Documents show Vice Mayor Roy A. Perkins initiated Tuesday’s executive session motions that repealed Starkville’s resolution supporting equality and amended the city’s plus-one insurance option to only spouses in state-recognized marriages.
Unofficial city minutes released Wednesday also show Perkins, who originally authorized last year’s agenda item adding specific non-discrimination language for lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender employees, stifled closed-door discussions on the repeal by calling for a close to debate and a roll-call vote.
Five aldermen — Ben Carver, Lisa Wynn, David Little, Henry Vaughn and Perkins — repealed the historic non-discrimination statement and the insurance offering for employees’ same-sex partners in executive session without any public debate or warning that the board would take such action during the city’s first meeting of the year.
Mayor Parker Wiseman, who previously championed the city’s policies, slammed aldermen Wednesday for their actions and vowed to veto both decisions.
A veto is expected to force the five-member coalition to tackle an override in public. Five votes are needed to nix the mayor’s veto, and an override is likely to happen Jan. 20.
Even though a majority of aldermen took the matter into executive session on the grounds of potential litigation, Wiseman said the public was owed open and transparent discussions.
The mayor also said aldermen offered no reasoning at the table for bringing the changes forward during the three-hour, closed-door session.
“I do not think it is good government to have that discussion in executive session when the result of it is rolling back a non-discrimination statement. The public is owed an explanation as to why elected leaders feel that statement should be rolled back,” he said.
Aldermen previously approved the non-discrimination statement in January 2014, making Starkville the first Mississippi city to extend such protections specifically to LGBT employees.
Specifically, the matter was enacted via the consent agenda, which was motioned for approval by Vaughn and seconded by Wynn.
Other cities, including Oxford, Hattiesburg and Jackson, followed suit that year with their own resolutions.
Starkville will operate with the non-discrimination policy present in the city handbook, Wiseman said, but that document does not specifically provide protections to LGBT workers.
“There’s no question in my mind that this sends the worst possible message to the outside world about our community,” Wiseman said of the repeal. “My biggest worry right now is the message it sends in our city and to our workforce. It says members of the LGBT community are not worthy of discrimination protections.
“I believe that’s wrong in every sense of the word,” the mayor added. “I want members of the LGBT community to know that I will not give up the fight to ensure that discrimination will not be tolerated.”
A call to Perkins went unreturned Wednesday.
Wynn flips on issue
Once hailed as a hero for facilitating Wiseman’s original veto of the board’s 2014 insurance change, the city’s unofficial minutes show Wynn has now voted every way imaginable on the divisive topic.
Aldermen originally approved the addition of the new insurance tier on Sept. 2 in open session with a unanimous 7-0 vote, which obviously included Wynn’s approval.
Previously, the city paid for individual employees’ Blue Cross Blue Shield of Mississippi medical coverage — approximately $393 per year — while workers could extend coverage to their spouse and immediate children through a family option for an additional $600 annually out of their own pockets.
The board’s action created new tiers: the single-employee and whole-family rates remained, while workers could then, at the time, add an adult dependent or just their children for an additional $348 or $268 annually.
The Human Rights Campaign, one of America’s largest civil rights organizations working to achieve LGBT equality, was quick to applaud the city for its new insurance option, much like the organization did after Starkville approved its statement of equality earlier in the year.
HRC’s attention also ignited a firestorm when some board members said they didn’t realize the totality of the insurance change’s impact, even though a two-page letter present in the city’s Sept. 2 e-packet shows consultants acknowledged “domestic partnership eligibility with the extension.
One week later, five aldermen — Perkins and Vaughn were not present — took the board behind closed doors in a special-call meeting to discuss again the insurance policy.
Unlike Tuesday’s vote, Carver attempted to rescind the plus-one provision in open session on Sept. 9. His attempt died at the table without a second.
With Perkins and Vaughn back at the board table on Sept. 16, the duo, Carver and Little amended the insurance option for only those in marriages legally recognized by Mississippi. That action took place in open session after LGBT supporters and members of the city’s religious community spent more than an hour lecturing aldermen during the public comment portion of the meeting.
Wynn, who spoke in favor of the additional cost savings the new tiered coverage afforded workers, abstained from the vote.
Once Wiseman vetoed the decision, it was Wynn’s exit from City Hall that solidified the mayor’s reversal.
Five votes were needed for the board to overturn the veto, and an abstention in this case would have counted toward the majority — the four-vote coalition that amended who could receive the plus-one offering.
“So many of you all were telling me to apply the Bible to this. I tried, but I can’t use the Bible to operate city government,” she said in September. “Not one alderman said one thing about the equality resolution. It was passed under the radar on consent. When this document was in my packet, it kind of concerned me. Nobody said anything, though. I trusted the person who authorized it. For any alderman to say they didn’t know (the implications of the equality resolution and the plus-one insurance extension) isn’t true.”
The city’s unofficial minutes show that Wynn not only voted to repeal the equality resolution and amend the plus-one insurance offering, she also seconded Perkins’ resolutions. The alderman also seconded and supported Perkins’ motion to end Tuesday’s closed-door discussion.
A call to Wynn was not returned Wednesday.
Carl Smith covers Starkville and Oktibbeha County for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter @StarkDispatch
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