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Clouds gathering over Stanton’s fate
By DAVE SHELTON
| Article published on Thursday, March 22, 2007 |
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LARGO – While officials prepared for a meeting of historic proportions, religious leaders continued to attack the lifestyle of suspended City Manager Steve Stanton.
City Hall doors won’t open until 5:30 p.m. on March 23, but Assistant City Manager Henry Schubert said hundreds are expected to assemble long before that to be part of a public hearing on whether the city should fire Stanton.
During the City Commission meeting on March 20, the Rev. Ron Sanders, pastor of the Lighthouse Baptist Church in Largo, said God has protected Largo over the years from killer hurricanes because of the abundance of prayers.
But, he warned, “The Lord wants me to say some things.”
“God’s wrath is on America right now,” Sanders said.
He pointed to the 911 terrorist attacks and the devastation of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina.
Sanders said the gay, lesbian and transgender lifestyle is “an abomination against God.” He said if the city allows Stanton to stay in office, “He will be a hero to all of those weirdos from New Orleans who are looking for a new home.”
Only one Stanton supporter addressed the commission, community activist J.B. Butler.
“Largo is not on an isolated archipelago in Siberia” and “Our leaders need to be more understanding of lifestyles that are different,” he said.
Stanton has outlined how he apparently plans to fight for his job in the three hours he has been granted. His lawyer, Karen Doering, of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, filed a 19-page appeal of Stanton’s Feb. 27 suspension and threatened termination.
The appeal also argues that Stanton was following the best advice of professionals in the transgender field in the way he planned to go about revealing his planned sex change. That plan, Stanton has said, was disrupted when someone among his “circle of friends” outed him to the news media last month.
The commission granted Stanton three hours to present his case during the hearing, after which all of those present will be allowed to address the commission.
“If someone’s preamble includes ‘regarding this termination’ then they can talk about anything, I guess,” said Mayor Pat Gerard, one of Stanton’s most staunch supporters.
Commissioner Mary Gray Black read a lengthy legal brief to the commission in which she argued that the hearing be quasi-judicial. She wants witnesses sworn and cross-examined and to have a legal transcription of the meeting.
City Attorney Alan Zimmet countered that this would give Stanton an easy avenue to appeal to the courts.
Several commissioners objected to having received Black’s prepared statement during the meeting and having to listen to her read it.
There was no support voiced for Black’s arguments.
Schubert told the commission that there will be a large police and firefighter presence at the hearing, just as there was the first time the commission addressed Stanton’s termination. He said City Hall would be closed at 4 p.m. and registration would begin for speakers at 4:30.
All demonstrators and those wishing to distribute literature will be fenced in outside of the building, Schubert said. Only 500 will be allowed inside of the building, where they will be given assigned seats in three rooms where the dais and speaker’s podium can be seen and speakers heard on closed-circuit television.
Audio will again be heard from speakers at the front doors, outside of the building.
The hearing also will be broadcast, live, on Channel 15 local access cable TV, according to Schubert.
The hearing agenda calls for the commission to vote on Stanton’s termination after the hearing, but that might hinge on what time the hearing is over, said Gerard.
Correction:Changed Channel 13 to Channel 15.
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Article published on Thursday, March 22, 2007
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