Commission chairwoman: Bill James should apologize

Published Dec. 17, 2009 at 12:33 p.m.
Mecklenburg County commissioners Chair Jennifer Roberts said Wednesday that colleague Bill James should apologize for using a slur during an exchange with another board member, and said she may ask commissioners whether to take any further action.

The incident occurred Tuesday during a meeting in which a majority of commissioners agreed to offer domestic-partner benefits to county workers in same-sex relationships starting in 2011.

Toward the end of an emotional, two-hour debate on the topic, James leaned over to commissioner Vilma Leake and asked: "Your son was a homo, really?"

Leake responded: "You're going to make me hurt you. Don't do that to me. Don't talk about my son."

Leake had just finished speaking about her personal connection to the debate, including mentioning her son's 1993 death from AIDS. "To be insensitive to that is completely inappropriate," Roberts said Wednesday. "I think he does owe her an apology."

But James said he won't apologize, and said he was only asking Leake to clarify an earlier comment she made about her son's death and his lifestyle. He said he wasn't making a derogatory comment, and used a slang word used when he was growing up.

"People can believe whatever they want, they can believe in the tooth fairy and legend of Atlantis," James said. "I don't determine what I do based on what people think. I determine it based on what I did and what I did was I asked a question and that question doesn't deserve or require an apology."

Leake did not return calls seeking comment. But she told Qcitymetro.com she thinks the board should censure James.

"I'm not waiting or holding my breath to receive an apology from Bill James," Leake told the news Web site. "I'm not sure he understands what it means, because his values are so different from the rest of society."

James has come under fire before, including a 2004 email in which he wrote that urban blacks "live in a moral sewer."

Public reaction to James' comment was mixed Wednesday, with some people praising what he said and others saying he shouldn't have spoken ill of another colleague's son.

Tuesday's brief exchange wasn't clearly audible in the room, and happened as Roberts was talking. Some commissioners said they couldn't even hear what James had said from their seats. Leake and James often banter with each other during meetings, but some commissioners said they didn't realize anything was off until hearing Leake's response.

Leake left her seat briefly after the benefits vote, and Roberts said county staff described her as "visibly upset."

Contacted Wednesday, some board members also said they found the comment insensitive and inappropriate.

Dan Murrey he hopes James understands how the comment could be hurtful, and that he would apologize to Leake. "I think that a lot of how the commission responds may depend on what Mr. James decides to do," Murrey said. "We need to be able to have respectful dialogue on the board, and if we can't get beyond these sorts of comments, then we're not going to be able to do that."

Commissioner Neil Cooksey said he would have apologized had he said the remark. But he and Karen Bentley said the issue should be addressed between Leake and James.

Some commissioners also said they worried the attention focused on the brief exchange was overshadowing the larger policy decision made by the board.

With Tuesday's vote, Mecklenburg will become the seventh local government in North Carolina to offer benefits to same-sex domestic partners of its employees. Democrats who supported the plan said they believe it could help recruit or retain employees, and said it is important be fair in offering benefits to employees, regardless of their sexual orientation.

But the board's three Republicans said they didn't believe there was a large demand for the same-sex partner benefits, and said the county could be breaking the law by offering them.

The county would only offer the benefits to same-sex couples; some other local governments and private companies also extend the benefits to unmarried, heterosexual couples.

Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx said he expects the City Council to discuss early next year adding sexual orientation to its anti-discrimination policy, as well as providing benefits for domestic partners of city workers in same-sex relationships.

The council debated the issue in 2003, but city Attorney Mac McCarley said state law doesn't give clear approval for the benefits.

But a new report from the UNC School of Government wrote that state law appears to give local governments authority to offer the benefits, though it hasn't been tested in court.

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