FAYETTEVILLE -- The city's new Civil Rights Commission's membership for the next year is set after a City Council vote Tuesday.
The council approved its Nominating Committee's recommendations for the seven-member commission, which was created by a Sept. 8 election and will hear complaints that businesses discriminated against employees or customers based on sexual orientation or gender identity. Only Alderman John La Tour of Ward 4 opposed the selections, while Alderman Martin Schoppmeyer of Ward 3 wasn't present.
At a glance
Fayetteville invasive plant ban
The city no longer allows these plants on new large-scale developments after Tuesday’s City Council meeting:
• Bush honeysuckle
• Chinese privet
• Bradford pear
• Tree-of-heaven
• Creeping Euonymus
• Kudzu
• Multiflora rose
• English ivy
• Bamboo
• Asian wisteria
• Bigleaf periwinkle
• Littleleaf periwinkle
• Serica lespedeza
• Silktree/Mimosa tree
• Heavenly bamboo varieties that produce flowers and berries
• Burning bush
• Shrubby lespedeza
• Japanese honeysuckle
Source: City of Fayetteville
The commission's members are:
• Candy Clark, a former justice of the peace and owner of C&C Services and All Around Self-Storage
• D'Andre Jones, a Walmart recruiter and City Council candidate last year
• Teresa Turk, a rental property owner and fellow with the non-profit National Parks and Conservation Association
• Rebekah Champagne, a rental property manager and massage therapist
• Henderson Joseph Brown IV, a lawyer who investigates civil rights complaints for the U.S. Department of Agriculture
• Chris Christoffel, a retired IBM manager
• Benjamin Harrison, head of business outreach with the For Fayetteville campaign in support of the ordinance.
Members generally will serve for three years, but several terms will be shortened at first to stagger the turnover. Two members' terms end at the end of 2016, while two more will end a year later.
The Nominating Committee interviewed 15 of the 17 applicants last week. All of the applicants interviewed said they supported the Uniform Civil Rights Protection ordinance's goals and wanted to keep the commission's work as fair and fact-based as possible.
Grievances first go to the city attorney's office for an attempt at mediation; if that fails, the complaint goes to the commission. The commission's first meeting isn't yet set.
The commission must include members from the business and rental property community, one with experience in human resources or labor law and at least one person identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender.
La Tour, who opposed the ordinance, said the Nominating Committee and its picks created the "appearance of bias," noting three of the committee's four members supported the ordinance.
"They had every incentive to appoint people to the commission that are biased" in favor of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and against the traditional religious community, La Tour said. "I urge my colleagues on this council to vote against this commission."
The ordinance exempts religious organizations. In an ongoing lawsuit in Washington County Circuit Court, opponents claim the law can't be enforced under state law and was improperly approved by the City Council. The next hearing in front of Judge Doug Martin is set for Friday morning, City Attorney Kit Williams said.
Alderman Mark Kinion of Ward 2, Nominating Committee chairman, denied any bias in the process and noted all city panels go through the committee. Schoppmeyer, a Nominating Committee member who voted against the ordinance, supported the nominations.
"There is no impropriety, period," Kinion said. "This was an ordinance that was passed by the community."
In other business, Tuesday's meeting included votes to expand the regional park's first phase, begin the restoration of two historic bridges and ban invasive plants in large new developments in town.
The regional park's first phase, costing $11 million, originally included building three baseball fields out of a cluster of four. Parks and Recreation staff members said they have had enough revenue this year to allow the fourth field and lighting for the soccer complex to be installed at a cost of around $715,000.
Crossland Heavy Contractors won the bid for the restoration of the downtown Maple and Lafayette street overpasses with a $1.7 million offer. The bridges have stood since the 1930s. City engineer Chris Brown said he expects work to begin next spring and end before the end of 2016.
The council's invasive plant vote bans 18 species from being planted on developments that get a landscape review by the city. Those plants can still be sold to and planted by residents. La Tour said the ordinance was a first step toward an eventual ban on the plants' sale and he couldn't support it; other aldermen supported fighting the plants.
NW News on 11/04/2015