To: Board of Supervisors
From: Monica Nino, County Administrator
Report Title: Introduce Ordinance Amending the County Ordinance Code to Remove Gendered Pronouns and Replace with Gender-Neutral Pronouns
☒Recommendation of the County Administrator ☒ Recommendation of Board Committee
RECOMMENDATIONS:
INTRODUCE Ordinance No. 2024-23, amending the County Ordinance Code to remove gendered pronouns and to replace them with gender-neutral pronouns; WAIVE reading; and FIX December 3, 2024 for adoption.
FISCAL IMPACT:
No fiscal impact.
BACKGROUND:
Each year, the County Administrator’s Office develops a comprehensive workplan to assist in advancing and implementing policies adopted by the Board of Supervisors (the “Board”). In 2022, the Board adopted a plan to establish the Office of Racial Equity and Social Justice (ORESJ) and set forth a roadmap for the County and its departments in advancing goals around diversity, equity and inclusion.
In 2023, the County Administrator’s Office completed, and the Board approved, an update to certain areas of the County Ordinance Code (Code) relating to emergency preparedness and response activities as well as continuity of government in disaster situations. Over the course of this review, several legacy terms, phrases and statutory references required update, including references to certain department titles and job classifications that no longer exist in the County. In addition, it was observed that the use of masculine personal pronouns was prevalent when referring to incumbents of County job functions from line staff to executive leadership. Ultimately, staff recommended and the Board approved updates to these sections, including conversion of masculine pronouns to gender neutral descriptors focusing on the position or role being referenced within the Code.
In January 2024, informed by the Board’s policy direction around diversity, equity and inclusion and the experience of updating specific areas of the Code in the previous year, the County Administrator’s Office determined that a holistic review of the Code for the use of gender specific personal pronouns to determine if there may be any perceived or actual gender bias should be prioritized. And, to the extent that additional gender specific personal pronouns were identified, the County Administrator’s Office would work with ORESJ and the County Counsel’s Office to make recommendations to the Board for the transition of that language to gender neutral.
History of the County Ordinance Code:
The first County Ordinance Code was adopted in 1960 and subsequently was recodified following action by the Board on December 26, 1972 with an operative date of February 1, 1973. Since that time, the Code has been kept current through supplementation as ordinances are adopted by the Board for codification into the Code.
The Code is organized in Titles, Divisions, Chapters, Articles and Sections, under an expandable decimal numbering system so it can be kept up to date by separate supplements without the necessity for recodification. The County has secured the services of the Municipal Code Corporation (“MuniCode”) to assist with the maintenance of the County Ordinance Code.
It is important to note that in the order of actions that the Board may take - Ordinances, Resolutions and separate orders of the Board (commonly referred to as Board Orders) - ordinances typically represent a permanent rule of government or conduct and has the same effect as statute; however, County ordinances cannot conflict with the Constitution or statutes of the State of California. For this reason, the County Ordinance Code, in effect, reflects the local “law of the land” and is the highest form of policy that may be set by the Board.
Current Approach to Gender References in the Code:
Since recodification in 1970, several areas of the Code have remained largely unchanged. The supplementation approach discussed earlier lends itself to this for practical reasons; specifically, that the Code shall remain permanent until such a time that the Board makes amendments to specific sections for specific reasons. This makes maintenance of the Code more manageable as opposed to recodifying in whole over time. Some negative issues that arise from this approach are:
1. Statutory references change and can become stale;
2. Language conventions change over the course of time.
Division 16 “Construing Provisions” <https://library.municode.com/ca/contra_costa_county/codes/ordinance_code?nodeId=TIT1GEPR_DIV16COPR> of Title I “General Provisions” <https://library.municode.com/ca/contra_costa_county/codes/ordinance_code?nodeId=TIT1GEPR_DIV16COPR_CH16-4DE_16-4.016GE> lays out underlying intent, grammar and definitions related to the construction of the County Ordinance Code, generally. In 1991, the Board of Supervisors adopted Ordinance No. 91-7 making certain changes to the definition of “Gender” <https://library.municode.com/ca/contra_costa_county/codes/ordinance_code?nodeId=TIT1GEPR_DIV16COPR_CH16-4DE_16-4.016GE> within Title I “General Provisions” <https://library.municode.com/ca/contra_costa_county/codes/ordinance_code?nodeId=TIT1GEPR_DIV16COPR_CH16-4DE_16-4.016GE>; specifically, that the current approach to identifying gender identity within the Code is defined as:
16-4.016 - Gender.
The feminine gender includes the masculine and neuter genders; and the masculine gender includes the feminine and neuter genders.
(Ords. 91-7, 76-51 § 6, 70-36, 1457: prior code § 1303(c)).
Although this language appears to help advance a gender-neutral application of the County Ordinance Code and may have been viewed to be satisfactory at that point in time, that change did not result in a retrospective review and removal of gender specific pronouns that existed in the Code to that point in time. Similarly, subsequent amendments to the Code have not used a common drafting standard to remove the use of gender specific pronouns. It is important to note, though, that over the past 30 years since passage of Ordinance No. 91-7, certain areas of the Code have used various conventions that recognize both the masculine or feminine gender pronouns, such as referring to “he/her” or “she/him” as opposed to defaulting to “he” or “him.
County Administrator Review Methodology:
The County Ordinance Code amounts to over 1,300 pages of text among the various (11) eleven Title sections described earlier. In May 2024, following adoption of the County Budget, the County Administrator’s Office convened a team of three (3) team members to develop a methodology and scope for reviewing the County Ordinance Code to identify:
1. References to Gender Specific Pronouns;
2. Updates to Gender Neutral Pronouns
3. Policy Framework for Update of Department Policies and Procedures
References to Gender Specific Pronouns
At commencement, the workgroup began by defining a methodology for reviewing Code text that ensured a comprehensive review while maintaining fidelity to the scope of the project. The largest task was identifying a compendium of gender specific pronouns comprehensive enough to ensure a complete review.
Following research on the topic, the City of Berkeley (the “City”) had completed a similar process in 2019 and it was determined prudent to use the compendium of gender specific pronouns used by the City as a proxy for use in the County’s review process.
Specifically, the following list of gendered pronouns were used in the County's review process:
• He
• Him
• His
• She
• Her
• Hers
• Male
• Female
• Man
• Woman
• Men
• Women
• Himself
• Herself
In applying search terms to the Code, the following methodology was applied:
1. A single Microsoft Word document for each Title section was created.
2. In each document, each gender specific pronoun identified above was searched as a “whole word” to ensure that matches generated in the document reflected the single word being searched rather than a fragment of another word (e.g. searching “he” may generate matches for “the” if not searched as a “whole word”)
3. Exceptions:
a. One exception to the methodology in No. 2 above was searching for the word “man”, since that term holds a gender reference in certain words, such as “workmanship” or “workmanlike”.
b. During a meeting of the Public Protection Committee, the Animal Services Department presented certain Code provisions around spay & neuter and licensing of dogs and cats within the County. Currently, the Code includes references to “b*tch” in reference to female dogs and “queen” in reference to female cats. The Committee directed staff to remove those terms from the Code and those updates have been included within the scope of this review process.
Once the review process was completed, 841 gender specific pronoun matches were discovered for review and potential update. It is important to note that each of the (11) eleven Title sections had gender specific pronoun matches during the review.
Updates to Gender Neutral Pronouns
Following identification of gender specific pronoun matches, staff discussed methodology to evaluate updates to each match. Below is the process used to make recommendations for updates to the language, in order of approach:
1. Delete the gender specific pronoun reference and substitute with a non-gendered descriptor. For example, when referencing a department head, substitute “he” with “the department head”.
2. In situations where a substitution in No. 1 changes the construction of the sentence, restructure or reword the sentence to become gender neutral.
3. If a non-gendered descriptor is not a direct replacement for a gendered pronoun and it is difficult to restructure a sentence without materially changing its meaning, then consider using “they” or “their” in its form as a singular pronoun in place of the gendered pronoun.
Below is an example that requires application of Nos. 1 and 2 above:
26-2.2806 Late filing.
Whenever the director of community development determines that a person has begun an illegal land use without first applying for and obtaining all required permits or entitlements, the person he shall apply as soon as practicable and pay a fee of one and one-half times the normal fee, but he and remains subject to other penalties and enforcement procedures.
(Ord. 86-95 § 5).
Below is an example that requires application of No. 3 above:
82-34.602 Nonconforming use.
Upon the effective date of the ordinance codified in this chapter, any person who claims or believes they he or she has have established a legal nonconforming use to maintain a cabaret shall, within sixty days of the effective date of the ordinance codified in this chapter, provide written evidence describing the extent and scope of such use to the director of the community development department…
(Ord. 95-20 § 1).
Policy Framework for Update of Department Policies and Procedures
Following completion of the project, staff discussed the best way to ensure continued modernization of various department level policies and procedures throughout the County, which may have references to gender specific pronouns. Given the results of this analysis of the County Ordinance Code, it is highly likely that a significant set of gender pronoun references exist in internal and external policies administered by line departments.
For this reason, the County Administrator’s Office recommended, and the Equity Committee approved, development of a policy mandating a transition of department policies and procedures to use gender neutral descriptors in existing and future County policies and procedures. Once the policy is approved it will be the responsibility of the respective Departments to update their specific policies and procedures by a date certain, to be determined by the Board upon recommendation of the Equity Committee.
Today’s action requests that the Board of Supervisors introduce Ordinance No. 2024-23 authorizing removal of certain gendered pronouns outlined in Exhibit A to the ordinance, waiving reading and fixing December 3, 2024 for adoption. The ordinance will be effective 30 days following adoption by the Board of Supervisors.
CONSEQUENCE OF NEGATIVE ACTION:
Ordinance No. 2024-23 will not be introduced for adoption on December 3, 2024. Ultimately, if the ordinance is not adopted, then the County Ordinance Code will continue to make reference to gendered pronouns.