The Glendale City Council is adding some discrimination protections for sexual orientation and gender identity. Four other cities in Arizona have passed non-discrimination ordinances including these groups of people.
Glendale signed the Unity Pledge last year, which was a symbolic step towards workplace equality. Some council members felt this was enough action, while others want an ordinance detailing the specific protections.
Those hesitant to address the issue say don’t fix a problem that doesn’t exist, since there haven’t been complaints of this type of discrimination. Councilman Bart Turner wants to be proactive.
He said, “We wouldn’t necessarily wait until we had a discrimination problem before we addressed our policies and procedures.”
It’s the classic chicken and egg debate, as Assistant Glendale City Attorney Nancy Mangone pointed out.
“We don’t have an avenue for people to report.” She said. “So I’m not sure without an avenue to report those types of violations if people would even know where and how to report them and how we would compile those statistics for the businesses in Glendale.”
The council voted to add the protections to city contracts and seek public input before moving forward with any ordinance.
