Live Blogging from the CC meeting. Anti Discrimination Bill reading, Bomb Scare

[simms3]

I'm blown away.  Jacksonville's reputation as a backwoods redneck town is fully deserved based on this city council meeting.  Wow.

[AshleyLauren]

This is a first, "You are bringing death to our doorway."

Lots of pastors taking the stand tonight. Lots of out of towners as well. There are about 50 people left tonight, and still most are wearing white shirts.

Up next will be the discussion of the bill at the Rules Committee and the RCD/PHS meetings next week. The Rules Committee meets on Monday at 930 and the RCD/PHS Committee meets on Tuesday at 2pm. These are the two meetings that have been assigned the bill so that they Council may make a more educated and well rounded decision. Each committee is open to the public and is held at City Hall in the CC Chamber. These meetings last week were extremely rewarding and insightful and you can read about what took place at those meetings under the "News" portion of the forum. Hopefully, Bishop learns from Gulliford and both Committee leaders will offer a forum that is equal to both sides.
After that, hopefully, the bill will be voted on at the next CC Meeting two weeks from now. We will update you the moment we find out if that is concrete or not.

****** In the meantime, I would like to hear more from our members. How do you foresee this ending? Do you think the LGBT community will prevail or will the religious and economic worries trump their passion? If it does not pass what will happen next? If it does, how will the religious organizations of the city retaliate?
As well as, how do you think the members have weighed the information they have been given to make their decision?
And if someone could school me a bit. If the bill is not passed, I assume it will not be the end of the attempt to add the LGBT community to the Anti-Discrimination bill. What will be done next? And how long does a council member have to wait to resubmit it?

[Timkin]

I'm blown away.  Jacksonville's reputation as a backwoods redneck town is fully deserved based on this city council meeting.  Wow.

With regard to particular Council Members, Simms, I could not agree with you more!  That these 3 council members are putting up this much of a stink is Preposterous at the very least.   This mindset keeps us in the dark ages.  I truly wish these individuals could be removed from the positions. They are contributing zero.

[Timkin]

I think it will be passed with , particularly Daniels and Redman kicking and screaming and thumping their Bibles all the way.

[AshleyLauren]

That is it for me tonight. Forgive me for leaving early, but some of this is hard to take over and over again. The various feelings evoked at these meetings is overwhelming. There has been an argument going on all week about where do Jacksonville go wrong?   My answer, when we allowed people to stand in a room and condemn another because they are different. When we forgot the person sitting next to you is a human being despite what they do. And when we decided one way is the right way.


I would love to hear your thoughts, fears, worries, or critique. Thank you for your continuous contribution to my blogs.

Good night.

[AshleyLauren]

I think it will be passed with , particularly Daniels and Redman kicking and screaming and thumping their Bibles all the way.

Well lets break it down. Shall we?  There are 19 council members. We know, well I think we know, for sure Daniels, Redman, Yarborough, Bishop, Lumb, and Lee are unequivocally no's. Joost may be in that group as well. Crescembeni appears to be in support, Gulliford might be. And Jones of course is a yes. Schellenberg appears on the fence. That leaves Boyer, Gaffney, Brown, Holt, Carter, and Love that have not that I can remember spoken out at all on the matter.
So we know for sure there are 6 maybe 7 members in opposition. How many have to vote yes for it to pass?

While I was responding Yarborough announced we are on our last public speaker for the night.

[Charles Hunter]

It takes 10 votes to pass an ordinance.  In the rotunda before the meeting, I heard someone say the expect the vote to be 10-9, and don't know which way it will go.

I left a few minutes before the last speaker - those seats aren't the most comfortable.  Interesting meeting ... and who knew there was a National Sodomy Day, as one of the preachers announced.

[Timkin]

Why would Lumb not go along with the bill. How does it affect him?

[simms3]

Was the whole CC meeting supposed to be about this one bill?  Or is there other order of business actually related to normal CC functions?  I understand the bill is important and needs to pass, but this should have been a quicker pass with the business community making sure it gets through alright...and then on to other business.  At least that's how I envision a CC meeting should go.

Have we heard much from the biz community on this?  Aside from the masses/CC/LGBT/preachers creating a firestorm on both sides, where has the usually more rational and pragmatic business community been in all of this?  I would think the biz community would use this as an opportunity to make sure a bill passes that signals Jax as a more progressive place than people elsewhere consider it...and obviously that would help the private sector immensely.

[Tacachale]

^The business community, including the Chamber and the Civic Council, is very strongly in support of the bill. They haven't been quiet about it at all.

Of course there are individual business owners who oppose it for whatever reason; certain council members would prefer to listen to them over the vocal support of every significant business group when considering the voice of the "business community".

And there's no "firestorm on both sides"; one side is in favor of basic protections for LGBT citizens as a moral and legal necessity, and the other side is fighting them at every step of the way.

[Timkin]

and the other side is fighting them at every step of the way.

^ Absolutely!  It is absurd. No one is messing with their rights.  They are acting out of the realm of the job they are supposed to be doing by bringing up the argument that this isn't right because The Bible says its wrong.   Point blank these , council people are attempting to deny rights to a group who deserves it, and in the process ,doing a stellar job of displaying their ignorance and bias.  I won't forget this when election time rolls around again.

[AshleyLauren]

Why would Lumb not go along with the bill. How does it affect him?

I put Lumb in the opposing category because at the RCD/PHS committee last Tuesday he said he cannot support the bill the way it has been amended right now. That said, next week he could change his mind but as of last Tuesday he claimed he would not be supporting it.

[AshleyLauren]

Was the whole CC meeting supposed to be about this one bill?  Or is there other order of business actually related to normal CC functions?  I understand the bill is important and needs to pass, but this should have been a quicker pass with the business community making sure it gets through alright...and then on to other business.  At least that's how I envision a CC meeting should go.
Have we heard much from the biz community on this?  Aside from the masses/CC/LGBT/preachers creating a firestorm on both sides, where has the usually more rational and pragmatic business community been in all of this?  I would think the biz community would use this as an opportunity to make sure a bill passes that signals Jax as a more progressive place than people elsewhere consider it...and obviously that would help the private sector immensely.

Simms, No the whole CCM was not supposed to be about this one bill. If you read through the first few posts on this thread you see I briefly state some things they talk about. The problem with CCM's is that unless you are avidly up to date on the bill numbers you get lost rather quickly. The first half of the night normally goes something like, "Bill number so and so is doing whatever and will be changed for this or given x amount of money. All those in favor say I. (Most say I) So say the council bill has been passed." And they move on to the next one. It's very quick and there is not explanation given as to what they are talking about. You are given the meeting agenda. It looks like this:
http://cityclts.coj.net/coj/CurrentYear/Council/86-June-12-12-AGENDA.htm
Now, yes, I am an intern, and yes all of this is very very new to me; however, I would assume most people dont understand 80% of what is on that paper.

As far as the business community, surprisingly they appear torn with members of the business community standing up for both sides. A lot of this was discussed last week at the Rules and RCD/PHS committee. I live blogged both of those and the threads are under news.

[Tacachale]

You're doing great, Ashley, thanks for the coverage. On the "business community", though, it's not "torn" on this issue. There are businesspeople on both sides, but the Chamber of Commerce, Civic Council, and representatives of the largest employers are all avidly for it. And most of them already have comparable policies at their own firms in place.

[kells904]

OK, so this thread has me kinda pissed.  I can't believe the people of Jacksonville allow themselves to be led by this band of dumbasses.  I don't care what their past accomplishments are, I don't care how "nice" or "genuine" they might be as people.  As public servants, they're shit.  I believe they might be attempting to intentionally demoralize the voter base into not being at all interested in what they're doing.  This way they can simply screw off on the taxpayer's dime and nobody will really care.  If that's not their plan, then they simply don't know what they're doing. You spend an entire meeting Bible thumping, and kick the whole thing off with a presentation on Tim Tebow??

WHAT...THE...F-CK....

But if these...people...are who we as a city elect as City Council members, what does it say about us as a city? 

People need to see this crap happening.  I believe at some point, meetings were televised--or still are, somewhere.  There needs to be an expose of some kind about how a city--who seems to be soooo concerned with how its tax dollars are spent-- allows its Council meetings to be glorified thumb twittling, its members getting paid to do pretty much nothing.