City May Take Benefits From Gay Partners

Two weeks after quietly becoming Orange County’s second city to offer health benefits to the domestic partners of its gay employees, Mission Viejo is considering taking those benefits away.

“I want it to be rescinded,” Councilman John Paul Ledesma said, referring to the Nov. 20 resolution that he and Councilman William S. Craycraft opposed. At Ledesma’s request, the council met to discuss the matter in closed session Monday.

“I think it puts the city in a position of saying that we support things that don’t necessarily reflect the majority values of the city,” Ledesma said.

The councilman said he decided to request the reversal after this week’s swearing-in of Councilwoman Gail Reavis, who opposes the policy. “I can’t see any reason that it was necessary to enact it,” Reavis said. “It benefits only homosexual couples . . . and I just don’t believe in the homosexual lifestyle.”

City Manager Dan Joseph said a reconsideration of the benefit, which is already in effect, can be initiated only by one of the two remaining council members who voted for it--Susan Withrow and Sherri M. Butterfield. “To my knowledge,” Joseph said, “that’s not happened. This is now a benefit belonging to city employees, and if there is going to be any change in the benefits, it has to go through a meet-and-confer process.”

Roger Faubel, the third council member who voted for the measure, lost his reelection bid and was succeeded by Reavis.

Monday night’s closed session focused on whether to reopen contract discussions with city employees in light of the new council’s sentiment, though the city manager said that would be unusual. “If we get to the point where we’re talking about rescinding some benefit the employees already have, it will be new territory,” he said. “We’ve never done that in the 12 years we’ve been a city.”

No action was announced after the 15-minute meeting.

Mission Viejo and Laguna Beach are the only Orange County cities that offer health benefits to domestic partners and among 12 statewide to do so.