City to Decide What You See on the Ballot
Below is an excerpt from and email I got from Cain Davis. He wants to make sure that we know that the City Commission will be deciding whether or not to accept the ballot language, that has been prepared by their own attorney, of the City of Gainesville Charter Amendment that city residents will decide this March 24, 2009. The Amendment prohibits the city from providing civil rights, protections, and preferences that are NOT already provided for by the Florida Civil Rights Act. Passing this amendment would be the deal killer for the City’s controversial Transgender Bathroom amendment to its own civil rights ordinance that, in practice, allows any man to self-identify as a protected “trangendered” person when caught lurking in the lady’s room at any private business. Schools and all government buildings were exempt.
The City Commission will be meeting this Thursday, December 4, to make the decision. It will be a great opportunity to see how they work, and how willing they are to let the citizens decide on this issue. A lot of people worked very hard to get this on the ballot. More people signed the petitions to get this on the ballot than normally vote in City of Gainesville Elections.
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“During their discussion on November 6, 2008, the Commissioners specifically asked for citizen input regarding the ballot language because several individuals who support their side were in the audience and presented what the commissioners thought were good ideas. Let’s provide them the citizen comments they requested. Below is the website you can go to and listen to the entire discussion, about 50 minutes:
http://gainesville.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=2&clip_id=450
“Once you get to the site, if you only want to listen to the part of the meeting which pertains to the gender identity issue please follow these instructions:
1. Look to left-hand side of screen, under the picture
2. Click on the up/down cursor which is located to the right of the words “jump to”
3. Once the listing appears,scroll down to the line which reads: 080410 “Proposed city charter amendment”
“The video will start playing at the beginning of the gender identity discussion.
“The following is the website which contains the agenda item for December 4, 2008, the item is on page 35 of the agenda:
“The following are the email addresses for our city officials, please send your email to all emails and blind copy citizensforgoodpublicpolicy.org. The reason we are requesting for you to blind copy citizensforgoodpublicpolicy.org is so that we can have an accurate count of those who oppose what the city commission is attempting to do:
HanrahanP@cityofgainesville.org
hawkinswt@cityofgainesville.org
mastrodij@cityofgainesville.org
henrysl@cityofgainesville.org
poel@cityofgainesville.org
DonovanJF@cityofgainesville.org
LoweSC@cityofgainesville.org
legal@cityofgainesville.org
hauck@cityofgainesville.org
“Sorry for the long email, but I wanted to provide enough information for you to understand what and why we are requesting your support at this time. If you have any questions please email to citizensforgoodpublicpolicy.com.
“Thanks in advance.
“Cain Davis
Chairperson, CGPP”
www.citizensforgoodpublicpolicy.org
