The council caved to the pressure of the ACLU thugs. How wonderful for their citizens. How wonderful for us all.
(/sarcasm)
In fairness, they probably caved because they feared they would be bringing potentially ruinous legal costs onto the heads of their taxpayers. Unlike the Federal Gummint, cities and states can’t just print up more money whenever they get a wild hair to spend more.
I’d like to see them proceed with the law but have difficulty finding fault if they are trying to avoid incurring costs they can’t afford to pay.
Well, the ACLU usually files under the “private attorney general” provisions of the Civil Rights Act that allows them to collect attorneys fees if they prevail at any stage of the litigation. They then associate a whole bunch of expensive lawyers with the case to drive up the fees award. So, no small town can afford to take them on. The choice is to establish and fully fund an American’s equivalent of MALDEF to indemnify cities like this, or keep watching them cave.
Based on some of those fees cases, this may be a very smart strategic move, because it may toll the bell on a future fee award.