JOURNAL OF PROCEEDINGS MISSOULA CITY COUNCIL APRIL 5, 2010 CALL TO ORDER AND ROLL CALL The meeting of the Missoula City Council was called to order by Mayor Engen at 7:00 P.M. in the Council Chambers at 140 West Pine Street. Present were Alderwomen Hellegaard, Marler, Mitchell, Rye, and Walzer and Aldermen Childers, Haines, Houseman, Jaffe, Strohmaier, Wiener and Wilkins. Also present were Chief Administrative Officer Bender, City Attorney Nugent, Finance Director Ramharter, Public Information/ Communications Officer Merriam and City Clerk Rehbein. APPROVAL OF MINUTES Minutes of the regular meeting of March 22, 2010 were approved as corrected. SCHEDULE COMMITTEE MINUTES The following meetings were announced: Wed., April 7, 2010, 9:30 – Noon Plat, Annexation and Zoning Committee (PAZ) Wed., April 7, 2010, 1:05 – 1:35 PM Administration and Finance Committee (A&F) Wed., April 7, 2010, 1:40 – 2:10 PM Public Works (PW) No meeting Public Safety and Health (PSH) No meeting Conservation Committee (Cons) No meeting Committee of the Whole (COW) No meeting Budget Committee of the Whole (BCOW) No meeting Economic Development Subcommittee (EDS) No meeting Urban Wildlife Subcommittee (UWS) No meeting EIS Peer Review Subcommittee PUBLIC COMMENTS Edessa Kerner is the President of UM Students for Normal. She formally invited City Council and the rest of the community to Marijuana Education Day Fair on Monday, April 19th in the University Ballroom. The purpose of this event is to bring together the community to discuss issues such as law enforcement and zoning, ethical caregiver practices and other issues concerning marijuana in Missoula and she hopes people will come to participate in the panels. Students for Normal will send out an invitation in the future with more details if you are interested. She thinks it‘s obvious that there are a lot of growing concerns dealing with marijuana and medical marijuana in the community and this would be a good opportunity for everyone, from all sides of the discussion, to get their opportunities on the table so that they know what‘s going on. Mike Alexander said he‘s representing himself this evening as a private citizen. He read a short statement on the Missoula Anti-Discrimination Ordinance that‘s up for consideration this next week. I am promoting and maintaining the health, safety and welfare of the people residing in Missoula as well as those that live without the City limits that visit or do business here. I believe that that end can best be served by putting the Missoula Anti-Discrimination Ordinance to a vote by the people of the City for the following reasons: by being proactive and giving people the opportunity to voice whether or not the ordinance should be adopted. Both sides deserve to be given an opportunity to do so and would promote the exercise of democratic process of a free people. This is such an important issue that a vote by the people of Missoula would be a demonstration to others of the fairness of Montanans and would reflect how they want to be perceived by others, by helping avoid any backlash, elected Council members might receive by those who feel they‘re not speaking for them. I would imagine Council members feel the weight of their responsibility and representing the will of their constituents. On such a sensitive issue as this, a vote by the people would serve to affirm the value of the representation they are receiving, thereby silencing any gainsayers. A vote would be a meaningful expression of the responsibility people desire to take for laws they want to be governed by. It would be a real statement of whether this ordinance or any City of Missoula City Council Minutes –April 5, 2010 - Page 2 other ordinance is felt to be for the health, welfare and safety of the people. Such an expression of the people would contribute greatly towards ensuring the general peace and harmony and would silence any divisive rhetoric. In closing, help everyone join together in moving ahead united and without regrets, put the ordinance to a vote of the people. Thank you for your consideration. Kandi Matthew-Jenkins said she has to divert again from her story on child protection services of the one young lady, Cynthia. Last week a great crusader and family advocate, Senator Nancy Schaffer from Georgia who was doing investigations into child protective services and then covered quite an amount of fraud and deception in that department was found dead with her husband in her home. They are looking into it as a suicide/murder but one of the accounts was that she was shot in the back and he was shot in the chest. One account was that he was sick yet her daughter knows nothing of the sickness and they lived in the same community. Mrs. Schaffer was a great leader in advocacy for families that are abused by the system called Child Protection Services. She dedicated time because her findings are concise and well worded. They were presented to the House, Ways and Means Committee and many, many times she testified on this subject. From the legislative desk of Nancy Schaffer, 50th District of Georgia, ―My introduction to Child Protection Service cases was due to a grandmother in an adjoining state who called me with a tragic story. Her two granddaughters had been taken from her daughter who lived in my district. Her daughter was told wrongly that if she wanted to see her children again she would sign a paper and give up her children. Frightened and young, the daughter did. I have since discovered that the parents are often threatened into cooperation of permanent separation of their children.‖ If you remember in Cynthia‘s case the first thing the caseworker Nancy Smith did was have her sign a paper and then she could have her child returned after she found a place of her own to live in instead of with her mother. ―The children were taken to another county and placed in foster care. The foster parents were told wrongly they could adopt the children. The grandmother then jumped through every hoop known to man in order to get her granddaughters. When the case finally came to court it was made evident by one of the foster parents‘ children that the foster parents had, at any given time, 18 foster children and that the foster mother had an inappropriate relationship with the caseworker. In the courtroom the juvenile judge acted as though she was shocked. Said the two girls would be removed quickly. They were not removed. Finally after much pressure being applied to the Department of Family and Children‘s Services of Georgia, the children were driven to South Georgia to meet their grandmother who gladly drove to meet them. After being with their grandmother for two or three days the judge, quite out of the blue, wrote up a new order to send the girls to their father who previously had no interest in the case and who lived on the West Coast. The father was in the adult entertainment business. His girlfriend worked as an escort and his brother, who also worked in the business, had a sexual charge brought against him.‖ Roger Johnsrud said he‘s here tonight as a private citizen and has been requested by quite a few people to present a letter he has. The letter is in regard to Title 9.64 Illegal Immigration proposed ordinance for April 12, when it will be coming forward. The approval of this ordinance will open all bathrooms to pedophiles and other perverts of all genders regardless of sexual preference. The Council will become directly liable for legal action brought by individuals claiming right or at any level due to stalking assisted by this rule. The individual Council members will not be able to defend based upon pleading they did not know or understand the consequences of this action. According to the proposed ordinance all people have a personal right to enter a bathroom specifically for their sexual preference and can demand that public and private facilities provide sexual preference bathrooms. If this ordinance is put into effect, it must require funding for all public bathrooms. To be upgraded to accommodate preferences specifically for male that like male, specifically for male that like female, specifically for female that like male, specifically for female that like female, specially for genders that like all genders, specifically for men that think they are women and women do not mind men in the bathroom, specifically for women that think they are men and men do not mind that women are in the bathroom, specifically for pedophiles seeking voyeurism and potential victims and all other possibilities like bringing in farm animals. In order to avoid any legal issues of discrimination, I recommend you build all bathrooms prior to passing the ordinance. The specific references of concern: the proposal of intent and your definitions…they‘re written specifically for your sexual orientation and a gender identity or expression. Specifically, 9.64.030 Employment Discrimination is Prohibited, which will require employers to hire pedophiles and other sexual deviants. As example, a school will need to hire a convicted child molester and allow them to hang out in their child‘s bathroom of their choice of sexual preference provided they can meet the requirements of their job City of Missoula City Council Minutes –April 5, 2010 - Page 3 such as mopping the floor. Pedophile is a sexual preference. Item 9.64.040 Discrimination in Public Accommodations Prohibited. This is the same as above and would allow for the same individual to hang out in a church bathroom, at the local restaurant where your child just went to wash their hands, at the local park, gas station or many other places where most parents are not aware that the City Council will be allowing them to hang out.