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Mesa Advocacy Group Challenges Nondiscrimination Ordinance

The Mesa City Council passed a nondiscrimination ordinance in March, becoming the seventh Arizona city to put one in place. 

But the move was met with criticism from an advocacy group called United for Mesa, as well as the Center for Arizona Policy. Both organizations want to bring the ordinance to a vote in the city’s 2022 election.

Mesa Mayor John Giles says United for Mesa and the Center for Arizona Policy’s efforts to protest the law came both before and after it was passed.

“We worked closely with the individuals involved in both of those organizations prior to proposing and adopting the ordinance, and actually made changes to the ordinance,” said Giles.

Giles noted that LGBTQ+ advocacy groups such as Equality Arizona also had input on what was included.

He believes that if the ordinance is left up to a vote, Mesa citizens will vote it into law.

“This is a good ordinance, this is a very moderate ordinance, this is a Mesa ordinance. It doesn’t have support from zealots on both sides of the political spectrum,” said Giles.

United for Mesa says it collected more than 11,000 signatures from Mesa citizens for the ballot petition. If 9,080 of those signatures are verified, the ordinance will be referred to the November 2022 ballot.

Vaughan Jones was a reporter at KJZZ from 2020 to 2022.