Opinion: Board should revisit, pass nondiscrimination ordinance

Strategic Plan 2022 (on the Town of Wake Forest website)

Fostering a Safe, Diverse, and Welcoming Community

Wake Forest is a safe and inclusive community with attractive neighborhoods and diverse, engaged residents.

Priorities

• Create new and improved gateways and wayfinding
• Implement action items from the Northeast Area Plan
• Offer events that bring the community together and celebrate our diverse cultures.

* * * *

Wake Forest elected officials like to use words like “inclusive community” and “diverse cultures,” but a month ago, during their work session in April, they were ready to shoot down a proposed ordinance that aimed at making sure those “diverse” people were treated fairly in all local locations and in employment in local businesses. Only Commissioner R. Keith Shackleford’s suggestion that he would like to examine the different facets of the agreement kept it out of the garbage bin.

It is an agreement, an ordinance, first approved by the Wake County Board of Commissioners to apply only in the unincorporated areas of the county. The board sent it on to all the county towns, seeking agreement so it could be enforced county wide. Thus far Apex, Morrisville, Raleigh, Knightdale and Wendell have approved it.

The ordinance reads in part:

WHEREAS, Wake County welcomes all people and recognizes the importance of diversity and the importance of all people being free from discrimination based on race, natural hair or hairstyles, ethnicity, creed, color, sex, marital or familial status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin or ancestry, marital or familial status, pregnancy, National Guard or veteran status, religious belief or non-belief, age, or disability; and

WHEREAS, invidious discrimination and the tolerance of invidious discrimination is detrimental to the health, safety, and welfare of the citizens of Wake County and the peace and dignity which Wake County seeks to promote for all of its residents; and

WHEREAS, on October 18, 2021, in accordance with G.S. 153A-121, the Wake County Board of Commissioners enacted a Non-Discrimination Ordinance (“Wake NDO” or NDO”) effective within the jurisdictional limits of Wake County to promote principles of diversity, inclusion, harmony, and equal treatment for all and thereby the health, safety, and welfare of those who live in, work in, and visit Wake County as well as to promote the peace and dignity of Wake County, and . . .

During the work session, Town Attorney Hassan Kingsberry described the suggested ordinance. Immediately after, Commissioner Nick Sliwinski asked if it would affect private businesses, and Kingsberry said yes. Sliwinski said that was “overreach.” Commissioner Jim Dyer and Mayor Vivian Jones said they agreed it was overreach. Kingsberry said it is a “booster” to federal laws. The mayor said she thought it would be “improper” for the town to tell local businesses they had to follow this ordinance.

Shackleford noted they had just received the ordinance a few days before and he would like to look at it further. Jones agreed he could bring it up again.

We did not elect the mayor and commissioners to protect local businesses from having to treat everyone fairly. We elected those officials to help make sure we all are treated fairly.

W can be sure that at least five, more probably 10 percent of our residents  are gay as well as many more who have other sexual orientations, another segment who wear their hair in ways never seen back in 1950, and a lot of people who can fit into one or more of the categories identified above. Some of it is visible; much is not but will surface when someone applies for a job in town.

If this ordinance is enacted in Wake Forest and some business owners are discomfited by having to change their practices, that is on them for doing so in the first place. We all deserve equal treatment.

Let us look at this question of “private businesses.” When a would-be merchant or professional person decides to open a store or a business, they have to build, lease or rent a building or space, stock it with goods, hire employees, obtain a business license from the town and any other jurisdiction – all before they open the doors. And they are opening the door in a public market place, expecting the public to enter and purchase their wares or services.

A “private” business is privately owned but it has to conform to all the rules, ordinances and laws that apply in that jurisdiction just as all private citizens do.

Now, we would hope that all Wake Forest businesses are treating all their customers or clients and possible or current employees equally without regard to hair or any of the other conditions listed in the proposed ordinance. But we don’t know, do we?

And that’s the sticking point.

If we wish to continue to be seen as a community that welcomes everyone and encourages ethnic diversity, it is important that the Wake Forest commissioners and mayor consider the community as a whole, revisit the nondiscrimination ordinance and approve it as so many of our neighboring towns have already done. Otherwise we will be an outlier on a topic that would damage our reputation and standing.

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