Naugle could
be removed from Lauderdale tourism board

Fort Lauderdale, Fla., mayor Jim Naugle could be voted off Broward County's tourism board following a lengthy war of words between the mayor and LGBT residents.

The decision is an agenda item for the August 28 meeting of the Greater Fort Lauderdale Tourism Development Council. Members of the council and the Fort Lauderdale Convention and Visitors Bureau have publicly rebuked the career-long Democrat, with the bureau president asking Naugle to stop his "mischaracterizations" and "hurtful, mean-spirited rhetoric" against LGBT people.

In July, Naugle proposed installation of $250,000 self-cleaning single-use toilets because, he said, the city needed a way of thwarting gay men from having sex in public restrooms. He has also denounced the establishment of the LGBT Stonewall Library and Archives in a city-owned building, saying that the collection houses pornographic materials. He has spoken ill of the Sun-Sentinel newspaper, calling it the "Rainbow Sentinel" because the staff comprises a number of gay people. (The Advocate)