Tuesday, July 2, 2002

A story published today by the Herald-Sun reports that the Durham, North Carolina city employees plan to pursue the issue of domestic partner benefits which the city council had voted down.

Mayor Pro Tem Lewis Cheek said he voted against providing the benefits because he didn’t believe the administration had supplied enough information on how other governments, businesses and universities handle the issue. He also said he wanted specifics about how the city would define and verify domestic partners.

On Tuesday, Cheek said he is still interested in hearing more information. He said his vote could change depending on what he learns.

The vote against benefits was 4-3, so Cheek’s vote could change the outcome.

"I think that just because the vote turned out the way it did last time doesn’t mean it couldn’t turn out differently with additional information," Cheek said Tuesday. "If I saw that eligibility criteria were well-defined and I had more information that led me to believe that Durham should do it -- based on what other areas are doing and based on what insurance companies in general are doing -- then I would certainly look at it from that point of view."

Under the proposal, which City Manager Marcia Conner had recommended, unmarried partners who live with and share expenses with city employees would have been eligible for city health and dental coverage. Employees would have been required to sign documents affirming their partnership.

City Attorney Henry Blinder said that he believes that either benefits approach would be legally defensible. He said state law neither requires nor prohibits offering the domestic-partner benefits. But he said that including domestic partners under benefits would be more consistent with the city’s policy.

Michael McGinnis, Durham’s benefits director, said his office plans to do more research for Cheek.

"Certainly based on his statements, this office will be going back to determine what information he would like to have and how he would like to have it," McGinnis said. "It was pretty clear that the information that was provided didn’t satisfy his needs."

Mayor Bill Bell, who sets the agendas for council meetings and who favored expanding the benefits, said he would be open to hearing the issue again.

"A council person can bring any issue up that they want, if they have a second," Bell said.

Chapel Hill and Carrboro, the only governments in North Carolina to currently provide domestic-partner benefits, won lawsuits challenging the benefits in 1999.