Gillette City Council to look at repealing hate crime ordinance

GILLETTE — A controversial ordinance that was passed by the Gillette City Council in 2023 is getting another look.

Tuesday night, the Gillette City Council directed the city attorney and administration to draft a repeal of the city’s malicious harms ordinance, a portion of the city code which stirred up quite a debate in the community two years ago.

The malicious harms ordinance, commonly referred to as Gillette’s “Hate Crime Ordinance” makes it a misdemeanor offense to cause physical injury, damage property, threaten or incite or attempt to incite lawless violence based on an individual’s race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, ethnicity, national origin, ancestry, disability or age, in addition to the charges of the underlying crime itself.

The charge, which has not been used since being approved in 2023, comes with a penalty of up to 90 days in jail and a fine of up to $750. 

According to information provided by Councilwoman Heidi Gross, there have been five inquiries regarding possible use of the ordinance since it was passed.

Back in 2023, the ordinance drew passionate defense and criticism from members of the public before being passed by the city council on a 4-3 vote, although notably without the signature of Mayor Shay Lundvall, who was one of the three dissenting votes.

The item was not a part of the original published agenda, which was made public the previous Friday. City Attorney Sean Brown clarified that city council members are able to add items to the agenda after the administration’s typical Wednesday deadline by asking the mayor to add the item to the agenda or by bringing up for a vote during the meeting itself, as was done on Tuesday.

Brown said that this action is often used to discuss time-sensitive issues that the council wants to address.

Tuesday’s motion, proposed by Councilman Jack Clary, was added to the agenda at the start of the meeting. 

At the end of the meeting, the motion, which directed city staff to write up a repeal of the hate crime ordinance, was approved on a 4-3 vote, with Lundvall and Councilmen Chris Smith and Tim Carsrud joining Clary in voting for the motion.

This draft will go before the city council at a future meeting and will need to pass three readings before the ordinance is repealed.

None of these four gave any reasoning for their vote. But the three who voted against it took some time to explain why they supported the hate crime ordinance staying on the books. 

Both Ward 3 council members, Gross and Nathan McLeland, voted against the measure alongside Councilman Jim West, with all three of the members expressing their own views on the ordinance’s importance. McLeland cited the strong support the ordinance had when the topic was discussed two years ago.

“I don't see a reason to repeal it,” McLeland said. “We discussed this when we passed it, I think two years ago, and there was a lot of support for it, and I suspect there will be a lot of opposition to repealing it.”

Gross and West both characterized the ordinance as showing the care this community should have for its vulnerable members. West cited prison and jail statistics from 2021 and historical events such as the removal of the Black 14 from the University of Wyoming football team to point out this kind of rhetoric and behavior is not an issue of semantics, that it will harm members of Wyoming communities if not fought against.

"If a wife gets beat by her husband, it is assault and battery, so why do we charge them with domestic violence? Because we care about that person,” said West.

“I'm sure people out there will say, if there hasn't been any sanctions or prosecution, why do we need it,” Gross said. “We need this, like we do any other law, to deter that kind of abhorrent behavior.”

In addition to wanting to keep the law for its own sake, Gross also noted the message its repeal will send to those considering whether to come to or stay in Gillette.

“We are losing young people all the time,” she said. “Most of the graduates from the University of Wyoming, they leave. I think the statistic is about 80% those kids don't stay here, they leave our state. We have to be able to provide communities for the people that do choose to stay here, as well as people looking to come here. I just think it sends a really, really bad message to repeal this.”

During the public comment, the council also heard the thoughts of a few of the regular attendees of the city’s council meetings, including Ed Sisti, who expressed his approval of the motion, stating the term hate is usually thrown out by “people who just disagree with you.” 

During its initial passage in 2023, Sisti had described the law as a “revolting mixture of activism and cheap virtue signaling.”

“I don't think this serves us very well as a community, I really don’t,” Sisti said. “I think it does the opposite, and, if anything, it fosters hate.”

With the passage of Tuesday’s motion, the council will vote on an actual item beginning the repeal process, which will take place over the following three city council meetings.

This story was published on Oct. 22, 2025.