Fayetteville City Hall Still The Site For Meeting Tonight

Antidiscrimation Ordinance On Third, Final Reading

FAYETTEVILLE -- Tonight's City Council meeting will go on as scheduled at 5:30 p.m. in Room 219 of the City Administration Building, 113 W. Mountain St.

Aldermen at a special meeting Monday considered moving the meeting to the Fayetteville Town Center to accommodate what's expected to be a large crowd.

Watch Online

http://accessfayett…">The meeting will be broadcast live online

At A Glance

Fayetteville City Council

Also at tonight’s meeting, the City Council is scheduled to discuss:

• A $113.3 million capital improvement plan for the next five years; and

• A resolution approving the purchase of about 11 acres adjacent to Gulley Park for $1.1 million.

The Gulley Park purchase is likely to be discussed prior to the Civil Rights Administration proposal. Discussion of the capital improvement plan is scheduled to come afterward.

Source: Staff Report

But after hearing concerns about the change of venue, all eight aldermen voted to stay put.

The City Council is set to consider a controversial Civil Rights Administration ordinance. The proposal would prohibit certain types of discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity and would create a municipal civil rights administrator position. The proposal is up for its third and final reading tonight.

The issue drew a standing-room-only crowd Aug. 5 during the second hearing on the issue. Mayor Lioneld Jordan said he remembered a crowd spilling out of the City Council chambers, into hallways, down the stairs, into the first-floor lobby and onto the sidewalk in front of the City Administration Building during a 2003 debate on an ordinance that banned smoking in restaurants and most Fayetteville workplaces.

"It's not really the first time we've seen that kind of crowd," Jordan said Monday. "We had people that were protesting and people that were in favor of (the smoking ban) outside, and we managed then."

Jordan's chief of staff, Don Marr, said the doors to the City Council chambers are scheduled to open at 4:30 p.m. today -- a half-hour earlier than normal.

Once the room reaches capacity, which Fayetteville Fire Chief David Dayringer put at 130 people, attendees will be asked to wait in the hallway, lobby, Room 111 or the space outside Room 111 where new residents sign up for municipal water service.

Fritz Gisler, director of media services, said the meeting will be telecast live on several television monitors outside of the City Council chambers. The telecast also will be accessible online at accessfayetteville.org, on Channel 216 for Cox Communications customers or on Channel 99 for AT&T U-verse subscribers.

Jordan assured residents that everyone who wants to address the City Council at tonight's meeting will have an opportunity to speak.

Police Chief Greg Tabor said extra plain-clothes officers will be in the audience to help maintain order.

Jordan said he could only recall one other time since he became alderman in 2001 when the City Council changed locations. That came in 2007 when the elevator in the City Administration Building was being repaired. The council met in the District Court Room on Rock Street.

City Attorney Kit Williams said after Monday's meeting he thought there was a time in the 1980s where the council had to relocate because the City Administration Building was being renovated. According to newspaper accounts, a 1974 discussion about the future of the Old Post Office building in the center of the downtown square had to be moved to Fayetteville's Central Fire Station because of expected turnout.

According to the change-of-venue resolution considered Monday, it would have cost city officials $2,000 to rent the Fayetteville Town Center for the night.

NW News on 08/19/2014

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