With some disagreement but not much debate, the Midway City Council passed a resolution Monday night endorsing the resettlement of refugees in Kentucky and asking other towns in the state "to join them in supporting a stronger national effort to resettle refugees around the world in need of a home."
The vote was 4-2, with Council Members Bruce Southworth and Kaye Nita Gallagher voting no. "Sorry, Logan," Gallagher told the resolution's sponsor, Council Member Logan Nance, as she voted.
Southworth said
the resolution wasn't needed. "This is a federal issue, not a local issue," he said. "This is an issue more for the churches than the government, at a local level."
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| Logan Nance |
Nance, an Army veteran of Afghanistan, replied that there's nothing wrong with a city saying "We welcome you . . . It would be very weird to live in a place where I don't speak the language and I don't have a home. So for some place to say 'Hey, we welcome you,' it is a symbolic thing, but at the same time I think it's a powerfully symbolic thing."
Earlier, Nance said refugees' world has changed, "and they're just trying to find a place . . . they find a place here that is now their new home, so anything we can do to make them feel welcome, I think, is a great thing."
Gallagher, saying she was relaying questions citizens had posed to her, asked Nance why Midway would be the only city in Kentucky to pass such a resolution, and if refugees "do end up moving here . . . who is going to help pay for them to be here?"
Nance said cities like Louisville and Lexington "are probably afraid [to pass such resolutions] because of the backlash they would get." He said refugees are self-sufficient after six months, and are helped by Kentucky Refugee Ministries every day, teaching them English and American culture.
Council Member Sara Hicks said she had worked as a family therapist with refugees, and "They were very honorable and good people." As a child-abuse investigator, she added, "I never had a refugee case, ever. I never had a juvenile-delinquent case."
Council Member Stacy Thurman said, "Gestures like this have to start somewhere," and Council Member John Holloway said, "Absolutely." Thurman said "Logan could have easily backed off of this," but took under advisement comments made at
a public forum on the issue.
Nance said he
redrafted the resolution in partnership with Kentucky Refugee Ministries. An earlier version was modeled after one prompted by Amnesty International, a group criticized by some opponents of the original resolution.
The public reaction to the original resolution surprised city officials. Gallagher said she thought when she first heard of it that it would pass without controversy, but "We've gotten more flak over this than we did about the Fairness Ordinance, which I think is weird."
In 2015, soon after Mayor Grayson Vandegrift took office, the council passed 4-2 an ordinance he offered to prohibit discrimination in employment, housing and public accommodations on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. Gallagher and Southworth voted for it, as did Hicks, the only other current member who was on the council at the time.
Vandegrift said he also was surprised at the opposition to the refugee resolution, but said, "The political situation in America is different" than it was in 2015.
The closest the resolution comes to political commentary is: "The number of refugees allowed into the United States has been slashed to the lowest number in decades," though "there are more refugees in the world today than at any time in recorded history." Last year, President Trump, who made immigration a central issue of his campaign, limited U.S. refugee admissions to 30,000,
a record low.
The resolution supports refugees' resettlement in Kentucky "no matter their religion, race, nationality, sexual orientation, gender identity or country of origin" and says Midway "is a welcoming community that celebrates diversity and inclusivity."
About 15 people attended the council meeting. Vandegrift opened the floor for comments, but suggested that those who had spoken at the forum defer to others. No one rose to speak.
Vandegrift, who took no public position on the issue, said before the vote, "The democratic process won out again," and "This city will move forward as a united city."
Other business
The council tabled the Midway Business Association's application for an event permit that would allow it to close the north side of Main Street for pop-up "Makers' Markets" and roving musicians on May 25, June 14, July 12 and Aug, 9, after no representative of the association appeared and Vandegrift said, "There's already talk about event fatigue this year."
The mayor said the schedule, along with Midway Renaissance's Midsummer Nights in Midway, would result in the closing of one side of Main Street every two weeks. He also said he wanted to know "who's benefiting from this financially."
The application says the purpose of the event is to "promote downtown Midway." When MBA event coordinator Elisha Holt discussed the plan with MBA members at their monthly meeting last week, she said they would mean that an event would be scheduled somewhere in the county "every single summer weekend."
The council also:
- Approved this year's sidewalk-repair program, which will involve 11 projects in which the city will pay up to $1,000 of the cost. Vandegrift said some walks to be fixed are among the worst in town, and "I think everyone's going to get a good deal because this is a lot of sidewalks." The city will issue a request for proposals by contractors; Vandegrift said it would include provisions for protecting as many trees as possible. Pictures of the sidewalks to be repaired are in the council meeting packet, a 10-megabyte PDF downloadable here. Gallagher abstained from the vote; one of the properties is hers.
- Appointed Dan Rosenberg and Rich Schein to the Affordable Housing Task Force, chaired by Thurman (who abstained), bringing its membership to seven. Vandegrift said Rosenberg, a bloodstock agent, can reflect horse-farm interests, and Schein will serve "ex officio" because he is the city's representative on the Woodford County Planning Commission.
- Appointed local architect Kevin Locke to the county's Board of Architectural Review, the planning body that considers applications for zoning variances in historic districts.
- Heard Vandegrift announce that former mayor and state representative Carl Rollins will speak at the Memorial Day ceremony in Midway Cemetery, set for 10 a.m. May 27. (An earlier version of this story gave the wrong time; Vandegrift said he misspoke.)
- Heard Nance say that several names will be added to the veterans' monument in the cemetery, "one of the best veterans' monuments in the state, bar none," and that there is still time to submit additional names to the local Veterans Committee.
- Heard Vandegrift say that he hopes to have a proposed budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1 late this week or early next week.
The council heard an appeal for funding from Melynda Jamison, executive director of CASA of Lexington, which runs the program for court-appointed special advocates for children involved in court proceedings in Woodford County. She said the nonprofit recently expanded to the county, with $20,000 in funding from Versailles, and is "very hopeful" for funding from the county. "We are there for what's in the child's best interest," she said.
Jamison said the program expanded to Bourbon County about three years ago, and is fully funded by the county and Paris, but the Woodford County position is not fully funded. She said the county has 26 volunteers and state law requires such agencies to have one supervisor for every 30 volunteers. She said 79 cases of child abuse were documented in the county last year.
