A Star City resident that frequented council meetings last year to propose and support the implementation of anti-discrimination ordinance in the city reappeared at Tuesday night’s Zoom meeting to resume advocacy efforts in favor of the ordinance.
DeeDee McIntosh said that she knows the past year has been a rough one and that she is appreciative of all that Council has done during that time as well as the updates to the Star City Personnel handbook that Council approved last year.
She said that she remains hopeful that Council will review the anti-discrimination ordinance that she proposed last year.
McIntosh said that while she has once again been disappointed by the West Virginia legislature, last summer’s landmark Supreme Court decision in the case of Bostock v. Clayton County provided protections for employment to the people of the United States.
She said she was heartened to see on the agenda for Tuesday’s meeting that Council would be discussing a resolution to the Fair Housing Act of 1968 which prohibited discrimination regarding the sale, rental and financing of housing based on race, religion, national origin and sex.
She said that she hoped Star City had included the same protections for sexual orientation and gender identity to the people of Star City.
“That’s two of the three legs of the ordinance that I asked you to consider last year. So, I’m hoping that the town can once again take that up and give consideration to nondiscrimination in our town,” McIntosh said.
Later in the meeting, Council committed to providing leadership in the effort to make fair housing a right that can be realized by all of its citizens and proclaimed the establishment of April as Fair Housing Month in Star City.
McIntosh first proposed the anti-discrimination ordinance at a Star City Council meeting in January last year. She appeared at meetings after the initial proposal to continue to urge council members to consider the ordinance and to put discussion of the ordinance on the agenda for future meetings.
While Council approved updates to verbiage used in the Star City Personnel Handbook to reflect the inclusion of minority groups, including the removal of marital status and sexual preference and the addition of ancestry, blindness, gender identity and sexual orientation to the manual, Star City Council did not place the proposed anti-discrimination ordinance on the agenda for future council meetings.
McIntosh’s efforts to convince Council to consider the ordinance were delayed by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March last year.
