After a brief — but fervent — controversy online Wednesday, the Town of Chapel Hill restored several of its website’s pages, including ones about the town’s history of support for the LGBTQ+ community and its diversity, equity and inclusion office.
In an email to the mayor and town council, Interim Town Manager Mary Jane Nirdlinger described the pages’ removal alongside more than one dozen others as part of a content audit being completed as the town staff prepare to launch a new website for the local government. Recommended by their web contractor and website vendor, the town planned to archive the pages because of their low page views and overall website function. Once discovered by residents and social media users, however, a wave of critical responses led the town to reactivate the pages, pledge for them to remain public, and plan to not archive any others as the website maintenance continue.
“While we turned these off because of the results of our content audit, we realize from recent feedback that some of these pages speak to our values and are important to have on our website regardless of their page views,” Nirdlinger wrote to the elected officials. “We also recognize that context matters and, in this moment fraught with political uncertainty, our actions carry extra weight. We remain committed to serving everyone in our community and we would welcome a Council discussion to provide policy guidance around the intersection between our values, our communications, and our service to the community.”
The civics blog Triangle Blog Blog first reported the changes to Chapel Hill’s website on Wednesday. The removals were further amplified by former Chapel Hill mayor, current Orange County Clerk of Court and LGBTQ+ community member Mark Kleinschmidt — who said in a Facebook post he interpreted the move as “a short-sighted, prophylactic attempt to distance Chapel Hill from its reputation for being a welcoming, inclusive, equality-minded community.” He described the reasoning of website maintenance to improve its function as “a specious argument” and alleged the town’s reputation would take a hit as a result.
“After hearing about this,” said Kleinschmidt, who remains a Chapel Hill resident, “a friend shared with me that premature capitulation to bigoted policy isn’t how we should respond to the challenges of our time. Erasing LGBTQ people from the town’s website doesn’t help the town get grants, rather it helps the people who want to erase us from public life do it more easily.”
The former mayor later updated his Facebook post following Nirdlinger’s message to the town council — after Kleinschmidt’s post amassed hundreds of likes, comments and shares, and sparked several critical emails to the town’s elected officials. In a conversation with Chapelboro, Kleinschmidt said while the pages’ initial removal was dispiriting, he believes the quick and overwhelming response from community members reacting to his post helped reaffirm the values Chapel Hill holds.
The Town of Chapel Hill has prepared to launch a new website with improved user-friendliness and functioning for several months, with Nirdlinger adding the current timeline is for it to go live online in October. The 17 pages briefly turned off were all associated to functions and efforts stemming from the town manager’s office, she said, but many others were set for removal because they are public webpages about town employee-focused or internal content. Alongside a new public website for residents, the town is now building an employee intranet for workplace policies, procedures, forms, and other staff resources.
Chapel Hill Mayor Jess Anderson shared an open letter Wednesday afternoon in response to the community’s reaction. It reads:
“Chapel Hill Community,
Late yesterday, members of Town Council and I learned that, in the course of building a new website, webpages relating to our work on LGBTQIA and other issues were archived. This included resources and information about the history of our LGBTQ community. At a time when members of that community – our community – are under attack, removing information that celebrates their accomplishments sends the wrong signal to them as well as to other marginalized communities. This is something I want to quickly address. The Town of Chapel Hill is committed to being a safe, welcoming, and supportive community for all. This includes protecting and celebrating communities whose very existence others call into question.
On receiving this news, I and others on Town Council requested that this information be restored to the website. We are pleased that the webpages have been put back up and have assurances that they will remain in place as the new website is developed. In the meantime, I fully expect that Town Council and our staff will engage in more conversations about how we navigate these challenging times, including how we ensure that our support and commitment to our values is always clear.
We are grateful to the many members of our community who quickly spoke up in support of the values we all stand for. We apologize to anyone for whom this has caused confusion or concern. Please continue to reach out. We want to hear from you.
Sincerely,
Mayor Jess”
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