our thoughts
together on this, was to come up with a framework that's based on conciliation, mediation, and
resolution, and not combat. Let's find a way to work things out in a way that satisfies
Everyone brings us to a good mutual acceptable resolution.
So that's why we emphasize mediation as much as possible.
I personally have got a lot of mediation, so I know Roger has done a lot of them too.
I think Roger would agree that it's absolutely phenomenal how...
But you can get done when you have a directed mediation. It's not an arbitration, but that's a session where you sit people down and you listen to each other very carefully and face-to-face, and it's remarkable. People can come in miles apart and they walk away going, I see what you're saying. I see what you're saying. They resolve it. And that's our hope, frankly, in terms of how this would work. I'm, again, I don't want to try to cover all of Ann's report because there are a lot of incidents here.
But I want to thank the Council, I want to thank Ann, Karen and Virginia for spearheading
this effort.
And the rest of the Council too for just hearing us, it was an opportunity to put it together.
But I think it's a good ordinance.
I'm going to urge the Council to consider it and frankly to adopt it.
I think it'll move Tucker forward.
It puts us not only squarely in the mainstream progressive cities, but it puts us in a marketplace
too, because we want to attract people to Tucker in the future, who this would be important
to. We want to not just be known for saying that we value diversity, that we value inclusion
and that we welcome everyone. We want to say, we actually have an order to assess so.
So come on over. Live here and work here. And that's what we want to do. That's really all
I've got to say for now. Thanks again to all of you. Others may have something to say too.
Well, I know you're being modest, but you know, you have some qualifications on why we ask
you to be in this group. Do you want to? Well, I am a mediator to that. I've been an attorney
from Logan I'd like to admit or many decades and but over the years I began to
drift more toward mediation because I felt that that was the prank of the best
way to resolve the speeds. Almost every court nowadays mandates mediation. Judges
say I don't want to hear you guys coming to court and fight, go mediated and it's
remarkable how often that works. People come in breathing fire, they walk out with
agree that it happens every single day and I think that's the way to go. I think that's
why it was so important for us to take this approach. Yeah, the city under our approach
would pace the mediation fees, but I think that's something part of the process. I think
that's what you got to do to make it work. It would not be an astronomical constant. Again,
I frankly think that the number of cases that we brought or this will not be great. We'll
see. But if you look around at what other cities have seen, it's a pretty small number of cases
that ever come up. But it's an opportunity for us and I think to move our city forward in a
significant way, to say we're part of the mainstream and we're part of the tomorrow generation. We're
going to make this happen. We welcome everybody. So anything else I can address? Thanks. Okay,
I don't have a long speech like Andrea
but my name is Sandra Rice, I've been a resident
of Tucker for about ten plus years, a resident of the county for forty years.
I was here when the mayor read the resolution and immediately sent an email the next day
to volunteer.
And for months, I didn't hear anything, but then Anne reached out to me, and I gladly accepted, and thank you for reaching out to me, and I really appreciated working with the working group.
The reason I'm interested, again, I'm an advocate for individuals with disabilities, no matter what the disability is.
So I have a son, 37 years old, we live in Tucker, and I just want him to be able to feel comfortable anywhere he goes in Tucker, because that's where he lives.
He lives here in Tucker, and hopefully after I'm gone, he can still live here in Tucker.
So that's why I volunteered to be on this committee, and I really, really enjoyed meeting all the different other people on the committee and working with them.
I was quiet, but I was listening.
Thank you.
Call this out sometimes.
You kept us straight.
Thomas Walker.
I've lived in Tucker for 25 years.
I've been an attorney for 30.
I have primarily been an employment attorney for that whole time.
I'm very familiar with employment law.
The reason why non-discrimination order became important to me is
Because you know, a lot of people have misconceptions about the federal law.
So, you know, we don't need one because there's federal protection, let the federal laws
protect people.
Let them go that route.
But people don't understand, though, is that there are gaps in the federal law.
The Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, only that's the law that protects based
in the race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, and ethnicity.
But it only protects you if you work for employers with 15 or more employees.
The same with the ADA, the AmeriCorps with Disabilities Act.
It only protects you if you have 15 or more employees.
And it gets worse.
When you get to the ADA, the age discrimination and employment act, it only protects if you
have 20 employees.
And the other issue with the ADA is that the 11th Circuit, which is Georgia, Alabama,
Florida, they have decided that the ADA does not protect respective employees against
disparate impact and the ADA protects if you're 40 or over.
One of the things I see a lot are law firms and they advertise one to three years experience,
you know, fresh graduates.
Well, that will pretty much eliminate everyone over 40.
At my whole career, I have only known one attorney who went back to law school after age 40.
So, you know, here they are openly basically, you know, legally in the law of the circuit getting away with discriminating based on age, you know, because of the disparate impact.
Other circuits have decided that you can't do disparate impact discrimination under the ADA,
But that's, you know, there's a split and we live in a lot of circumstances that doesn't matter what the ninth might do.
And age discrimination is really something that's very important to me because I had my own cell practice during the great recession.
And I had so many people calling me up who had been fired.
And they were having to make unemployment claims.
And employers were fighting them because the people who were in that age group,
They were the first to be fired because they were the most expensive employees.
They had a harder time finding work because people just didn't want experienced employees.
Employers were aggressive with fighting because there were so many people out there.
So it was something that I really first saw firsthand was an issue.
And the thing I like about our non-discrimination ordinance is that it fills in the gaps and
it protects everybody.
It doesn't just protect, you know, one group here protects every one of us.
At some point we're going to hopefully will be 40 or older.
And, you know, there's a protected group that everyone could follow into.
The other thing, why I think the discrimination ordinance is important,
is it levels the playing field.
Like I said, if you're 15 more employees, you have to worry about this stuff.
If you have 14 more employees, you don't.
You know, what is the difference between a company with 14 employees and one with 15 employees?
So, you know, the companies and with, you know, ages, you know, 20 and 19, what's the difference?
So, you have, you know, employers that are very, very similar, yet you're applying different rules to them.
You know, the one has to look at their employee manual, that to make sure that they, you know, have training that people educated.
The other one gets like, we don't care, so you know those are the reasons why I wanted
to get involved in non-discrimination ordinance and I'll tell you I also had some of a change
of hierarchy and at one time you know I thought I was a group of like, yeah we don't need this,
what are we doing this about?
And then you know when the summer of 2020 there are some rumblings allegations that may not
have been, you know, have any true basis against a large employer, I said, well, you know,
we can't just, you know, hide behind what doesn't happen here, because we at least have
some allegation that it may not have, but that was really where I said, you know, I said,
I need to reconsider this and start thinking about it.
And then looking at a lot of the proposed ordinance and other city's ordinance, and they,
you know, revere and include, I mean, include everyone and yet age reduction, so yeah, so
that the week's time is the time for us to do this, so that's all I got.
How has it gone? Lots of great debates. I had to get back to my training of being a school
teacher to say, all right guys, time out. Let's come back. So it was very, very invaluable.
Thank you very much. Derek, anything?
Mayor and council, I just have a couple comments as for just to say thank you for the opportunity
of being able to serve. One thing that I had always kept reiterating to the members of the committee
is that when you have the opportunity to adopt this type of ordinance, I think it puts us in the forefront
of being a modern city because if you take a look at it, Tucker is not the same city that it was 15 years ago.
And it's not going to be the same city 15 years from now.
We have to make sure that we are setting the agenda to move forward to what we're going to be, not for what we are right now.
And I think when you relay that message to the people,
the individuals who it will affect the most
will be those individuals 15 years from now.
It will be immediately felt for those individuals
when we move it forward for now,
but we won't always live for now.
We will always be living for tomorrow for when it comes.
For individuals who this ordinance basically puts
a spotlight on is to make sure that it's everybody.
It's not one single protected class, it's for everybody.
And we want to make sure that we're being the city that's marketable to those individuals
who want to do business with Tucker.
When you have Tucker being put out in the forefront,
I tell the members of the committee, it will put us on a higher level,
and with that higher level, higher levels come new levels.
So you have to be ready and be equipped.
and I think by putting this ordinance in place it establishes a process of what we would do if we
were faced and had to deal with it. A lot of the cities that Andrew mentioned before, she stated
that there was not a whole lot of them, but it doesn't take a whole lot, it only takes one.
And we want to make sure that we are on that playing field that we're able to contribute and to
be able to address the needs of the citizens where who would be affected by this. And we want to
city welcoming city and inclusive of all we want all those businesses all those
developers who have those employees who this could possibly affect say hey I
want to do business over there because they not only walk the walk they talk
the talk and they do it and they have something in place for thank you I've been
I've been in human resources for the last almost 30 years and it has been one
One of those things where the types of conversations come up daily, and is anybody
know working in HR, no day is the same, and it's always faced with a situation where an
individual or an employee can come to me and say, hey, Derek, I don't know, my supervisor
is not treating me right.
This is happening.
This is what's going on.
And so I'm faced with having to deal with those types of situations day in and day out.
I never started out wanting to be an HR, you know, I was going to be an entrepreneur,
but I got bit by the bug back in the 90s so dealing in HR definitely went and asked
me to be a part of this, I said, this is right down my alley buddy, this is one of those
things where it gets me excited and I like to see the opportunity where you're able to
contribute to the advancement and the success of those in which you serve.
And that could be applied to not only to my job, but to each and every one of you job, your jobs as well.
Because when you have, I use an example, when you have an employee come to you and state that, hey,
something's not right. Well, first of all, you take that as a compliment because they don't necessarily have to share that with you.
The second part of that is that, okay, what it is that you're going to do about it.
It may not necessarily be the outcome that they were expecting, but the mere fact that you have a process in place to hear them.
That's 90% of the battle is won right there.
So, when you make sure that you put processes in place, it gives you credibility to that eye of that individual, whether that be an employee, whether that be a friend, or even an enemy, but you have a place.
you have a process and they will respect you and I necessarily agree with what the outcome is but they will respect you for the process.
Thank you.
Karen, did you want to say anything?
So I appreciate the group. I just want to tell you, you guys, your experience was invaluable and we're amazed all the time.
All of us can say that probably. We're amazed all the time about the talent that's in Tucker but not only the wealth of knowledge and talent that's there but you're willing to give it your time.
Right.
That's the difference.
You're willing to give your time.
So I want to thank you guys, Mary, thank you for the resolution, for you entrusting
us with that.
We thank the past council members who supported that resolution, and we thank our current council
members for sharing their ideas and concerns about this.
I also want to thank Angela Brooks, our outreach business coordinator and kept us organized and
shared her experiences with working with our local businesses.
Our Tucker open door leaders, Catherine Atterbury.
Mayor Claire Presley who's here tonight and George Wellborne appreciate your fourth thought and patience. All the business owners, real estate professionals, faith leaders who engaged with us in conversations and ultimately gave us recommendations that made this better. We talked to elected officials and staff members in other cities, not just around the cab or the state, but in other cities across the country. We want to thank them and then community members for the last two years, you know, three years now. We've been getting emails of support.
and also emails of concern, and it's an important reminder for us to listen to all perspectives.
And so that's what we did, so we're thankful for you guys.
So just a little bit about our process.
I don't have a fancy PowerPoint, because frankly I didn't have time, but you'll see this.
So our process, we met about an average two times per month for May to September.
During those meetings, we had different ideas, opinions, robust discussions.
We raised a lot of issues ourselves, right, and debated, but it was always in an open and respectful manner.
Then we began to reach out to business owners, business leaders, stakeholders in the community, real estate professionals, faith-based leaders in our community
to gain their insight and feedback.
We met twice with Tucker Open Door leaders as well, and, right, we know that it's not a totally exhaustive outreach.
It's similar to what these other groups were presenting tonight.
We had a community meeting, people came, or we sent out surveys, all of that.
So we know it's not exhausted, but it's a sampling of the perspectives across our community.
And there's still room for public input, there's still room when we would bring this ordinance
forward working through our city process.
There could be city hearings as well.
And so we want to be respectful of that.
You know, let's be honest. A lot of people said you're flipping crazy to bring it right now because there's an election
You know coming up and there's all this divisiveness and people were concerned
And I'm glad that they were concerned for Tucker because we love our hometown
We've always put aside our differences for Tucker right now. I say the party of Tucker the tea
And we come together. We roll up our sleeves and we get things done together for the good of the community
And I would expect that moving forward. We want to make sure it is about Tucker
right, and no other types of agendas, so I know that everybody will be
respectful and we can be happy with that. Like I said, we looked at surrounding
municipalities in Decap County who had ordinances. We looked at other cities in
Georgia and a few across the country at the local and state level. There are
states. I think maybe there's only three or four that do not have anything like
this, so we looked at some state ones as well. And then we also met with City
manager Tammy Hanlon met a few times and had conversations with City Attorney Ted Baguette
to discuss the impacts of the city, right?
It goes beyond that.
We do that with our other ordinance as well and incorporate their feedback into the
working group recommendations as well.
So in this report, gave you a little bit of the discussion and feedback, right?
There was a lot of questions that were thrown out.
This is not considered a comprehensive list, but was the most frequently raised concerns
or issues or thoughts that came up when we were talking about this.
So one why, right? That's the first thing, why?
Some people said a way to show Tucker is a welcoming city for all, right?
You're saying it, you're doing it, you've got an ordinance.
Provide a process for small businesses and complaints.
It was mentioned we, you know, sometimes these things play out on social media, right?
And people don't feel like there's a way or process for them.
So small business owners felt like they thought that was a protection for them as well.
There was a place that could handle this.
Many good things happening in Tucker.
At some times, we're overshadowed by this one concern.
So that people didn't see all this other stuff
because they were looking here.
And then public perception.
Sometimes it needs some polishing.
Because people don't know us.
And they're not living here.
What is discrimination?
Derek, you said you have people come to you
and say this and that.
It's not personal conflict.
it's not you favored this person over that person, you know, it occurs when people are treated
differently or singled out for those various reasons of who they are. Is this happening in Tucker?
How would we know? Well, how do we know if we don't have a process, right? People are going on
social media, traditional media. Sometimes we see that it play out across the metro. No one can say
for sure unless it's happened to them. Some people, you know, aren't sharing that publicly. And,
And you know, there's no process unless it fits into the federal state or somebody can
file a lawsuit.
And we've seen that recently with some lawsuits covered by the A.J.C. with some businesses,
not here in Tucker, but in other places.
Thomas, you talked about the federal and state laws that are in place and explained those
quite well.
In fact, that was a big concern of some former council members.
And so if you look at the ordinance, proposed ordinance, draft ordinance, you'll see that
But we will say if this is a federal or state law, it goes there.
No double jeopardy.
We'll be there to help guide that with a hearing officer to say here so you go to here
so you refer to, but that'll be theirs.
Fair Housing Act, you know, exceptions are included as well.
That falls under state and federal laws, so people were worried about that, right?
I have a room in my house and I want to run it out.
Well, under Fair Housing Act, you can do that, right?
you can do that. And it doesn't limit, you know, maximum number of occupants. I know we've had
that discussion here with us. Does it impede economic development? Does it make businesses think
twice about locating here? Conversations we had, you know, most companies have their own policies
that they follow. Companies are in competitive environment, recruitment and retention, younger,
new generation of employees are looking for this type of thing. And then there's not been a mass
exodus from any city that's adopted one of these so I think we always have
these what ifs what if what if and I'm glad that we do that but you know there's
also a way of being extreme with that as well well this burden small
businesses yeah there is that concern for some people you know it could be
cost-saving because maybe you have a local process to go through and you're
not having to hire that lawyer and go through a lawsuit sometimes you can
resolve conflicts quicker, city recommends and pays for mediation, mediation, very important.
It's a complaint driven process, so no one's going out looking for these things, right?
You're coming in and there's a filing fee, there's a sworn statement, there's a hearing officer
to review to protect against frivolous claims.
Some small business owners said yeah, they would welcome a process.
They also requested a lot of them said, you know, it would nice to have resources and
educational type, you know, I'm a restaurant tour. This isn't my thing. But if
there's some education classes that there's somewhere you can point me or
their resources, I'd like to be able to start to do that with my employees.
People talk about Georgia being a right-to-work state. That was brought up. That has
more to do with unions. Georgia and Al will at will employment state. That yeah,
you can be terminated without warning. How do we express the intent to be more
educational and compliance versus punishment. That was a big conversation we
talked about the role of mediation and it's a registered mediator as you'll
see in the proposed ordinance so so mediators have to register with the state
so if that process there optional workshop education once per year provide
resources on a city website maybe we have a page like some of the others do. Mesa
Arizona has an excellent one by the way that we looked at FAQs process forms and
And then, you know, the ordinance, yeah, it's an ordinance, there's going to be a punishment,
right?
I mean, that's what an ordinance is about.
So you got grasses, 12 feet, you know, there's something you got to do about that.
So this one, very, very, and we'll go into the detail of that in a minute, but it's up
to, right?
So some said, here's your fine.
Here's your fine.
Well, municipal losses, you can only find $1,000, it could be $1,000 a day, right?
For some cases, but that's not what we're talking about here.
It's up to, right?
up to 500 first offends up to a thousand and there's also an in lieu of option and
lieu of being a corrective or compliance action plan, right? I made a mistake
here's what I'm going to do moving forward. How do we address a variety of
religious organizations located in Tucker and to be more inclusive by that
definition? A lot of other ordinances just use the IRS definition so as you'll
see ours is expanded because we have a lot of different religious
organizations here, religious social service agencies, schools, and so we wanted to make
sure that we were inclusive of all faiths as well.
And there's also protections there if you don't have a faith, right?
Concerns about passing upcoming Supreme Court rulings on whether they applied with the public
accommodation law to compelling artists to speak or stay silent, violating the free speech
clause of the First Amendment.
You're going to see a lot of that coming up in the news.
everybody talks about the Baker, everybody talks about that in Colorado.
We know that sometimes the Supreme Court narrowly gives their rulings.
And so just like any other ordinance, if there is a decision that's made,
we may have to update our ordinance based on those rulings.
We've had to do that before with state law.
And we've had to do that before with other ordinances.
And then, the last but not least, we did this to ourselves as well, a myriad of scenarios.
Right?
What if this?
What if that?
Yes.
And Ted Vega got tired of me calling him with all these scenarios, and he said that every
time one of them came up, and I appreciate you taking those calls, and it's serious.
I am joking, but it is serious because everybody says, what if this happens?
What if that happens?
It's a complaint driven process, right?
There's no certainty under any ordinance that we have.
Nothing is ever pure, these are hypotheticals.
There's always, he started asking me questions.
Always additional circumstances.
And I said, well, here's the scenario somebody gave me.
And then, you know, not every ordinance goes through such a process, right?
Sometimes we just have to have faith of that.
It's like a zoning ordinance.
We all vote on zoning.
And we always, you know, it's uncertain, right?
And it's scary because we're making those decisions.
And I think there's a similarity probably here as well.
So our recommendation, the working group looked at all of it.
We wanted to be sure it focused on equity, inclusion,
and compliance, similar to the resolution
and had those tones as well.
Warning complaints like Andrea said,
good faith discussion, mediation, voluntary resolutions.
So Derek, when we talked about naming it,
non-discrimination was so negative right it's negative so equitable and inclusive practices
so we looked at the name equitable and inclusive practices you have your draft here I'm
just going to highlight some things that are a little different than some of the others
people may have have seen before or looked at and I'll start that one on page 7 so we start
with definitions, we start with intent. First thing is hearing officer, we really thought
that this person needs to know their stuff, right? We're really, really lying on them.
We are hearing officers already that work through processes here in our legal system
for the city. So it should be a member of the State Bar of Georgia and good standing
and a practicing attorney for at least five years, mediator. We did not have definitions
for mediator or mediation. And some small business owners said, you know, is that binding? Tell
me about mediation. They were very curious about it. They didn't understand it. So we thought,
okay, we're going to put definitions in here about mediation and also perhaps that's a resource.
You know, what is it? How does it work? So the mediators third party registered with the Georgia
Office of Dispute Resolution. So that's different than the other ordinances. Our ordinance, you know,
the state would recognize our list of mediators that we would work with Ted and Tammy if this would
pass to put that together for them.
And then 15 religious organizations,
entities which include are not limited churches,
mosques, synagogues, temples, non-denominational
ministries, inter-denominational mission organizations,
faith-based social agencies, religious schools,
other entities whose principal purpose
is to study practice and advancement of religion.
We decided to call anybody who had a complaint filed against them the respondent because some people, you know, we thought that sounded better.
They're responding to that complaint, other ordinances.
What was the other term that they used?
Accused or something, right? We want to make sure.
And then verifiable delivery.
To add thanks for that when we're starting to put that in all of our ordinances, meaning
there's many different ways that people can be notified.
One thing to point out that I don't think anybody pays attention to, but we did civil
rights declared, this is on page 8 guys, the right of an otherwise qualified person.
We're not saying the person has to be qualified first, right?
So the right of an otherwise qualified person to be free from discrimination.
Let's go to exceptions, exception number one, religious organization that employs an
individual to perform work connected with the organization.
That insists that the employee adhere to the tenants of the religious organization as
a condition of employment.
We're not saying they have to be the same religion, right, so there are some laws that do.
This expands upon that and just says you're hiring somebody to do any work at your religious
organization, you know, and you expect them to follow the tenets of your religion.
It doesn't prohibit them from limiting their accommodations, advantages, facilities,
membership, or privileges.
That's number two.
Number four, a lot of these ordinances just say a business is not required to hire, right,
or retain.
We just said employee, right?
They don't have to employ on qualified or on competent personnel.
That one was different than the others.
Five and six are the same.
Number eight on page nine, we look at senior living.
We have some senior living facilities here.
It also places designated for people, individuals with disabilities.
Here is where we mentioned.
And so...
HUD, state of Georgia and Fair Housing Act. Again, these are exceptions. Beneficial pricing. Sometimes you have those senior discounts, veterans, students. So we put an exception in there for that. Place the public accommodations, single sex designated areas within those public accommodations. So a gym, a gym that has a single sex locker rooms. And then, you know, as long as it does not discriminate against other protected groups identified in the
ordinance and then last but not least unfortunately sometimes we have some
people who like to have a lot of fun at restaurants or other places and you
know sometimes somebody has to be kicked out of an establishment right for
their behavior the behavior towards employees and such and so there's a there's
a protection in there as well moving to enforcement something that was
different from some previous drafts you may have seen we talk about the
complaint form and that would be a resource that we would work on with our legal team to
get that up and running.
I know Andrea, you looked at some from other other placed jurisdictions and then they have
to do a sworn statement.
They just similar to what we do when we say we want to run for office, so they're doing
a sworn statement.
That's not in all of them, but it's in some number two is important there to avoid multiple
legal actions.
So, people were worried about that, right?
People, somebody's going to come here, they're going to go here, they're going to test it
out everywhere.
To avoid multiple legal actions, if the complainant has filed a complaint with a state or federal
agency or court alleging the same facts, the hearing officer will dismiss the city of Tucker
complaint to allow the appropriate agencies or court to address the allegations.
Number three, if the complaint states a claim that would be a violation of existing state
or federal law, or as an jurisdiction of those agencies, they'll also help refer that complaint over.
And referring just means, you know, we're not making them take it, we're not saying it, we're going to give a pathway.
Here's where you should go. It's not here.
But most people might feel more comfortable coming into City Hall, right, to ask those questions, or work through the city,
and may not know about other places for them to go.
And we had a case like that previously,
but we didn't have a process in place for it.
Another thing that is different down here.
Number nine, I know Decatur does this as well.
Having a city pay for the maximum of six hours
of mediation, showing that that's important to us.
And as Andrea said, if people can't
I saw something in six hours and they're not going to solve it.
The mediation should be completed.
So the mediator, Ted talked to us about, you've got to let us know whether it's successful
or not, right?
The mediation is successful or not.
That's number 10 or
12.
That's the same as some others.
Number 13 just allows the hearing officer to be able to advise unacceptable evidence or rules
for subvenient evidence, and then just some differences here that we talked about again.
So let's say it goes through the process and within 10 business days of the conclusion
of a hearing, the hearing officer can dismiss it, right?
So it worked out, it failed to state the fact sufficient to evoke any kind of disciplinary
action.
B, if there is a violation, a person or a business, could be found subject to a civil
penalty of up to $500 again important to our group to say up to for the first violation
and up to $1,000 for each subsequent violation and then in addition to or enlu of that you
can impose or request a corrective action plan for future compliance I know Thomas that
was one that was really really important to you because of the work that you do and what
you see day in and day out there. 17 you know the parties they don't like the
final decision and there's 30 days they can go to the Superior Court of
Decad County that's similar to other other ordinances. Part two on page 11
holds us accountable right at our HR practices. We talked to Tammy about that in
Ted, and Tammy has, we've got a handbook that we use, but we're also in the process
of hiring an HR manager.
That was important to folks because, quite frankly, Don Serino said, you know, I don't
want my taxpayer money going, you know, because we didn't have practices in place, procedures
in place, and we do.
Part three, I haven't, we have an XX there, part one of this ordinance will take effect,
You know, so many days after passage, that's really, you know, can we get some information
up on the website?
Can we get it out to the businesses and their occupational tax certificates?
And you know, what is best in the function of the city to get that started if it passes?
is part four gives the city manager and city attorney
they can develop the administrative procedures
as necessary to give effect to the ordinance.
Economic development department and conjections
communications create and implement a plan
to inform businesses and residents in the city
of Tucker about the ordinance if it would pass.
And plan to include an educational opportunity at least
once per year.
And we talked about maybe partnering
with other business groups in Tucker to do that to help educate their small business owners.
And then this is similar to the resolution when we get out the occupational tax certificates
to have a copy of this distributed to every holder of that. And then the last part is just you know
our legal ease that we put in for every ordinance just saying if there's issues with one paragraph
sentence or clause, you know, it's declared unconstitutional, the whole thing doesn't get
thrown.
I know it fast.
I know we've been here for a while, so we'll get this to Bonnie, for you to put up
others to add it, just to review the draft ordinance, and just again, want to thank everybody,
thank everybody for their time and consideration and patience on this.
Carrie, did you want to say anything before we do questions?
Yes, thank you.
I am very proud of the process and thrilled to be a part of the group.
As you know, last fall's election was a tough time for this community and I believe this will bring us unity.
We have thoroughly reviewed a variety of opportunities here and I think this NDO is one of the best in the community.
It can make us city kind of a better city for what it's worth.
And finally, I think that it really solidifies what we can represent in Tucker to continue to
unify everyone.
And I want to thank Anne for her caring concerns for the community, how much time she's
been to get by in.
We spent a tremendous amount of time in our work session meetings and meeting with the open
door group and a variety of other key players.
I just want to thank all of them for their input and their commitment and their time and I want to urge mayor and council to move forward with this process.
Thank you.
Well, I have to add my thanks also to our fellow council members who have led the process but especially to community members who are willing as others have put it out to put in a lot of time and effort.
many of you on lots of other issues, so that's just this one, so thank you, we're grateful
for your work.
And also I'll say for respecting the process, respecting the need for a process.
We had in our original charter in order to protect minority views on the council, we had a provision
that allow anyone, council member, at any time, to add something to the agenda and cause
us to take it up and discuss it in act or not act or whatever.
Somewhere along the way, I think, as part of our charter review commission, we changed
that to two.
Just to keep it from, you know, we realize there was a lot of potential for a rogue act
or somebody who just had a burn or saddle, as they say, I'm going to get to you know well.
So we changed it to just to add a little bit of protection to that.
But that's been the case, and all along this time, any two members of council could have
got together.
It's sick of talking about it, and I'm sick of hearing about it, thinking about it, whatever
I want to force some action, and it's a credit that they have not, because there's a lot
of disagreement.
There's a lot of open questions, there's a lot of, I think, hypotheticals are what we do in
in whatever kind of ordinance is owning or contracts,
all the stuff we do, we ask, what if and what about
and suppose that and we have to go through those things.
So I have questions that I want to ask this is kind of our
time for council members to ask our fellow council members
about the process and the ordinance and the thinking
so that we can kind of understand the conclusions
and are we all in some kind of consensus about them.
So, it's sort of like that organized it a little bit
so that we're not just all over the place,
and I'm gonna suggest that we start with kind of questions
about the process, you've heard a lot of it described.
But about what you all did,
how you came to certain conclusions,
did you consider other things,
what was the discussion, that sort of thing.
So, Noel, if that's okay with you,
or do you have something to interject at this point?
Well, I just wanted to thank everybody for working hard on this
frank. It was a long process and I know that
Anne and her group came together and put that together and I would gladly
second this in a heartbeat. I just wanted to let you know where I was on it.
Process, not process. It's been in the wing for a while.
I think the current iteration of the organets
is written very well. I think that Andrea and Sandra and Thomas and Derek did their due diligence
and walk through it. I think Ted walked through it. I don't see there's a lot more left to do,
but to put it on our docket and let the public take a good look at it. It's all I have to say.
Thank you.
Roger. Yeah, I want to kind of join into well, but I met with Virginia and Kara for
lunch last week and it was my first eyes on this document. I know Andy sent me a new one today
but I wasn't able to see it or print it at nap time since you found out I wasn't going to be there.
It was very comprehensively written and you know I found a few vagaries that we'll talk about
that I think need to be sharpened but what an incredible document and a large document and
and I want to thank Ann and Karen Virginia
and certainly Derek Andrew and Tom
who were very eloquent tonight
because especially Tom, I wasn't a huge fan
of codifying this type of thing
because I was one of the guys that Tom pointed out
that said, hey, we got federal state laws
but obviously I know that 15 and under it doesn't apply.
So ultimately where I wanted to see a document that said, we love everyone, welcome to Tucker,
it's not practical the way this document is practical, and I'm hoping in the introspection
that I'm seeing this through the eyes of someone who doesn't think to discriminate so that in that
effect that's why I didn't think we needed to talk, but I guess others do, and I'm very, very happy
with all the work everyone put into this because it was an incredible amount and it's obvious in the
product. So thank you and I'm with Noel.
So questions about the process, anything that
has gone over about what they did and all that.
There was a lot of talk about over the course of
several years, whether we're authorized as a city to regulate businesses in this kind of way.
I had a conversation with Ted about it, and if I can put words in his mouth, I think
what he told me was very affirmatively, we don't know that it's the laws on clear
on it.
Did you all discuss that?
Did you,
how did you come down on, we don't know if it's legal, but we want it forward
to head anyway.
So we did.
And he said, you know, it's gray, and that's what we heard from other city attorneys and
other cities as well. And we decided that that was okay with us and that we would move forward
forward with that. We've got attorneys and mediators and on our working group and we've seen
other city attorneys say the same thing and we appreciate it his honesty and we know that he has
good experience working with cities across the state and we understood that but we thought
But, you know, it was time to do this anyway.
I heard some things that I want to ask you if I heard it right, but the question that
I had written for myself was, how do we assess the size and the scale of the problem now?
In other words,
usually, I don't know, maybe I won't care, I expect we would have such
an ordinance as a response to an identified problem.
It's out there. It's creating fronts to help.
I think we talked a little bit about in the report, you know, we don't have a process, right? So how do you guys shake in your heads, you know, how do we know? We hear things, you know, people shared their experiences with us.
We talked about our working group had experienced some things as well, but we don't have a process
to say, quantifiably, there's been 20 issues of this, this is what they ranged in.
Quite frankly, we don't have that process, so we don't know.
We do know from other cities as well, I think City of Atlanta's had four or five.
Other cities have had people file complaints, but it's not gone through the entire process.
There's either been a mediation or they have said, you know what, this doesn't fall under this, right?
But I cannot tell you, yeah, we have, we have this happens once a week in Tucker, you know, we don't know.
So I think to the question of we don't know, maybe we don't know specifics, but I think it's really
important that these are, we recognize that these are called protected classes for a reason,
and they're called protected classes because historically they have not been protected.
They have not received the same rights and treatments as people that don't fall into those classes.
And so while we may not have specific detailed data because often when people have raised their voice,
they have been further penalized for raising their voice about the things that have happened to them,
that part of this which I appreciate so much how you all included the inclusive language,
the equitable language that we are. We have to think about that too. Qualitative data is important
and we know from quantitative data outside of our city that this happens and so giving people
a process and a voice and I really appreciate the framework for mediation. I hope that that's a
process that we can apply to other components of our ordinances and think about that. So I just want
to say that I think we really have to recognize that these are protected classes who have historically
been harmed in various ways and so we really need a process for them to be able to safely
share their experiences if they are happening, which they probably are.
Thanks. I'm trying for myself to avoid making statements or debating the issue. I really
just have a lot of questions and I see some as I have problematic aspects in making law to
a dress, in this case, an issue that maybe for good reasons, maybe for real reasons,
we don't know the size and the scale, so we don't know whether our law would address
it or make it worse or have some unintended consequences.
So did I hear somebody in the presentation say that we need to pass the law to create a process
to figure out if we have a problem, is that?
I don't, I'm not trying to put words on anybody's mouth, but I think I heard somebody say something to them.
No, I think it's more, the process is there if there is an issue, right?
It's not to create issues, it's if there is an issue.
The federal government has the process, they didn't do that to create issues or other states have this process as well.
But I don't think it's, let's do it so we find out if we have issues, it's there if we need it.
We have similar ordinances that are there if we need it.
Can you give me an example of that?
We don't have, I mean we didn't have as far as I know, rampant scooters all over our city.
But we've all passed an ordinance regulating that behavior because of the potential.
Did you all ask
or investigate on this issue of all these federal laws and some state laws
that have a threshold less than 15 employees.
Did anybody investigate why those laws are written that way?
I mean, they've been coming up on 60 years
in the case of Title VII, dozens of them,
the ADA, all these thresholds.
Are you saying that you conclude that that's a mistake
that we need to fix, or did anybody ask
or attempt to answer why those thresholds exist?
I see Thomas or Andrea looking like they're kind of wanting to get out of here for our council members. Thank you.
I didn't do any investigation on that. No, but I'd like to hear from our experts who talked about it.
Yeah. I mean, what they were in our working group. That's why I wanted it.
Yeah, but it's a council meeting. I'm trying to just because I don't want to have a whole room full of people talking about it.
I would ask that you allow them, because when we did the
friends of Tucker Path, we asked some questions to those folks.
Is that okay?
Thomas, why does this federal government have thresholds like that?
And is it a mistake that we need to fix, or is there some rationale we ought to consider?
Because in 1964, a lot of people didn't want to have a law regarding discrimination.
So, Title VII, originally it was going to be about race and ethnicity and other things,
and there's a large group that said we don't want any protection for against discrimination.
And so many got the broad idea that they're going to put a poison pill into it.
And the poison pill was, you know, why don't we also protect against discrimination based
on sex?
But that had the opposite, because then somebody made the argument, well think about
what your daughters think about, you know, the women in your life do you want them to
be discriminated against?
So the 15 was arbitrary, it was basically something to appease those who just didn't want
any discrimination law to say, okay, all right, well, you know, we can see that this will
apply to bigger employers and, you know, they did, and they also want to drive small employers
you know, into the whole process, because with Title VII,
your person goes files and complains with the EOC.
Well, they go to the EOC, and they file a charge of discrimination,
then it goes sent to the employer, and the employer has to do,
provide a position, statement, explaining why there was no discrimination.
And then, after that, then there may be some more investigation,
and the EOC can go ahead and file a lawsuit against that employer, or they can file
no finding of no cause, and then give the issue a right to seal letter, and the individual
can go and then bring their own lawsuit.
If it's going on for too long a period of time, the individual can say, you know what,
EOC, get out of my way, give me my right to seal letter.
So, the thought was, well, you know, we're going to go with 15, you know, as the threshold
is partly to get people to say, all right, well, we don't want any of this, but we'll
go with that, um, is compromised.
And, uh, you know, you're talking about something that was 1964.
Now, if you look at other states, they don't have, I can't think of what went off the
top of my head.
other states will have different thresholds. Title 7 is a floor. It's the minimum that has
to be done, but states can go and provide more protection than Title 7. So, you're looking
at something, you're looking at a law in 1964 where a lot of people didn't want it, a lot
Southern legislators voted against it. It wasn't a very popular thing but it was
the right thing to do. 15 was, you know, what can we do to get this thing passed
and that's, you know, over the gold wine and that's why you have it there.
So the
Navy burdens too, right? They wanted to, they thought maybe that process would be
a burden to a small business versus maybe a process like that.
So that was been on
in the books for 58 years since 1964.
Through periods where the presidency of both houses of Congress
were all held by one party or the other
and later by the other party, and it's been back and forth,
every conceivable combination that thresholds remained.
The poison pill or otherwise still
left wondering,
maybe there's some good reason why something like that exists.
this, maybe there's some good reason why states who have the latitude to make a different
threshold haven't gone down to one or zero and I think it has to do, I'm going to keep
asking questions, forgive me.
That's fine, I think some local ones started at five.
I remember Mesa, I think started at five in the way or more.
But are this proposal is for one, is that proposal to us, is every employer of every size,
There's no limits, no threshold.
Did you all talk, so it's been three years plus now that we've been having this conversation?
Have things in this regard deteriorated in those three years?
Now that it's been on the table, it's been on everybody's mind.
Are we better or worse about the same?
We don't know.
What's happened in recent history?
Well, I'd say it became a divisive issue, right?
So I think we're probably worse not having these types
of discussions that we put it off for quite a while, you know.
I don't know about the climate of, as discrimination,
been worse or not, right?
But I would say, that's what I mean.
Do we have any measure or any way to judge or since?
No, no.
I mean, again, I think the question is, are we talking
about locally or are we talking about regionally?
Are we talking about statewide?
I think there's been a slew of pretty discriminatory legislation that think goodness hasn't passed
around some of the protected classes that we're talking about in this ordinance.
So I do think that there, we don't, I think you said it so well, Derek,
that we don't want to, we want to have a process in place for when something does happen.
And maybe we will be blessed and nothing will happen to people.
but we give an opportunity. So I know there was a nearby city where somebody was discriminated
against based on their expressed gender, you know their gender expression and they had no
recourse because there wasn't anything in place. So I think and I really liked your kind of
summary that you had around kind of answering those questions because you said this gives a process
so it's not just social media or traditional media as the only way to adjudicate issues when they come up.
I mean, that was what we heard from small business owners and other people making
it.
So I heard, I read, assuming that the version you gave me tonight is the same or essentially
the same is what we had before.
But I've heard really kind of since the beginning of this conversation, three years ago, I heard
tonight plainly, this is everybody.
This is, this offers protections to everybody, we all fall into one or more of the groups
that are protected.
it's for all of us. I can't square that within the same breath, we talk about protected
classes and covered groups and all that. When we talk about groups and classes and
categories, we necessarily refer to them as if they're monoliths. If everybody who's
in this group thinks or feels or experiences the same thing because they're in that group.
So, throughout, I'll get to some questions when we talk about the ordinance, in particular,
is it everybody, do we need to name, I can't score that, give me some feedback.
I'm covered as part of everybody, right, so you could describe me according to my age
and my race and my sexual, whatever, I'm covered, so if I, are you saying I have a complaint,
I can file under this act just like anybody else in the room can.
If you felt you were being discriminated against one of these things.
So I mean, you've got some, you're welcome to do that.
So what protected group am I in?
I'm sorry, use myself as an example.
We can just Thomas or Matthew back there.
Well, I mean, explicitly obviously it's age, but it's also about
If somebody comes to you and says just the things you named and said, I'm not going to hire you because you're a white man over 40, then that is a discriminatory statement and you were discriminated against.
There are groups that meet a lot of categories that kind of systemically can be discriminated against.
But any person who follows under this could potentially be discriminated against.
I think your chances are lower but it could happen.
So is this for everybody or do we need to name groups and how do we deal with the idea
that what we really want is everybody just get along but we're going to call out this
group, it's illegal to discriminate against this group, it's illegal to discriminate against
that one, and we're adding to the list that the federal law calls out,
a group that has
been called in by the Bostock case. I'm just...
I'm going to be looking for some clarity on, are we talking about predictive groups or are we talking about everybody? I think everybody likes to say everybody, right? But there are some people who won't be covered under this. That's just a fact, right? Just like they aren't covered on the federal law, as well, or some of the state laws either. And then as I pointed out before, too, it's the right of an otherwise qualified person, right? As well. So there is some clarity. Yeah, there is some clarity.
some clarity there as well. So sure, not everybody has covered it.
That's a really important statement. We'll come back to it one day we'll debate all this.
I think, I think, you know, out loud people will say that, right? But it is discrimination based on these factors right here, sure.
And to understand thinking about the whole subject at a high level, this is about going forward,
making sure that these bad things don't happen, as opposed to corrective action for past
wrong.
Does that make sense? In other words, this applies to some action that I or
to rip over there might take tomorrow, as opposed to finding that the city has for some
time now engaged in bad behavior. This is not a time to address that, just what happens
from this day forward. Is that the ordinance when the ordinance would take effect?
And
I just want to say y'all have done such a great job on like delineating the time
that that process takes.
So I mean there is a very time bound from the data that occurs.
Like you've spelled out a time and a way for everybody involved in the conversation
to address that.
That's both enough time as well as not in perpetuity.
So I think there's a really nice balance in the process that y'all have worked out.
Well, and there was a discussion and Ted might be able to clarify this too, as well.
The majority of ordinances talked about 90 days, somebody has 90 days to file, right?
You know, I was like, come on, 30 days, let's get it done.
But our legal folks said 90 days is a good amount of time.
And then Ted, I don't know if it would be, you know, let's say something passes, it takes
effects of January 1, does the clock start there?
Or could somebody from the previous 88 days
come forward on January 1?
Was that what you were getting at?
It depends on what the ordinance will set the statute
and when it will be effective,
and whether it's grand, father, or not.
My question really has less to do with those nuances and more to do with, are we trying
to correct historical, long history, historical wrongs, structural, whatever may have been
the way of the world in the past.
We're not trying to go punish somebody for what they've been doing for the last ten years.
We're saying, hey, it's a new day and from some day going forward, this process exists
for someone to follow.
And
add on to that, just really quickly, because I think you mentioned this when you
were talking, but I know when we had our conversation, you spent a little bit more time on it.
You know, I've always heard that you grow the most when you make a mistake, right?
Learning from your mistakes is where you have growth.
And like, I so appreciate, Tom, you being like, you know, I wasn't on this side of it.
And now I am.
And we can all grow as individuals, and so I think the education opportunities that you all
have named in here are really good, and again, not mandatory, but something that gives
us more opportunity for more people to grow.
So I just wanted to add that in terms of it's not meant to be punitive solely, it's meant
to be able to be an opportunity for growth and reconciliation.
What alternatives to an ordinance did you guys consider?
or anything short of, or instead of the force of law
as Andrea put it, you know, you've heard me say,
that bottom government existed and forced the law, right?
Government can't love its neighbor, government can't,
I mean, at bottom, when we pass a law,
that law gets enforced with force.
So, is there any, did you consider any middle ground,
any other paths to reconciliation and anything
the city could do or provide or encourage, it would help resolve whatever issue might
come up, sort of passing a law with punitive outcomes.
No, I mean, we had the resolution, you had passed the resolution.
We thought it was a good first step and good intent, but to us the ordinance was the next
step.
or those other things,
right, to have those other steps in place, other types of compliance
in place.
Sorry, I thought I'd turn it on.
Organizing around what the NDO is about, if you just have a resolution, you're not institutionalizing
the process for people to come forward.
And that's one of the things that we heard over and over from the community.
And it is a balance when you have ordinances.
I mean, we've debated other things already this year.
You know, and in the past, the council has as well.
You know, there are several, you know,
control steps and ordinances that you have to weigh.
I think it's really important that right now,
this just changes the resolution.
It goes much further.
So, and I know it.
committee be willing to consider middle ground options?
We can hear them out.
I think we would.
I think we would listen.
Did you have any public hearings during your meeting time
where did you open anything to the public
to come offer their thoughts?
We didn't have any public hearings.
We had conversations.
I know it was important in our previous discussions.
You talked about that people felt comfortable,
right expressing their concerns or their thoughts around this and so we
wanted to do that to allow that and once we got to this point you know if this
would go forward we we would assume we would have public hearings because it's an
ordinance. But other than those you you have a then you're not planning to have
any kind of public input sessions. No.
I saw that you included the folks from
I'm sure there's folks out there we have not heard from those folks we have heard throughout
this time from people who have had concerns, I think Thomas you were one of them.
But also, you know, a lot of times, and I don't want to make an assumption here, but you
will see that faith leaders, religious organizations have concerns about these ordinances, and
we did that outreach.
There were some changes that were incorporated in this because of that.
I think there probably still are some of those concerns, and we're having those conversations.
but you know I want them to know that we're listening and we're hearing and we heard them as well.
So you know there could be and you know we receive emails and feedback all the time
and I'm sure once this comes out and we have a public hearing we'll hear from some other voices as well.
But for now, it's a possible exception of Thomas early in the process.
No, but we heard from business owners and other business community stakeholders that express their concerns as well.
Do they still have those concerns, or did you satisfy them with changes that you made?
I would say I think some of the changes that were made were satisfied and I will tell you several folks have said this stuff is not going away.
whatever they meant by this stuff like these concerns are not going away and we
would rather see it addressed and have a process in place than to let these
things linger on. But to be clear you they say this stuff's not going away they're
referring to advocacy for
advocacy for human rights actually. Well advocacy yes
but also the fact that they want to be sure you know that they are following
rules, they want to be able to take this and learn from it and be able to address it
with even their own employees. Right? Yeah. Right. But there's no basis to say we've got
this big problem in this arena that's not going away. We don't know.
We speculate. We think
so we hear anecdotal tales from people here or elsewhere. So yeah, there may be some sense
that, of course, bad things happen, but we don't know the scale, and we've talked about
that. Why are we deploying a hearing officer instead of using our municipal court?
I saw where some of the cities that had a police department, they used those to serve the
respondents, I think that was Brookhaven indicator, some of them used
immutable courts. You know, we could do that. We could use our immutable
court. We looked at the hearing officer perspective of it just like we have
with alcohol licenses and those such things. Working with the businesses, we don't
have anybody taking a business license but we felt like the hearing officer
process would be better.
So we use the hearing officer for alcohol licenses and
they come back and they can feel that's right. So we felt we looked at other
ordinances and they use the hearing officer as well. Several that I will say
again that had like their own police departments some of them used their
municipal, municipal judge. We could be open to that. It's the same thing as long as there is a process in place.
So, if we're going to have a hearing officer, what's the process? Who appoints the hearing officer?
How do they get evaluated and or dismissed? How does that, I didn't see that it was addressed in the ordinance.
Right now, our current process is that you appoint the hearing officer, correct?
The mayor does.
Yeah,
the mayor does, but I know that you've consulted in the past of the city attorney
as well, correct?
When we have appointed our hearing officers, they've had qualifications.
Here we talk about them being in good standing with the state bar of Georgia and then having,
you know, five or more years of experience.
So I would assume we would work with the legal team to get a list of folks in place.
And so, well, I guess I'll just leave it at that and say it's something that ought to be addressed.
If we're going to call for a hearing officer, we ought to spell out all those aspects of it.
Um, this may be more of a question for Ted. I don't recall seeing, I don't have any
experience at all, a city declared civil rights. There's a section in here that's devoted
to a declaration of civil rights.
Clearly we're asserting through this ordinance that we have
standing to declare civil rights.
Do you want to speak to it? I don't even know what to,
I don't know where to turn to understand that.
I mean, it's limited.
You'll see it.
I mean, Atlanta did it.
And that's the one case we have.
Atlanta.
Pest and anti-discrimination ordinance.
And they declared in the 90s.
Well, they granted a civil right.
They recognized domestic partner benefits at a time when gay marriage was not legal.
And that became part of the challenge to that ordinance at our state supreme court.
That's really the only case we have.
I'd have to look back at some of these other cab ordinances to see if they declared a civil
rights, but I think they did in these kind of terms, places of public accommodation and
employment, but none of those ordinances have been challenged.
So is there a standard legal sort of accepted definition of what is a civil right?
You don't have to tell me what it is, I just wonder if such a thing exists.
as
we've learned in law school, it depends.
I mean, there are definitions in these acts,
the federal acts that we're all talking about,
there's definitions in these ordinances.
But inevitably there's, you know, a vagueness system.
They mean exactly and how to interpret it. And for lack of a better way of putting it, this is an evolving area of the law. So I don't think there is a definitive definition around these. There's a federal government call them civil rights. Yes.
And so my application, if we believe or successfully assert or whatever the term is that we can establish civil rights as the city of Tucker, there are lots of things.
we could apply that to. We might declare civil rights on other.
Yes.
I want to return to
the city because I know that some jurisdictions nearby and farther flowing
I think to cap counties want to have opted to apply strictures like this to themselves
and their own hiring and so forth but have declined to try to apply it to the broader
or the private businesses, property owners, like that.
Is any of this driven by allegations against the city,
either in its employment or, for example,
in our parks and rec department,
illegally discriminated or that we've done things
that may not have been illegal before,
but would be defined as illegal under this law?
Is there any of that?
But I don't believe that was ever brought up, ever mentioned, discussed.
What about boards and appointments?
No, I don't know.
I mean, we've been talking about this for three years.
I don't know.
There's never been a conversation about that.
I think our boards have been diverse in appointments.
And I don't, you know, we're not in the day and day out of the city involvement with HR,
but you have a process in place. Jacob says a process in place. So, no, that was never the intent of this at all.
In nor was it ever discussed in any conversations.
Okay. Did you, maybe, have answered this, but in the range of options, resolution, ordinance, some other middle ground,
Did you specifically talk about a do-nothing option?
Like, let's end the conversation.
We're not taking this up.
We think we're doing fine.
What's the downside?
What transpires?
What negative event happens if we take a do-nothing option?
We didn't discuss do-nothing.
The resolution set forth an NDO ordinance.
And that's what we know.
It actually did not.
Well, forgive me.
I guess I should rephrase that.
So when you pass the word that the resolutions are, when you pass the resolution and then you
ask us to, you know, move forward for a working group, for a working group, that's what I
called for and the ordinance itself, of course, says clearly that it's a statement of values,
It stops short of we're going to create a law to enforce those values on people.
That council at that time said this is what we believe, this is the way we're going
to behave and to the extent because we can control what the city does, we're going to do
that.
I think you and I have shared before and I have shared this with other folks as well as
that, you know, we had people who were elected to this new council, who were interested in
doing this, and we're going to get it passed, and so we wanted to make sure that we followed
a process, and that we made sure it was the best that it could be for Tucker and working
with maybe different groups that had not had input previously.
Well, yes, and I promised myself, and I said to y'all a few minutes ago, I'm not here tonight to debate this, and I'm trying to stick to questions about it.
But I don't consider it any foregone conclusion that we're going to pass in on discrimination ordinance in this form or some other.
I'm a little disappointed that a lot of our members seem to have come to the table and
come to the committee with a free determined outcome.
My questions and the things that I'll argue when the time comes are about attempting
to influence you that there may be some better ways to achieve the goal that I think you're
trying to achieve.
All right, let's talk to our questions about the ordinance itself.
I'd like to know, and some of it was in the Q&A that you read, the ordinance begins with a statement of purpose.
Can you give me the lay person's summary of the problem we're trying to solve with the ordinance?
We're passing this ordinance because I'm
asking our council member, committee members.
Because we're trying to protect and safeguard folks to make sure that they have qualified
persons and equal opportunity to be free from discrimination, as it says.
We want to declare that this is a welcoming city.
We are welcoming city.
Okay, and this ordinance, all the work you've done, and I recognize it's a lot of work.
This ordinance is what's needed. This is your very best recommendation on how we declare
that Tucker is in fact a welcoming, inclusive city. I'm not sure I'm getting your words
raised. No, but I understand. I think so. I believe so. I think the working group believes
so as well. And you know, there's not to say that there is not, there's always room for
improvement, but in I don't know what version we're on here, but we have taken
other input as well.
And so on the other end of that question, I mean usually
it's a pretty linear process. We have a problem, we propose a solution, we hope
for some outcome.
Tell me again, lay person's what's the hope for. So I think
sometimes we've done things to prevent problems or to provide a process in case
there is a problem. I know, Alex, as you mentioned, scooters, and that was one that I was keen
on as well, although some people probably weren't, right?
So are you saying that if we go through this process, pass an ordinance, and nobody ever
uses it, that will be evidence of success?
It could be. I don't know. It could be. It could be. It would be evidence of success if we
helped one person, just one, because that person lives in our community, and that person
is currently not protected. I know there's weird processes and things that you have hiccups
about, but I think this is super important. I thought it was super important last year.
You'll have plenty of space to make those arguments. I'm just asking about the process of
this work group, did it conclude that whether or not it ever gets used is not the point.
I mean, used as a process to resolve a dispute.
The point is to have it on the books so that we've made a statement and we'll know that
we've made the right statement if it doesn't get used.
Or it could, scenarios that we talked about also were people coming in that maybe thought
they were being discriminated against or maybe people looking we've had
something where people wanted to complain about wage differences right and we
didn't have a process in place for them to explain that but we did it but we
had informal conversation but again that was misconstrued so if there's a
process in place those people can be educated as well on what is or is not you're
not proposing a process to settle a wage an hour to speed no no no I'm saying
Yeah, but there's a process here to say, you know what? That's not us.
What do I do about this?
And despite the fact that we did that in that case,
it's the committee's belief that we need an ordinance in order to facilitate a process like that.
We can't have a process like that short of an ordinance.
So I just want to be clear because I think
it's going to become important.
One of the reasons I've been cautious about bringing this whole
discussion into the kind of wider public arena is because when we talk about groups, we divide
people. You're in this group, maybe you're in three different groups. You're in that group.
We know how you think because we know what group you're in. But this version is specifically
meant to not have that effect. But this version, this proposed ordinance, is to cover everybody
And always, all the time, anybody who has a complaint that thinks they've been discriminated
against is invited to file a claim and avail themselves of the process.
Not everybody.
Who's not?
And not in all ways.
I mean, that's going back to the civil rights piece, right?
Employment, accommodations, public accommodations, housing, and property transactions, and being
a witness to those circumstances.
So very specific things that are sort of public square and public square adjacent that you and I might be using those terms not quite exactly right but but there is a defy.
I mean, I've done such a good job on definitions. There is a very clear definition of.
Okay, on those types of transactions or interactions, but it's for everybody.
And again, qualified.
Not only certain people, though, based on race or all the other characteristics that you define in here,
everybody fits into at least one of those categories.
No.
Who does not?
You could have a white woman, maybe, 30 years of age.
Who knows what that's sex, right?
Right.
I mean, sex.
It's really circumstantial.
I mean, I think that's why they're hearing officers important, why the mediator is important,
why the complaint process is important
because the point is to get to truth, not frivolity,
and that's even named in here, I think in one point.
So, I mean, I think there's, again, I know you don't love it when I say this,
but there are systemic, historic reasons why we have to name these classes.
Because if you don't, there are people who do not get protections
in these types of transactions.
And I also want to say, yes, the group felt like there was
something important, but just like Ann said, four of us
were elected, and all of our platform and the people that
elected us felt like the NDO was an important thing for us
to pursue. So I think there is broad community support.
I think you guys have gone through a very good process.
I was one of those who, if it hadn't come to it,
would have been like, yeah, how do we get it done?
because I think it's really important.
But the process was really important
and came out with a really good resolution.
So I think there is actually broad community support
for this.
And I know five of us supported.
Well, and there's also, we have to acknowledge
there are still concerns, right?
I get it.
There are still concerns and people are always
if there's something different or change.
So, yeah, we understand that.
So, in summer of 2020, the nation was upheaval in all sorts of ways.
One of the things that was happening was there was violence all around the country in various ways.
There were incidents in our state.
The one in particular that had hit home for most of us in a serious way was a monarch,
are very smarter, still a shores, run through Georgia.
If you recall, even with only the reporting that we got from the public and then one
early legal term is, but there was a hearing where there was some direct kind of hearing
from the people involved, it was clear it was a racially motivated crime.
It was clear to me, clear enough, well, we talked a lot about what we should do about it.
There were suggestions that we pass a hate crimes law.
What we did instead was I wrote a resolution clearly stating our community's values
and we urged the state legislature to pass a law dealing with hate crimes, which they ultimately did.
So that resolution we passed with unanimous support, we didn't pass our own ordinance.
So, I'd like to know the view, y'all's view of that response and why this case calls
for an ordinance and not just a resolution in light of that earlier decision.
So, I think not passing a hate crimes ordinance had a lot to do with not having our own police
departments.
So, several of these ordinances where they have their own, and we do, I mean we do through
an agreement, IGI, right, technicality, but several, I can't remember if it's
Dunwoody or Brookhaven, they do have a piece of their non-discrimination
does have the hate crimes,
a piece of that. And I'd love if we, you know, it's not
an if or, but an and, so if we did this, we could still work at the state level. I
know a former counsel person who said, you know, I think this is a state issue.
We can still do that. There's people talking now. There are groups coming together now. To consider that there was hearings, I think, I can't remember the timeframe on that, that they had some hearings to talk about a statewide, non-discrimination ordinance. Maybe because there's many different ones across the state, so they're starting to look at that. I think that'd be great.
But all of our ordinances, I guess I'm asking Ted, all of our ordinances, so that they're
unique to Tucker and wouldn't be enforced in an incorporated cab, for example.
We deal with that through our IGA, right?
I mean, we tell our police, look, we have an ordinance about littering or prostitution or
whatever it might be, and they can charge when it occurs in the city of Tucker.
They can charge in Tucker, it goes to our municipal court.
They might do something or have to do something differently if they encountered such a thing and unincorporated to cap.
That's right. That would be a question of venue and jurisdiction.
Are you saying you want to add a hate crimes piece to this?
No, I'm asking why resolution was good enough then but not now.
Why resolution was sufficient?
I don't even think that was an option we even talked about.
So maybe if we talked about it, I don't remember people asking us specifically to pass
the hate crimes.
I remember we did say that we were working to make our views express to the state, but
I don't remember the call to action to pass one here for us or the discussion even came
up with us.
But that could be my memory.
But, well, I mean, I remember it differently, but that's not really the point.
The point that I'm trying to ask about is, for whatever reason, however much consideration we did or didn't give it,
we were satisfied that we had done our part, spoken our mind, sent it to the right legislative body,
to send our views to that legislative body for them to deal with, but we're not doing that here.
I'd be more than happy to do that here if I thought it would make headway and make a difference
there.
And maybe it would.
Let's do both.
It did before.
Yeah.
And I'm not advocating.
I'm just pointing out that sometimes a resolution, we've passed resolutions on other things,
less substantive things, recognizing members of our community and a day for, you know, taking
note of whatever the occasion might be.
I think people take those seriously, and they believe that we mean what we said, it's
not lip service, which seems like the implication that we're talking about.
But a resolution doesn't hold people accountable, and so an ordinance does, and this ordinance
does in a way that works force towards mediation and reconciliation, and then, if that can't
be resolved, what that is, it tries to be fair to all parties involved.
So some people might be confused by the purpose statements reference to being free from discrimination.
We've talked about there are kinds of discrimination that are acceptable and the law calls them out, supports them.
But I think, of course, what you mean is illegal discrimination.
And then you define discrimination further down in the ordinance, in your definitions.
And that's the discrimination you're trying to help people be free from.
But in fact, the point of the ordinance is to create and define certain forms of discrimination to become illegal.
Things that have not been illegal before were defining into illegal discrimination or what's just called discrimination in here, right?
The right and opportunity of all persons to be free from discrimination, including discrimination based on.
So maybe we take out all persons, right? I mean, I don't know, does that?
And then at the bottom are we good to go mayor it is important for the city to ensure
that persons within the city have equal act.
Yes.
So we're working really hard to have an adult discussion and I don't need the personal
attacks.
I'm the only person on this council who's asking questions that is our duty to ask that
is defending our population against potential harm and unintended consequences.
That's what I'm here for.
I'm sorry that you don't respect that, but I wish you'd work harder at it.
I understand that.
We're moving on.
Okay.
So Frank, just real, sorry mayor, real quick, is important for the city to ensure that
persons within the city have equal access to employment housing and public accommodations.
So perhaps there's an edit from that first sentence to that second.
Yeah, I'm not suggesting, I'm real, but I'm not suggesting edits or changes yet.
I'm just trying to highlight things that I think need attention.
And so it's a further the goal of including everyone that we've talked about.
We may need to add some descriptors to the kinds of, I mean, that's what we're doing
is we're adding some suggestions.
We may need to add more if we're going to go through as an ordinance like this.
We need to make sure that we cover everything we intend to cover.
So, most of the ordinances we've done, there's a pretty direct line to some authority in
our charter, right? Most of the time, I don't even talk about it because it's pretty
straightforward. We own the parks. We got to keep them clean and safe. We own the right
ways. We've got to keep them clean and safe. We've taken on the duty of, you know,
building roads, trying to take on the duty of maintaining them, so there's usually something
like that.
But I guess my question is, is there something, what do you point to in this case that gives
us the authority to enter into complex environment like employment?
Okay,
Ted, help me out here.
We had talked a little bit about this with a charter and then I know we talked about police
powers as well.
So I think what the mayor is asking about and your response gets to the very heart of the
issue with the legality of an approach like this.
If this ordinance is valid under the general police powers enjoyed by a city, there's
a specific service or power mentioned in the Constitution of the Home Rule Act that
this would be adopted for and when I keep referring to the McKinney case it's because
it's all we have.
Court talks about the inherent police power and so I think the debate will be when this
ordinance is challenged or another ordinance is challenged on appeal.
Do cities have this inherent, does the home rule power of a Georgia city?
Does it's police power authorize it to do this, that you've both put your finger on the
very legal question?
And so,
I'd like to note that the issue arises that if we can, if whatever means it's determined
that this is the kind of thing we can do is for our general police powers,
again, are there
any limits?
And I'd like to note that the committee discuss the general notion of are there limits, should
we impose limits on ourselves? Should we, from time to time, on individual subjects, say,
you know what, that's really not for us. Or is the committee's view that, you know, if we see it,
we don't talk about who jurisdiction it is, or which body of government ought to address it,
or whether it's already being addressed, and we need to fix it, it was a discussion around that kind of topic.
First
thing that comes to my mind was just with the business license revoking business licenses.
You know, there was discussions around that where is we can when there's the zoning issue,
we've seen that with recently with the business that did not comply with the stipulations
we put on their their rezoning those are in the law, those are things and there's and new
Laws, you know, the police power with nuisance laws as well. But there's if I'm right, there's
Code about circumstances under which we could revoke a business
Business lessons we want to say. Oh, sorry. Yes. Occupational tax certificate. There are things for which we can withdraw or vote
their tax certificate, but this would not be one of them, right? This wouldn't that's why that's not it. We had this ordinance
A punishment of this ordinance couldn't be that we're gonna
to ultimately revoke their business license.
There's nothing in this ordinance that authorizes that.
No.
Well, but there can't be because the law says there can't be,
is that right?
That's not a penalty we can impose for violation
of these kinds of acts.
It's spelled out what we can revoke.
Occupational texts are good for.
We could try.
I would advise against that.
So on the bigger question, if we can regulate
this behavior because we have general police powers is the sky the limit or
are there things that you all believe as council members discussions in your
committee that we should stay away from because it's not our lane we were
focused on this discussion and did not venture into any of those other topics now
Is it a current sign to you now that it's been bothering you?
Because it worked a few years ago with a future council.
Yeah, I always worry about that because when we had cityhood movement and people ask
what's your biggest concern and I said who you elect, right?
So it could, sure.
And we've seen other cities do that as well, so there's never any certainty.
I'm asking lots of questions, I'll pause anytime somebody else has one.
I'm about to move on to specifics of the language and the ordinance.
So,
the first sentence and the second paragraph of the purpose intent statement at the very beginning and that's six in your handout.
Did they, I've been meaning to ask, did Roger and Noel get the second?
So, the second paragraph and section 30-30 on begins with, the city of Tupper hereby declares that it is intended that whenever possible, any complaints arising in this, under this ordinance, be resolved by good faith discussion mediation.
or other forms of voluntary dispute resolution.
Does that, I mean I guess it's the same question in a different form as earlier, is this
the force of law as one of our presenters put it, or is this encouraging people to do
the right thing and resolve their differences sort of invoking the law and the court system
and so on?
So yeah, I think it's we're saying the intention is and we've got a process there, you know, for
mediation, but if that doesn't work, then we've got this ordinance.
I think this is the place where the language must be different because I had a note that
this ordinance was to be used as a guide, that specific word that I was asking about.
I guess my concern would be that some future time does it undermine the force of law that the
ordinance carries to say that it's really a guide or it's an encouragement or what
have been.
It's
an extra addition I mean we can talk about this further but it's I mean that
could easily come out and we have the mediation within.
So I'm sorry I'm going backwards just but the paragraph above that says it's the intent
of the council mayor safeguard rights including discrimination based on so on and so on.
Does the fact that it says, including mean that this is not an exhaustive list,
are there
things that we
think should be added there, maybe that is the same question I was asked
before?
As we've had with, you know, faith leaders, community leaders, business leaders across
the board.
So if there are those things that we need to look at to make sure it's a little bit more clear
against size, sure, we're open to that.
What's meant by section 30-302, paragraph 5, or any agent of such person, I don't know
what?
Ted, correct me if I'm wrong on this one, though.
A person who employs one or more employees in the city of Tucker, or any agent of such
person,
it could be your managers that are there on site for you as well.
That's the way I interpret it.
So, another employee of a business who's respectively higher in someone or
you
said earlier
that religious organizations are free to hire basically whoever they want they can insist
that anybody they hire for any position they can insist that that person agree to their
tenets
so 30 sorry I'm done I'm on page 8 of what you handed out earlier so section 30-304
I know I couldn't recite it, but affirmative action is a pretty specific legal,
right? And it really, I'll say it in my laments way, it legalizes certain crimes of discrimination to correct past discrimination, systemic discrimination, is that right? Am I? Anybody else? I guess my heartburn over it is that, again, we're talking about everybody
everybody getting the same protections.
We're talking about something that looks
from a date forward.
This kind of discrimination will be illegal.
Section 304-
And it also says a bona fide seniority system.
Yeah.
So what it says is that employer observes
the conditions of a bona fide affirmative action plan
and or a bona fide seniority system.
which is not a pretext to evade the purposes of this ordinance.
So if an employer has a bona fide seniority system,
they would qualify and be accepted from this ordinance.
This is an actual question, too.
Because I get a little confused in the exception section.
I think we talked about that.
Because I read it as, you can't say I have a legally binding affirmative,
which is what I think the bona fide piece is.
right? I have a legally binding agreement because of some other thing that I've had this
that all. Like there are affirmative action plans that sometimes people can be forced
to. That doesn't give you, this is how I read it. So that doesn't give you a free pass
to say I'm not discriminating against other people because look I have this plan over here
or I have this seniority plan. It doesn't, you still have to, you still have to treat people
is that the right way to read that?
That's how I took it.
Did you have any comments on that one?
I think that provision is, you know,
it's in the exceptions,
either a seniority plan or a formative action plan.
Arguably, if you can demonstrate the satisfaction
of the hearing officer that that's not a pretext,
but that it's an other bona fide being otherwise legal,
legally accepted formative action or seniority plan,
and that would be an exception to the charge.
Is it unusual for somebody to have one of those employer?
Courts have cut back on those significantly over the years.
They were originally created in order to have a redress for pass wrongs and to protect
against two-trigger discrimination, but a lot of the rulings and federal courts have really
restricted the scope of those kinds of plans.
Most employers who do business with federal government are required to have an affirmative
action plan and that's the biggest place where it shows up.
It's often true, yes.
It seems like we've had a discussion, maybe it was not specifically affirmative action,
but in order to institute, so if you're an employer or an operator or a business
and you want to install an affirmative action plan, just because you want to.
You have to prove all the past behavior that has been wrong, systemically, historically,
and now needs to be corrected because what you're going to say is you have to affirmatively seek out
members of protected classes to sort of get back to a level that would be appropriate or expected
if you hadn't been involved in discriminatory practices.
I mean, I guess the point is we're already exempting everybody
above 15 employees.
We're exempting lots of things.
We're really in this ordinance of, oh, we're talking about small employers.
And this is, you're saying a small employer could have an affirmative action plan
and therefore not have to be covered by this?
I'm not sure, I think affirmative action plan is a pretty specific legal term or requirement
that even if they wanted to, I'm not sure small employers could meet because of the law
requires.
Okay.
Well, I guess in the form of a question, the question is, do you really mean affirmative
action in a legal term of art or do you just mean that they have a non-discrimination policy
of their own?
No, I think it's in the legal sense, right here.
An employer, the way this is written, could have either or and not be covered by the...
I just want to go back to address, too, when you talked about there's exceptions for the larger employers.
The exception here, but they have other things that they've got to face.
But if somebody came in the door from a 100-person employer,
the hearing officer would immediately
say he should shout dismiss, not may or might.
Yeah, they shout.
If they're covered elsewhere, they're not covered by this.
So that
knows that.
Haven't been, don't intend to be, no offense, Ted.
But when I've had occasion to look at criminal code
previously, there's usually something that says something
like, if a person does X, they will be guilty of having committed the crime of Y.
Or they're
in the first degree, vehicular manslaughter, whatever. Is there something parallel to that
in this ordinance where the ordinance says this is what a violation means? This is what constitutes
a violation.
We can move on. It's a question the committee can take up. What does it mean
30-305
subject procedures the city shall receive, investigate, seek to
conciliate hold hearings on and or pass upon complaints alleging violations.
What does what does that mean to pass upon complaints so that would be somebody
would come in like you just use that example they have a complaint and we would
say this is where this is where you would go or we could refer it to that agency
itself so that's the process of our hearing officer declaring
This doesn't belong here, it belongs there.
Still in that same section, 33-05.
Several parts that kind of run together.
The item paragraph section four,
the clerk will still cause the complaint to be served
on the respondent within seven days.
And then the respondent shall have 30 days to file an answer.
You say a led to file later, I think that's one
of the places you meant to call them, they're responding.
City will provide form.
OK, so then it goes down.
in the next paragraph it says the city clerk shall cause a copy of the complaint to be served upon
the hearing officer three business days I guess that means within three business days a receipt
of a properly filed complaint via electronic mail so the clerk gets the complaint and has to serve
the hearing officer within three days but the respondent within seven days and then the next paragraph
The hearing officer will have 15 days to review the complaint and answer, so on and so on.
We're still within the time that the respondent has to respond.
The respondent has 30 days to answer, but you've already served the hearing officer or required the hearing officer to review the complaint and determine if it's in conformity.
Within three days, the hearing officer looks at it to say, okay, should it go somewhere else? Should it go here? Should it go there?
Right. Is this something we're going to look at?
Is it something we're going to look at at that point?
They don't even need to hear from the respondent.
They're just looking at the complaint to say,
does this fit? Is it covered?
And those can be adjusted.
Can I interject in here, Mr. Mayor?
Sure.
That was one of the most vague provisions of this
and I talked to Carol about that as well.
So, it doesn't really give criteria upon which a, hearing officer can dismiss a complaint,
and it doesn't provide whether a dismissal is based on a defect, an amenable defect,
whether it's a technical deficiency, or a failure to state a claim, where a petitioner
is permitted to amend the petition with no additional fee,
such as to overcome that presumption of a problem.
I had a big problem with Section 6 here.
All right.
That's good, and we'd recommend any additions or anything
that you would see that would make that better.
I'm happy to submit that for you and Ted, of course,
to review as well.
Ted will recognize my wording, so.
So I think it's a valid concern there, and it's very vague, but it needs to be tightened up.
Thank you.
So I wanted to try to understand paragraph 7 there, but I think maybe it's getting through
my head.
It's saying that the hearing officer has
the authority to request and share information
on referred complaints.
I'm not sure I follow why the word request in there.
Is this meaning to say the hearing officer can send information on these complaints to
to whatever state or federal agency.
Ted, that was when we worked on together.
Interprety to allow the hearing officer
to request information of any agency as to whether or not
they think the nature of the complaint is one
that's in their jurisdiction and to share the complaint
with any agency that has jurisdiction
over these types of complaints.
And so paragraph eight means that the hearing officer
will appoint a mediator.
Is that the intent here that the hearing officer is going to choose a mediator?
Notify everybody who it is and then somewhere else I think it says they have 30 days to complete
that mediation.
So you've changed some of your...
We did.
We brought that up.
Not the wording's changed, but the purpose.
By purpose.
I just want to find what I'm trying to ask about.
So the hearing officer will be notified whether the mediation was successful.
Initial burden improves placed on the complaining party.
What does quantum of proof mean? Is that a legal term?
Quantum, we, you know, burden of proof, but I think, you know, that's just intended to establish preponderance rather than reasonable doubt.
Proponderance of evidence, I get, I just hadn't seen quantum before.
So, um, in your paragraph 14 now in page 11, either party may call a witness by submitting a request to the hearing officer.
So, can they call a witness or only with permission of the hearing officer?
And can a witness be compelled in a circumstance like this if the respondent or the complainant
says, I want that witness there?
Can it be forced?
What happens there?
We have a discussion, I believe, as well.
The ordinance as written doesn't confer a subpoena power on this process,
so you can try
to put that in there.
We have spent a dollar in the Minister's court.
It's like, it occurred to me because this is sort of an extra legal process, right?
We're not going through normal processes.
We're creating a whole separate process to deal with this and a ton of issues that come
out of that that I think would have to be addressed in some way.
I did have a question.
I know we had talked about it and I around that same thing, which is I think I would love
to see us explore when the complaint is first made, that the complaint name who potential
witnesses might be, so that it's not further down into the process, and then they're like,
oh, who was there, who wasn't there, so if there's a way for them on that form to submit
who might be a potential witness, if there are any, I think that would be good to name early
in that.
I'd like to know somewhere along the way.
If either side wants to call a witness and they're not able to compel them to come in to whatever the process is and bear witness, do they have grounds for an appeal or complaint that says, look, I'm trying to introduce my side of the story. I can't have the means to do it. So process is flawed.
I'm struggling through trying to square my notes with your paragraph.
I'll just ask about
dressing rooming standards. Where did that go? Is that somewhere else?
It's probably towards the front.
Yeah,
maybe under exceptions. Ordnance does not prohibit employer from a
fire and employee during the employee's hours of work. So it's here to reasonable and equitable
dressing rooming standards.
So I got a couple of questions.
Uniforms, that's intended to address uniforms.
You can have uniforms.
Yeah, that's what I'm asking.
This says it's okay for an employer to require uniforms, provided they're permitted to
dress in a manner consistent with their gender identity.
It also uses the word equitable.
Actually, there's two or three of these that I'll try to regather for you.
Affirmative action is won.
That's not in the definitions.
Equitable is another word that's used in at least a couple of three places that's not in
the definitions.
And so, what about underdressed code kinds of things?
Is a person allowed to wear military or religious or political symbols, icons, or are those
treated under all this?
And can I use the example that I used the other day?
So we spoke the other day and she asked.
Yeah, so I think my understanding of how to think about equitable is related to...
So when I worked, one of the places I worked we had to distribute food equitably.
You had to provide service equitably.
What that meant was that whatever your stated policy was had to be applied to any person.
But you could have a specialized policy.
You could say we're only going to serve senior citizens.
You could say our dress code requires no political insignia or no religious affiliation or from
a religious perspective you could say it requires that.
The inequitable piece is when if you begin to enforce that policy outside of the bounds
of that policy.
So, if you've said we can't do this, and then somebody is doing it and something else
that that's where the issue comes.
So it's not, to me it's just saying you have to be applying that standard of uniform or whatever
you're defining as grooming standards appropriately.
We've had that discussion too with some folks who came in when you talk about, you know,
talking about beliefs or religious beliefs that work, right, may not go with this ordinance,
but if you allow, if you say, we don't do that here, you know, do that here, but if you
start to allow it, then you have to allow everybody.
For the moment, I'll be interested in getting that,
just a definition section, so the word
equitable or equitably is you.
So in the
section 30304 exceptions,
it uses the word
protected group in paragraph 10, plays of public accommodation, so on and so on, as long as the
place of public accommodation does not discriminate against any other protected group identified in this
ordinance. So I guess it just highlights again in another place the need to discern whether we're
We're talking about defining protected groups or saying it applies to everyone.
And then the hearing officer's capacity,
same section, down to 13,
15c.
In addition to or in lieu of a civil penalty, the hearing officer may impose or request a
corrective action for future compliance.
That's problematic in a couple of ways, but I guess my question is, does that, if the maximum
We can impose $1,000 or $6 months in jail, and the hearing officer has the authority to add to that.
Does that not exceed our authority?
It doesn't say what the limits are and what the hearing officer could prescribe.
So the home rule limits on a municipal ordinance that has a criminal effect would be $1,000 fine or $6 months in jail.
So this is, I think, intended to have just a civil penalty and that's, and the, that does
not answer your question about, you know, what the hearing officer might impose or correct
in terms of a corrective plan.
And you know, one can imagine a scenario in which such a plan does exceed parameters that are
for enforcement of an ordinance. That's not clear.
So, well, you raised another question.
It's a pretty foundational one. I guess we haven't talked about it.
This is, do we need to identify or in some way define this as civil laws opposed to criminal?
I mean, if you're going to talk about rules of evidence and witnesses and all those kind of things,
does that make a difference?
I think the reference in the ordinance to civil penalty and to the preponderance burden
have that effect.
It could be amended to make that more clear.
Section 336 says that this ordinance doesn't limit other remedies, but it would be clear
that ordinance does limit its own capacity if other remedies are available.
It's not to preclude someone availing themselves of this doesn't include their other remedies
except that hearing officer would preclude their remedies under this ordinance.
As he was covered
elsewhere, so you're not.
Could another, let's say, a state or federal agency that somebody took their complaint to,
But that agency say, oh yeah, but you have an ordinance in the city of Tucker that you have to avail yourself of first before you can come here.
You haven't exhausted your other remedies.
There have been exhaustion of administrative remedies argument.
I don't think it would be applicable in this context though.
Part two talks about the city of Tucker, I'm a little lost in the bit of a circular logic here.
We've exempted all governments this
ordinance.
But in this act we say we're not, the City of Tucker shall not discriminate.
The Tucker has such a policy and I think it's required if I'm right.
We're sort of required by DCA and state agencies,
all those things, to do all that.
So, is the City of Tucker exempted or not exempted?
Ted, you had talked about putting that in a separate provision within the ordinance.
The city would be exempt from the procedural remedies in terms of the complaint hearing officer.
Essentially because you can't really find yourself.
But the part two is intended to make clear a law with respect to how the city sees itself.
And it should not be exercising this kind of discrimination.
How you would enforce that is not clear.
Okay.
And we did discuss that perhaps that is a separate ordinance. Correct. We did have
that conversation about all the ourselves accountable.
The last sentence is not a sentence.
What do we mean to say there?
I can't hear you and I'm sorry. Sorry, I'm implement a plan.
So we talk here to show great and implement a plan plan to include educational
opportunities at least once per year. The plan. So that plan that's referred to
we're
going to distribute it as we called for in the resolution last year.
Holders
of Occupational Tech certificates, but a lot more than just businesses are
covered by that.
Complete that. We'd have to deal with property owners,
sellers, lessers, brokers. There are other areas of accommodation.
We're not just
talking about employment. Well, and a lot of those folks would be referred
automatically as well. But yeah, I could see that like real estate agents.
So what you're thinking?
Yeah, that's what I was thinking. And I was envisioning at some point when this is obviously approved
and we're implementing it that we would have perhaps a communications plan and we part of our yearly
objectives to speak in the communications plan. And I'd go back. I'll ask on that point too
several of the other cities that did this because I
know many of them maybe did not call for this to be shared through the occupational tax
certificate, but others did, and so I would see how they would handle that with the accommodations piece.
Questions about how it would be applied, but I think you would refer into those hypotheticals before what a business or a business
business owner have a right to file a complaint against protesters or people on social media
picketers if the business or the business owner believes they're being discriminated against.
In other words,
some group takes up a campaign to malign a business in the public square electronic
or otherwise. And that business believes there are the subject of discrimination. This is
all about arming them and not seeking equity or justice or anything else. Under this
ordinance does that business or business owner have a complaint?
Kind of goes
your earlier point. Yeah I mean Ted help me out here I'm not a lawyer but I
don't see that I don't see it under any areas of discrimination within this
ordinance. So since 30-303 defines the rights that are being protected, you know, because
it's a complete different process, someone could try to make an argument, but I don't think
that's your scenario, Mr. Mayor, addresses the aim of this language.
Well, I'll just make the point again that if it's for everybody, a business owner can be
discriminated against. And I think we've seen cases. I'm not going to argue it. I'll
just ask the question for now.
Is there a notion within all this of a hostile environment?
In other words, if I enter a place of public accommodation or a hotel, a store, a public
street.
Does the owner have to say something to me directly, or is it enough that they
clearly don't want my kind in their place?
Because it's a complaint-driven process, I think if you can make a primafacial case that
you were discriminated against on any of the criteria, based gender, doesn't have to be
somebody said I don't like white guy.
No. If they just make it clear that I'm not welcome. I mean, again, you know, you never know what the hearing officer's going to do with this or what the ovens would show, but I think if you can make a promise, a case based on any numbers, scenarios, verbal, you know, just general how you're treated. Sure.
Penalties, I don't see any. Are there penalties? Or would you consider them in place for abuse of the ordinance? If you have a person who just 50 bucks done mean anything to them.
if they can get their pound of flesh by repeatedly accusing somebody,
if y'all talk about
that kind of abuse?
No, we did not.
Would we be breaking our own ordinance if we seek one protected class instead of another,
or if we seek anyone based on any of these characteristics rather than their qualifications,
would we be breaking our own ordinance in the case of board's commission?
Potentially disordinates and federal law.
Let
me ask this quick question for
boards and commissions, our employees.
I'm just asking because I don't think we do and I don't think it's our intent to do that.
But I was just a little clarity on that.
For boards and commissions, it depends on, you know, the courts would look at whether or not there's a property right interest in that appointment.
If there's even a stipend, they would definitely say that there is a property right interest in that position.
And the discrimination would be prohibited.
The less clear question is if it's a volunteer position, and there's no compensation.
I was unclear about, there's a reference, and I'm sorry, I don't know where it is, but basically says businesses wouldn't be required to alter their buildings,
or do something that required them to get a building permit.
So I don't know what happens in the case where a business has what they have,
small business, a couple of restrooms.
So they're not required to build more, change their physical layout,
but what do they do?
And is there a claim against them if they just say,
Okay, you know, I've fallen that category of, I don't have to do anything.
So they can just carry on as they have, and if a claim arises, am I supposed to make
a complaint?
That's their defense, and the hearing officer says the
Americans with disabilities act.
I see it in the well.
We're waiting on the comments from Ted, no, I'm sorry, I was, could you hit the question?
But, well, Ann points out, there's an item in paragraph seven under exceptions that says
a business is not required to make changes to any existing facility that would require a building permit,
except as otherwise required by the ADA.
Other provisions in law. So this came up a long time ago.
Like, are you going to make every small business in Tucker build out a third bathroom or a different arrangement within their facility?
And this is our call. This was a way to say, no, we're not trying to go overboard.
There are cases where they're small and whatever. But what happens?
Are we saying that's a defense to someone's complaint?
I would have to fill a building permit to do that and so I don't have to.
I think at a minimum, it is a stop all against a remedy plan
that a hearing officer might try to impose.
In other words, that's not something within
the power of the hearing officer, or it's not a remedy, you could obtain through exercising
the complaint under the ordinance.
So we have an organization in town we're all familiar
with called networks.
My question is would networks, I'll ask the question, would networks be considered
to religious organization under 30-30, excuse me, 30-30-20-15.
So, 33-20-20 is definitions.
Per graph, 15 defines a religious organization.
And I'd like to know, as an example, just
because it's what I'm very familiar with, would networks be considered a religious organization
under that?
I think we'd have to look at their by-laws. I don't know if they're, I don't think they're
It's a little tricky because it actually does name that in the mission statement, but
you're on the board.
Yeah, so I think it really does come down to what you said, the by-laws and like, is
the express purpose what this is named or is it doing something else and it's just funded
by a religious organization, and unfortunately, networks isn't a little bit of a one-of-a-degree
spots, so.
And it could be faith-based social agency?
Unintended consequences.
That's what I'm looking for.
So, if an organization like Rotary or Tucker Business has some community business sort
of organization invites a speaker on a topic that promotes one group at the expense of
another. In any of these groups, pick your topic. Does an attendee have a claim?
In other words, meeting people who are invited to, they invite a speaker who
advocates that whatever it is, he is putting one group in front of another. Does
an attendee or a member of that club have a claim?
If a business in Tucker what's
on a training for, and we're talking businesses under 15 employees, what's on a training
that promotes ideas about systemic racism and historic oppression and what our response
should be to that, is that employee have a claim against his employer.
Is that a question for me, I'm not a
committee?
I mean, I think it sounds like from the hypotheticals we're talking about more of a first
amendment type issue. You know, I think to have a claim, you'd have to be able to allege
some deprivation of one of these things in section 30-30-30-3 related to appointment,
denial of accommodation, a place of public accommodation, right to engage in a property transaction
or be a witness, testify and exercise, any other right. So, you'd have to cast your complaint in such
a way as to make out a case that you have been deprived under that section, not just
that you heard something you didn't like.
Well, then I'm not talking about first amendment that my speech has been suppressed.
I'm talking about the, let's take the case of an employer doing training.
We've heard lots of these stories in the last few years.
That employee has been forced through training that indicates discrimination against him, that
that employer is going to favor certain groups in order to correct past behavior or whatever
they perceive as systemic.
I think there's a potential complaint there.
Well, if that's not what the committee meant,
it's something that needs to be considered.
What about misusing or refusing to use preferred pronouns?
I'm sorry, no.
Well, I told you a long time ago I was going to call on you.
Please go ahead.
Do you think we can have a break for 10 minutes?
Please, we've been here for four hours.
What's your pleasure,
10 minutes?
Let me ask this because I see staff.
Everybody else, it's 11.
This is a work session.
It's a discussion.
There's no decision to be made.
Would it be OK to continue the conversation?
I know you're asking these things in public.
We can take that up next go around.
or as others have done, they've shared these things
and we've talked through it and asked to look to address it.
So, do you want to share that with us
to take back to the working group
and work with Ted through those
as we've done with other folks?
Do you want to list them out tonight
and then we come back and answer them at a later time?
I'm just saying there's no decision tonight.
So wanting to be respectful of that, but I'm also, you know, you know, it's a public
now.
You've brought a report.
You've done work on behalf of the city with city council members.
It's important to me that these questions, the public knows these questions are being
asked and dealt with and considered before we proceed to, you know, finalize a proposal.
So if you want to continue this at a future work session, or
do you want to go ahead and list them out and then we'll
I'll give them to you, but I want to have the discussion in the public view. That's the point. No open records open meeting side
Could we come back with that discussion like you list those out we may not have answers for all those tonight
That's what I'm saying
So then we can come back in another time and address that publicly.
Well, if you're saying we can take a five minute break.
We can draw a line and pick up where we left off at some future meeting.
I'd be willing to do that.
Rested council, I'm looking at you guys.
How many more questions do you have, Frank?
A couple of pages.
Well, if you could give me an average of time, what do you got?
For an hour, two hours.
I guess it depends on the conversation.
I could do half an hour an hour.
Listen, I don't want this to be perceived as I'm playing some long drag it out kind of
game.
These are legitimate questions to me, and there are people who have either asked me these
questions or asked me to get an answer, or there are things that I arrived at reading
through the plain language of the ordinance, and I didn't bring this ordinance, and I didn't
bring it in the middle of an election season, or in the middle of a public works referendum,
and we're a little of an economic development strategy plan.
We can decide to do what we want on our own timing.
I had that question today as well.
Yeah, I respect that.
I was just asking because I would like a bathroom break
for five minutes.
And then we can keep going for another two hours.
I'm ready to go.
I just would like a break, please.
Sure.
All right.
I have,
it's coming up on 10 after.
You want to say, quarter past, we'll be back in here.
6 minutes.
Good, finally, you know, this meeting started at five o'clock, Salt Lake City time, so I'm going to eat my dinner now. So I'm going to have to leave a little rest.
Taking care of, John's going to, okay, I
was asking about preferred pronouns, which is
the intention of the committee that misusing or refusing to use requested preferred pronouns would be the basis for a claim.
We did not discuss that. Ted, would that be a basis for a claim?
Because it's a complaint driven process, I think someone could make that claim, certainly,
whether or not that constitutes employment discrimination, if that were in the context,
would you sort of note that process?
Well, it could be public accommodation or any of the areas that are covered, right?
Could be.
I think employment is most likely.
I cannot help it.
I
can time for you to buy items or go away.
So I'm interested in the application to public events, festivals on Main Street,
protests,
political speech.
We've talked before about we can't, the city can't limit the content of
an event or
a person holding a sign or what have you.
So what if that event or sign or whatever communication is going on around that is,
I guess
can't just be offensive but what if a person says look the city rented the city
streets they're funding this event which is creating a hostile environment or
pressing upon me in some way that it feels like the city is saying this race
whatever other classification that
should have some sort of priority over me I'm
not saying they have very well but maybe you can imagine the scenario that I'm
Isn't it only if you're denied services because of that class, it's not just like, I
mean I guess I'm asking a question, I thought it was related to the denial of services.
There's language in the ordinance about contributing directly or indirectly to, I
don't know exactly where that is, but try to take a fast look.
13 is
on your page 7 paragraph 13.
Plays of Public Resort accommodation assemblage or amusement, which brings to mind city festival
or a private festival held on public streets that solicits or accepts patronage or trade
of the general public or that is supported directly or indirectly by government funds.
So that's the definition of a place of public resort accommodation assemblage or amusement.
So there's
all kinds of scenarios.
Wasn't there one as Supreme Court won in Boston?
I can't remember the name.
Well, it was the parade.
It was St. Patrick's Day parade.
St. Patrick's Day parade.
I think the issue is whether or not you're denied the term
here, the language issues here is a full enjoyment.
If someone is saying something, you know,
whatever it is they're saying, that you take
to, you know, arguably that's, I mean, you could make a complaint for it. I'm not sure
this language, you know, the most tearing officers would hear that as a valid complaint,
if you were denied access, that certainly would be a valid basis for a complaint. I think
that's kind of where the courts have fallen, where you've seen, you know, their state laws
and federal laws on that.
Well, clarify
my concern, but I guess context
of what I've been asking about tonight
Question really is just did the committee discuss talk about it consider those kinds of hypotheticals
And this is ordinance have any bearing on those kinds of things so if the city grants a parade permit a group that
Some citizen finds noxious does that citizen have a complaint to say the government is sponsoring
discrimination, because they're allowing and promoting this group to give its message
on a public street that I help pay for, and I am oppressed by it.
Loser in a case, so the respondent, the accused, loses, and that person or organization simply
ignores the fine.
If
someone fails to comply, arguably they're in contempt of whatever that penalty or compliance
order is, there's no procedure identified in the ordinance for that.
If it's a hearing officer as opposed to a municipal court, does that change the repercussions
of that action?
Well, the municipal court would have consent power to enforce an order within the limits
of what municipal courts are allowed to do, which is a $200 fine and 10 days incarceration.
There's no, you know, particular prescription here for what the hearing officer can do.
You can arguably amend the ordinance to confer the same powers that hearing officer, but it's
not clear.
Ted, correct me if I'm wrong, would there not be an ability to appeal to the Superior
Court of Decap County to enforce it beyond what the local ordinance would permit a municipality
to do?
I'm not sure exactly how that would work.
If in that scenario, you know, the hearing officer of this, that's been employed by the
city to overhear this process issues a judgment, you know, it's not, I mean, you could
language in here that you could sue to enforce the judgment, but I think we need something
like that in order to be able to do that.
And that was exactly my thoughts, thanks.
So for us laypeople something could be done in the ordinance that would be okay that would be even in the context of a hearing officer as opposed to municipal court.
We could put something in there. It's just not there now.
Yes, though I do not want to have 100% certainty that that remedy is effective.
I would agree, I mean we do struggle with enforcement even in municipal court, cities under
the home relaxed, cannot create new causes of action in other courts.
So, and that's a challenge, you could put this in the municipal court, you could confer to give the hearing of the powers of municipal court, which would then make that remedy of
of assuming to enforce or holding in contempt more likely to be successful.
Is there any legal way to keep claims of discrimination private until they're resolved?
Under the way this is written or something we could change about it?
Not to my knowledge. There's no way to remove this comes up at
the whole campaign contribution ethics laws is really sort of a big game of gacha. The value that it is being able to claim that you're opponent is something terrible and he's being investigated by the ethics board.
This strikes me in a little bit the same way.
I can go pay my $50 and file a claim and spend a month telling everybody how horrible
this business or property owner, whoever it is, isn't it, by golly, I've filed a claim
against it.
That's true, but it's also true if I sue somebody in superior court, complaints of public
document and people can do with it what they will, it does not protect the complainant
from defamation if they have done something in a way that is untruthful like that, though.
Does the respondent have a claim of some sort against the
claimant?
After the fact, they've been found not guilty, it was frivolous, whatever.
That's been established by the hearing officer or whatever the end of the process is.
And the original respondent take action against the original claimant.
I think if the respondent can make a case for defamation that they've been
defamed by materially false accusations, yes, they could sue the complainant
in a superior court or not under the ordinance.
Something even that gives something short of filing a defamation lawsuit,
we could give that respondent some rights to
make the claimant pay his expenses
is something.
Presumably?
Yes.
We could, but Mr. Mayor, I'm sorry, but most laws and court rules do not favor that in
state courts, only federal courts.
So I, right, and what I'm saying is, you know, it's a very good thought of courts here, but
I don't think it's practical.
So my question is actually also about the kind of penalties language because I know we
have it framed as a fine, but I do know of a situation where somebody was evicted because
of their gender identity, not in Tucker, not in Tucker, and so when you're evicted your
belongings are thrown out, right?
And so if you are found to be discriminated against by this hearing process, is there
any situation where there is redress available to if somebody has lost their belongings
or are we just stopping at the fine of, like, you have to pay the fine and move on?
That was not brought up.
Do we have, as a municipality or a hearing officer,
managed that kind of redress?
So that's more than the nature of restorative justice, which is really more part of the criminal process.
Somebody finding themselves in that situation may or may not have a claim against their landlord in a contract state that they could file, either in state court or spirit court.
have
a provision that I
think the answer was no. We were looking for a way to the same vein of can we keep it private until the cases resolved.
And the complainant lose the privilege or their standing or penalties might ensue if they choose to go out into the public and malign a business that they may have filed a legitimate claim against.
But before it's resolved, they choose to speak
ill of a month's social media or whatever the case might be.
Is there a vision like that? Something we could consider?
Potentially, yes.
One
of the groups that's not protected is people under 40, as to why that is.
People over 40 are protected under all kinds of age discrimination laws.
businesses under 15 people that's the threshold in those laws seem to be allowed to discriminate
against people under 40.
We were asked that question. I think we discussed it too, but
that's the federal laws are covering that as well. Not for companies under whatever the number of
employees threshold is. Yeah. It's a local company. It's a restaurant. It's got 10 employees.
They're
that based on age. No. That's discrimination based on age. So that's okay under this
organ.
Ted, you're not. I wasn't following the question.
I'm sorry folks and this may
help you. That's my so-goal Ted. For companies under 15, aren't there still, or am I incorrect?
Because it's not my area of law, state remedies that may exist outside of the federal concept.
I don't know of any in Georgia, I don't know of any state law in Georgia that would protect you.
I'm looking at, I'm just trying to follow the discussion.
I mean, age discrimination would have to be against someone over the age of 40.
But the employer is not in the ordinance, is not really defined as having a certain number of employees.
So the federal law, that's the same number of 40, but you have to have, I think it's 50 employees
under the Federal Nature Discrimination Act for the employer to have that many employees read and make a case, so this presumably picks up everybody, every employer who has fewer employees than the federal law was, I think, was the intent of this.
I just thought there was sexual harassment that if the EEOC doesn't give a right to sue within what is the six months that there are still two-year statutes on state law claims that could be brought if I'm wrong and wrong it's not my area law but I just wanted to maybe shortcut something so I apologize for the interruption everyone.
That's all right, and I may have had it upside down, so our ordinance says you can't
discriminate against anybody based on any age and the matter how many people you employ.
If you have, you can't discriminate against anybody 40 or more years old on the basis of age.
And presumably the way this is written, because you get sort of referred to the federal
agency, if you have a federal claims, if your employer has, and I think it's 50, it don't
hold me to that.
It's some number like that.
The hearing officer would presumably send you to go sue in federal law or talk to the agency
that would hear your complaint.
This ordinance is aimed at picking up people not picked up by federal law.
And so if you had fewer than that number of employees than this ordinance would apply and
complain it could bring a complaint against an employer that fewer than that number of employees if they were 40 or older.
That's my point.
So if you're 40 or younger in the city of Tucker, you have no course of action to claim that you've been discriminated against.
This ordinance defines the age as having obtained 40 years or more.
That's right. You would not be able to make a case based on age discrimination.
That was just based on following what the federal guidelines are as well.
I mean, you could add additional protections in there if you want.
I don't see a definition for a bona fide seniority system.
We mentioned that earlier, but I don't know what
definition for that.
We can add one.
How does a business know if there are existing policies meet the requirements?
How does a business owner know if on discrimination policy affirmative action plan bona fide seniority system?
How does that business know if they're exempted because they're doing with the ordinance?
We
allow them to get counsel from city attorney created a model plan.
We don't let them get advice from the city attorney.
that much I know, that would be a violation of my big conflict. I couldn't do that.
I think, you know, it's a good question. I think you can define these terms that have a better idea.
I think it was pointed out in this discussion earlier that larger employers didn't have a better understanding of what these kind of seniority systems
and affirmative action plans that are legal are. We're talking about smaller employers here.
So I think it might be who has to put a definition as best been discussed.
Just a couple
places where
ordinance uses.
I'm sorry Frank, I can't hear you anymore.
Sorry, I pushed my microphone away.
Is that any better?
Yes, it's great.
Thank you.
So as one example, it's in more than one place.
But at the very beginning of the first paragraph, purpose and intent,
opportunity of all persons to be free from discrimination,
including discrimination based on actual or perceived sex, sexual orientation and so on and so on.
Is perceived intended to qualify, modify every individual descriptor there?
Or is it intended to modify, only perceived sex?
I think it could go for all of them, definitely.
What was your intention?
I think for all of them, and I think that was, we had that also in the resolution.
I think this is like the legal, like this is standard legal language around, like those
protected classes, but it applies to all of them because it's about national origin.
I know I saw it in the EU. The perceived religion, perceived marital status, perceived veteran
or military status, that's what that means.
I have more questions around that, but I'll have to
I'll have to frame them up. I think there's lots of room for getting
around the intent
of the act based on whether a person actually is of a certain religion or is of a certain
race. Does the claimant have to actually be that or are we saying the claimant can claim
that the respondent perceived them as that whether they were or not? So you have a person
who's not Catholic, but they think the employer perceived them as Catholic and discriminated
him against him on that basis. Is that what we mean to say?
Does any of this, is any
of this ordinance intended to apply to vendors, contractors, suppliers of business or property
owner? No, employees. Ted and I, we discussed that.
We
accommodation, a contractor who's working the festival or serving back up to somebody who's an exhibitor there.
So I met like a place of public accommodation, whether that includes their agents.
Yeah, I'm trying to
consider legitimate cases but I'm also trying to consider people who want to misuse this ordinance.
And so I'm thinking of all the evil things that I've seen people do and attempt to do.
I mean, I think the same way that employer includes agents of the employer, arguably
if you're a place of public accommodation, and you have employees that are engaging
in discriminatory behavior that law would typically hold you responsible for that, so I think
that that would not prohibit someone from bringing a complaint out of the ordinance.
Were you thinking more along the lines like you've got a vendor, you're hosting the festival
and you have a vendor there, were you thinking more along that line?
Well, yeah, but there's also all kinds of contractors in businesses.
You know, somebody sits in this business doing graphic design,
but they're a contractor to that business.
They're not employed by them.
Are we trying to capture all of that or if we're not,
is there the potential that it would be an unintended consequence?
I would submit that I...
That would be captured under the agency laws of Georgia, whereas the general contractor, so to speak, would control the time method a manner of a subcontractor, so to speak, such that it would blow back on the contractor where they're discriminatory practices. That's my leave of opinion, not as a council.
I'll use an example, but there's lots of possibilities.
I know of a black-owned business and Tucker who maintains an internship program that's specifically aimed at young black college students.
Could that be continued under this ordinance or would someone have a claim to say I'm not black and I can't even get considered?
I
think that's potential grounds for complaint.
The way I read the ordinance, it applies to discrimination based on race.
It does not specify which race.
Would that be, so we know that that happens all the time in the real world, maybe under companies
that also, or this isn't even on the bookshelf, but federal law, so how does that happen?
I'm just curious, I think it's a good point, right?
So a larger company covered under federal law sometimes does have internships for certain
people.
So why would that be different than this?
Just for an educational, and I'm not putting you on the spot, we could come back to it.
We could come back to it.
Yes, in a way, I can imagine that that would meet muster is if you had some kind of bonaflata
from revaction plan, otherwise race discrimination is race discrimination regardless of the color
of the person who is discriminated against.
It is an internship non-employment.
So, if the internship has any kind of property interest, which even a stipend or, you know,
use of a car, food, you know, I think the question I have is where that butts up against like
we were talking about that there are exceptions for organizations that have specific, like
it's okay to lay out particular requirements, right, so it's okay to say you're only serving
seniors, like this doesn't preclude that, so I do wonder where those two things, um,
butt up, and I still think that it would be if they may have an internship like that, but
But if someone who doesn't fall in, it isn't black applies and they give it, they might
give it to them, right?
So it really comes down to, what is your actual practice, and then what's the behavior
in denying somebody's service, so denying them employment, denying them housing.
Are you doing it from that perspective and saying,
I think it's part of the whole mediation
and hearing process, is to figure, you know, that out more fully.
Well, it's the basis of a complaint, and then you do get into the process and the
complaint bears the burden by the ponderance to make their case.
I mean, I don't see any of the exceptions that address race.
So the question was race.
It talks about single sex designated areas, but race discrimination is race discrimination.
So whether it's a hearing officer or a judge or whatever the process is got to be bound by law
I mean we have to have told that
First and here's the basis on which you make these decisions. They can't just decide well
They had good intentions here, or they're doing a good thing
we have
pretty sizable
Organization in town that serves the disabled community and hires a lot of disabled people
I hate to think that they would face claims from able people saying, hey I applied for a job.
They told me we only, anyway, that there's lots of permutations of that.
Who be women, who be any of the classes that we're talking about.
We'll check on that.
I do have to say, however, I think that from the philanthropic perspective and the nonprofit major organizations,
organizations, they have their own missions and values, and
for to share your responsibilities and almost all of that is spelled out.
Under that, the way they work is business, entities, and
non-profit scenario.
And the people who donate the money is also regulated and
directed sometimes by that philanthropist.
So I think we just have to kind of look into all of that.
It's a good scenario to talk through.
Wow, can it, can a philanthropist give money to an organization and instruct them to use it in a discriminatory way?
Well, I mean, and again, if the organization is big enough, it's not our problem.
Our hearing officers are going to tell them, go see the state, go see the federal government.
If it's small enough,
our hearing officers got to hear it and got to decide on whatever our ordinance says.
Yeah, you can't do that. I'm in Tucker.
So an establishment, I guess what we're
calling a place of public accommodation, a bar, a salon, some place like that, can
they market themselves as aimed at,
I'm going to say, protected class, although I
think we're trying to not say protected class, that they serve or they desire to
are particular race, or gender, or age, or whatever, is that okay?
Kind of goes to the question I asked earlier.
If they make it clear that they exist for some group that ain't me, and they discriminate
against me, I think they can market themselves.
Once they actually exercise discrimination, I think the ordinance will grant the discriminating
individual a billy to submit a complaint.
The marketing might be part of their case
they try to make.
Cold weather shelter operated by a non-religious organization. Be required
to for example allow men in the women's side or all the various permutations of
that if
they're not a religious organization is defined here they fall under they
can't discriminate. I think that probably falls under number ten.
Subtions? Yes
sir.
We talked about this with in particular do a women's shelter.
That's what
be required or could they pay for accommodations for certain groups somewhere else? I can't stay
here but we'll pay for you to stay over there.
Yep I think so.
Break up a quick question before
we move away from this. Sorry go ahead. Is there a way that we can just add into a nice little bundle of
what we consider discrimination instead of trying to find every loophole that anybody
could ever find anywhere because we could do this for hours. I mean, I could do this
for hours. We could find all kinds of things. But would it be easier just to write like this
is what this ordinance covers in discrimination? So that way, if somebody comes to the
city and says, I think I've been discriminated against and then the person can look and say,
Falls within this category. Yeah, you know, I think you are and if it falls with out of that say it's outside of that category, so no
Well
You'll spend with mom pretty any that that's how I read section 30-303
I think that's what that's trying to do
I don't have that on my phone, so it's very small. Can you read that to us please?
It's a lengthy paragraph
It's a section that declares these things to be civil rights and it says if you're actually
or perceived to be in one of all these categories that you have the right to hold employment
and full enjoyment of public accommodations, property transactions.
The last one is a bit of an oddity to me but the right to participate as a witness,
testify and exercise any right granted here without suffering coercion or retaliation.
So
does that limit the other things that you were questioning,
Mr. Mayor?
Well, I mean, that's the problem, right?
We'd love for it to all be simple.
We'd love for it to just say, everybody behave, do the right thing.
And if you're not, we're going to punt you.
I think we
hope society would do that, you know, in an informal way.
Then we would all gather around and say, we're not putting up with that.
But we're not going to patronize your business, we're not going to allow that to go on in
our midst.
We're going to turn out in protest, we're going to turn our backs on you.
But this is law, and when somebody has a claim and wants to avail themselves of law,
the law needs to be clear and specific and cover all these eventualities, that's what makes
it hard.
So,
our, this ordinance excludes government organizations, which means it excludes the public
schools.
Is that right?
Noticab school system, no public schools.
What about private schools?
It covers private schools?
Potentially.
Unreligious private schools will be subject to all these
requirements, which will actually
better work.
As would non-religious daycare.
Yes, except that with respect to the non religious private schools, they're probably all going to be large enough to fall
under the ambit of federal and to discrimination law. Small daycare might not be large enough, but it would be because not religious, yes, it will be.
When we had to start at private schools in
smoke rise, and elsewhere, we have them right now.
I think most of the car ones are religious affiliated
although I'm sure they would want to be sure
they were not caught up in this.
But we had just lately, we went out of our way
to change our code to allow a non-religious daycare to
to locate in a church,
sort of, you know, be the daycare for that church, although there
is separate entity, and it was a big hubbub. We had to change our code to enable it and
allow it, and we defined sizes and everything else, but that daycare is a private, non-religious
business, and would be subject to all of this. So they could be one of the ones that we
read about in the paper who's teaching or not teaching certain things in certain ways
or inviting certain curricula, all those kinds of things, that little in-person operation
comes under all this.
Believe it or not, I'm near the end. What would this law have
an effect on gender-specific sports leagues in Tucker's Parks and Rec Department and what
about leagues we lease to like Tysa and TFL. So are we going to face conversations about
biological males participating on girls teams or girls leagues either that we run or that
affiliates?
Well the say itself is exempt except that
it professes not to exercise type of discrimination.
This would have to fall under, you know,
number two under section three of three,
relating to full enjoyment of facilities
or public accommodations.
So, I mean, if a private league,
arguably exercised
gender discrimination,
it would be basis of a complaint.
While quit there, I mean, I think it's clear
there's a lot of detail that is in here
that may or may not be our intention or intention
Mitty's intention or what I have yet my point has been just to point out as many of those areas as I could
Get from a first reading of the current version. So that's what work sessions for. I think the committee probably has some more work to do. And as much as we appreciate the work that's been done, there's more to do invite you to keep at it. Try to address all these things. Well,
we appreciate that. Appreciate the discussion. I don't think we'll be able to address every single item that anybody ever comes up with because I'm not sure if every law does.
but we'll look into some of those there and we'll coordinate Ted if you don't mind back
with you as we do that work.
We'll say for anybody who's still online or anybody else, it's not that this was drafted
without looking at others, right, so other state laws, so those questions are everywhere
not just in Tucker.
I'm not saying that they're right or wrong.
I just want the public to understand.
And this wasn't a fresh, it's never been looked at by others' opportunity or intention.
We looked at other laws as well, and I'm sure those discussions have been had so we
can follow up with those folks too.
I mean, that's a big part of what's behind all these questions is their experience and
track record.
have people filed claims like the ones we've talked about, if they've been successful, do
they not exist? Have cities been sued over an ordinance that led to an outcome that was
unintended and the ordinance winds up in court and we wind up right and over. I can't overstate it.
I do think it's our duty to examine these kinds of things. They're not frivolous and made
up never going to happen kind of things. These are really reading about them in the paper regularly.
Maybe a different size company, maybe a different state, maybe a federal law versus something
local, but I
can't say it enough. We're creating law. We're affecting livelihoods. We are talking about
putting somebody out of business, either through our own ordinance or through the external ramifications.
And I think we have to take it really seriously.
That's why I keep saying, I get it.
I get the intent.
And I wish the whole world could just come together, you know, and be as one.
But we're saying in effect, we've given up on the world.
We don't trust the world to do that.
We don't trust our community to do that.
And so we're going to pass a law with teeth to punish people and insist on corrective action.
That's what it ends up being.
And that's what happens in a court or a hearing officer or in the appeals process, all
those things.
So, maybe I'm the only one, but I think it matters a lot.
Oh, quit.
I don't think they've given up on the world.
Close your comments.
At all.
And we have other ordinances that might make us look like we've given up on the world as well,
but we haven't.
So, I appreciate everybody's time this evening.
I appreciate the committee that was here.
I appreciate everybody who's left in the room.
And of course, yes, we've got a little bit more work to do on this as well, and I appreciate
what you brought up.
I'm sorry.
I said I was going to quit.
One more thing.
I'm not just asking questions for the sake of throwing up roadblocks.
There will be a point when I'll bring a whole list of refinements, amendments, suggestions
for things to do instead.
Then I just to discuss Y'all's proposal and that's what I've tried to do.
And then I would ask, could I get a copy of your questions, in case my notes weren't that great?
Yeah, but happily we recorded the whole thing too, because I intended to take a lot of notes and I also didn't do that.
Thank you.
Any final words up there? I'm looking at you guys online.
With that objection, I'm going to adjourn us.
Thank you all.