City pays $18K to ‘outsource’ nondiscrimination discussion without public comment

Stymied by nearly 11 hours of contentious public comment about a proposed nondiscrimination ordinance this summer, city officials have hired a consulting group for almost $18,000 to research the topic more.

The ordinance is designed to prevent discrimination within city limits on the basis of “age, color, disability, familial status, gender identity, genetic information, national origin or ancestry, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, veteran status or any other factor protected by law.”

It bans discrimination in employment, housing and businesses that serve the general public.

A request filed via the Kansas Open Records Act has found that City Manager Robert Layton agreed to pay the Kansas Leadership Center $17,800, of which $8,900 was to go toward organizing a special interest group meeting.

A further $8,900 is for a report prepared by the KLC Journal, the consulting group’s civic issues magazine, according to a copy of the contract obtained by The Eagle.

Thus far the KLC report has not been publicly released. The meetings it held were open to the public but public comment was not allowed.

The Diversity, Inclusion and Civil Rights Advisory Board is expected to send a recommendation to the council, who will vote on the ordinance Oct. 12, the day before advance ballots are sent out in the upcoming city elections.

The change in schedule assures the decision will loom large over upcoming city council races, where three seats on the council are up for grabs.

The prolonged process was requested by City Council member Becky Tuttle at a July 13 meeting. Tuttle and two other council members, Cindy Claycomb and Jared Cerullo, both of whom are up for election, advocated for hiring KLC.

Opponents of the rule have criticized Mayor Brandon Whipple for trying to pass it without seeking the approval of the Diversity, Inclusion and Civil Rights Advisory Board.

Backers of the KLC deal said that input from special interest groups would help shape the council’s decision on the future of the ordinance, which has already passed but could be blocked or altered at a second reading in October.

But one of Whipple’s political allies, Chris Pumpelly, was highly critical of the decision to delay and to put discussion of the ordinance under primary control of the KLC instead of the Diversity, Inclusion and Civil Rights Advisory Board.

“When I heard about this facilitation, I was surprised,” Pumpelly told the advisory board at a recent meeting. “I thought that we were going to be talking about how we can make this NDO better. And I know this city has a thing for privatization and outsourcing, but we’re now outsourcing our advisory boards.”

KLC was hired to try to build a consensus around what exactly is in the ordinance, proponents said.

In two meetings last week, KLC organizers, led by former state lawmaker Ed O’Malley, attempted to explain how the ordinance stacks up to federal and state laws already in place to protect against discrimination.

Wichita’s nondiscrimination ordinance would incorporate protected classes in various federal and state laws and allow the city to enforce violations with penalties up to $2,000, according to the presentation by KLC.

“Sometimes you have to lower the heat to get into a productive work zone,” O’Malley said. “You have to lower the heat to get productive.”

But special interest groups clashed over whether a city ordinance was needed and whether a civil discussion about whether or when it might be all right to discriminate could be had.

The hope was a mediator might be better able to facilitate the discussion with LGBTQ and civil rights advocacy groups Equality Kansas, GLSEN, ACLU of Kansas, and several Christian advocacy groups, from the Catholic Diocese of Wichita to the Greater Wichita Ministerial League.

Former Republican state Rep. Chuck Weber, executive director of the Kansas Catholic Conference and a representative for the Catholic Bishops of Kansas, objected to the ordinance’s lack of clarity about same-sex restrooms at religious establishments such as the Lord’s Diner, which offers free meals in downtown Wichita.

“At what point does lowering the heat become work avoidance?” asked Mark McCormick, director of strategic communications for the ACLU of Kansas.

“The intention is not to avoid the work,” O’Malley said. “The intention is to do the work of really getting clear about what’s in this (ordinance), what’s not in this, what’s it mean, and collect some collective clarity.”

Pumpelly said the group was essentially an end-run around public discourse and wasn’t likely to result in a rule that was more even-handed than its original version

“We can’t settle, and we can’t weaken this. We cannot water this down. They won in the way that they slowed it down. We could have this NDO right now,” he said.

“We could have a form of the NDO. We could have had it, but they (city council members) said, ‘Nope, let’s throw sand in the gearbox because we need to slow it down and bring the key stakeholders together.’ I’d like to know what that means.”

Members of the public wishing to speak to the council about the ordinance may address the Diversity, Inclusion and Civil Rights Advisory Board on Wednesday, Sept. 15 at 5:30 p.m. in city council chambers at City Hall.

This story was originally published September 14, 2021 at 3:50 PM.