Sandpoint City Council votes to amend non-discrimination ordinance

Decision comes after multiple tie votes broken by Mayor Jeremy Grimm

By Zach Hagadone
Reader Staff

After more than four hours of public testimony and deliberation — and a series of tie votes, all broken by Sandpoint Mayor Jeremy Grimm — the Sandpoint City Council voted Nov. 19 to amend its longstanding non-discrimination ordinance. 

In a memorandum to council dated Nov. 13, Grimm wrote that the NDO, originally approved in 2011, included “local definitions, enforcement mechanisms and processes that likely extend beyond the city’s legal authority. The proposed amendment repeals the existing structure and replaces it with a concise reference to federal and Idaho civil rights law.”

Specifically, the new ordinance would remove local definitions of protected classes — including reference in City Code to gender expression and identity as, “A gender related identity, appearance, expression or behavior of an individual regardless of a person’s assigned sex at birth.”

In addition, the ordinance changes proposed by Grimm eliminate the Human Relations Review Board and local complaint process, incorporate federal and Idaho civil rights law “directly by reference” and clarify that “individuals retain full rights to pursue complaints through state and federal agencies and the courts.”

Grimm stated in the memorandum that the rationale for altering the NDO “ensures legal consistency, reduces community division, prevents litigation risk and keeps the city within its proper jurisdiction.”

The vote came after a fast-moving community furor related to an alleged “incident” in which an apparently transgender woman used the women’s locker room at the Litehouse-YMCA in October. What started as a Facebook post from a YMCA lifeguard quickly turned into a wide-ranging community debate over the appropriate policies determining who can use which bathrooms, locker rooms and other public facilities.

Mirroring larger debates around the country, specifically related to transgender access to accommodations designated other than their gender assigned at birth, the largest proportion of commentary offered during the allotted three hours of testimony centered on perceived threats to women’s and girl’s safety and privacy if transgender individuals are allowed to share spaces such as communal bathrooms and locker rooms.

Many of the residents who testified — indicating their residence in Sandpoint as well as Bonner County, including Priest River and as far as Careywood — shared harrowing and emotional stories of sexual abuse and assault as reasons for their discomfort with the idea of a “biological male” being present in places where they feel vulnerable in states of partial or full undress. Many similar comments also framed the issue as protecting women’s rights, rather than limiting transgender rights.

Still others expressed fervent opposition to the existence of transgender identities on religious grounds, as well as repeated references to transgender identities as “mental illness,” “delusion” and “a false reality — it’s not real.” As one speaker also put it, “don’t San Fran my Sandpoint.”

Bonner County Sheriff Daryl Wheeler testified that the NDO as it stood was not about “identity” but “public safety,” and set up “a double standard based on a business policy.” Rather, he argued, the city should defer to state and federal laws, and repeal the entire ordinance.

“I pray that that action be taken tonight,” he said. 

“I see the adoption of the amendment of this ordinance … as a way for the city of Sandpoint to step out of this cultural and national debate,” Grimm said.

Though constituting a minority of those who testified on Nov. 19, supporters of the city’s NDO said amending or repealing it set the city on a “slippery slope” to depriving even more categories of people from employment, housing and accommodation protections — many of which are not addressed in state or federal code with the level of detail and definition that Sandpoint’s policy has for 14 years. Still others pointed out that no issues — either of non-compliance or challenge to the ordinance — had arisen in the time since its approval. Meanwhile, some speakers stated that transgender people are statistically far more likely to be the victims of sexual and other forms of violence, rather than the perpetrators.

In an email sent to Grimm and members of the council from the Sandpoint Alliance For Equality on Nov. 19, more than 80 local businesses and organizations signed onto a letter in support of the NDO, stating that, “it reflects our fundamental value of treating others the way we’d like to be treated — with dignity and respect.”

“We’re concerned about the impacts amending the non-discrimination ordinance would have on our community and our economy,” stated the signatories, which include some of the community’s most well known businesses. “Weakening our ordinance would create a chilling effect for many of our patrons, and would harm our local economy.”

SAFE also delivered more than 460 individual letters in support of retaining the NDO to the city.

The Bonner County Republican Central Committee also addressed the issue at its Nov. 18 meeting, approving a resolution on the “criminalization of ‘transgender’ men in women’s bathrooms.”

In part, the resolution resolved that BCRCC “condemns the policy cowardice and inaction” of the YMCA for its policy granting access to facilities by patrons based on their gender identity or expression, and called on the city to change its code so it “does not provide cover for men to violate the dignity of authentic women in their bathrooms and changing facilities.”

Tom Bokowy and Dave Britton were the sole dissenting votes on the BCRCC. Bokowy questioned the practicality of restricting locker rooms “based strictly on ‘gender at birth,’” calling it “unworkable. It’s not conservative. It’s government overreach in the most personal place possible. … It’s political clickbait dressed up as concern for women and children. And it distracts from real issues and real threats.”

BCRCC President Scott Herndon, who has announced he will challenge Dist. 1 Sen. Jim Woodward, R-Sagle, in the 2026 primary, spoke before the council on Nov. 19, describing the issue as a city ordinance running contrary to state jurisdiction. He also said that at least three bills are being contemplated in the upcoming legislative session on the topic of transgender people’s access to multi-use facilities.

“Legislatures should control the policies related to this,” he said.

Before and during deliberation, Council President Deb Ruehle and Councilors Pam Duquette and Kyle Schreiber bristled both at the ordinance and the process by which it was being considered. All three either made motions, seconded or supported efforts to postpone adoption to gather more information and input — including a motion from Schreiber to delay until the first meeting in February 2026, when city staff would make a presentation on putting the ordinance up for a public referendum. That motion failed on a tie vote, with Councilors Joel Aispuro, Justin Dick and Rick Howarth opposed and Grimm breaking the tie.

Another motion from Duquette to postpone a decision until January — when incoming Councilors Joe Tate and Joshua Torrez would be seated, replacing Dick and Howarth — failed along identical lines.

Dick said he preferred to work with the existing NDO, potentially eliminating the Human Relations Review Board while working specifically on language related to bathroom access. However, he voted to approve the ordinance in yet another tie vote, again broken by Grimm.

“I think that you’re ignoring the 80-plus businesses, the 400-plus members of SAFE, the 700 members of the Bonner County Human Rights Task Force and many of our community members who have spoken and written to us,” Duquette said to Grimm.

“I am not ignoring the more than 2,000 or 3,000 businesses that didn’t respond, and I am not ignoring the most important thing, which is my conscience,” Grimm responded.

Watch a recording of the full meeting on the city of Sandpoint’s YouTube channel.