PRESCOTT ARIZONA REAL ESTATE – BALLOT

By Cindy Barks The Daily Courier

And those eight will not include the potentially controversial proposed increase in the number of signatures necessary to get an initiative measure on the ballot.

That was the decision of the City Council Tuesday in a 5-1 vote. Only Councilwoman Mary Ann Suttles voted against the measure, after asking the council to postpone a decision on the amendments until next week. (Councilwoman Tammy Linn was absent from the meeting).

But other council members were prepared to vote this week, and chose to put five election-related matters up for a vote in November, along with one relating to solid waste disposal, one on special meetings, and another on approval of franchises.

That leaves at least 15 of the proposed charter changes for a future election. Many of those involve “housekeeping” word changes on issues such as the terms of the mayor and council members, and appointment of boards and commissions.

The fate of the two measures that deal with increasing the required signatures for initiative petitions was uncertain after Tuesday’s meeting.

Councilman Jim Lamerson, who earlier pushed for clarification on whether the current initiative-petition standard conflicted with the Arizona State Constitution, questioned this week whether the city had received adequate clarification.

“How can we go to the voters, knowing full well we don’t have a clarification?” Lamerson asked. “I don’t know how we can put on the ballot something that we don’t have a clear view.”

The issue came up during the 2009 campaign for the Taxpayer Protection Initiative. When the initiative organizers took out their petitions, city officials said they needed to get signatures from at least 15 percent of the total number of voters in the previous city election.

But later, City Attorney Gary Kidd maintained that the actual percentage should be 25 percent. City officials attributed the difference to a conflict between state statute and the State Constitution. While the city later decided to retain the 15-percent standard for the Taxpayer Protection Initiative, the question remained.

Meanwhile, however, the city has yet to get an official ruling on the matter from the Arizona Attorney General’s office. Until that happens, Lamerson said, “I wouldn’t want to see this on the ballot.”

The potential for controversy on the measure was apparent Tuesday, when the council heard from audience members who questioned the constitutionality of the measure.

Council members ultimately opted to pull the two measures that deal with the signature requirement off the November ballot.

Some sentiments arose early on in the discussion for getting all of the other issues resolved at once.

“I don’t think the citizens are dumb; I think they’ll understand it,” Councilman Steve Blair said of the remaining 23 charter changes, adding that the city should “get them all done at once.”

Councilwoman Lora Lopas agreed, maintaining that none of the proposed charter amendments is frivolous. “We need to keep the charter cleaned up,” she added.

But Suttles questioned the wisdom of “flooding” the voters with so many issues at once. “They still have to be read, they still have to be scrutinized,” she said of the ballot measures. “I would like to get this down and maybe come back in the next election with some of the housekeeping (measures).”

That approach seemed to have the support of several people in the audience as well. Local resident Robert Graybill urged the council to “go by the school of common sense,” and limit the ballot issues to no more than five per election.

And resident John Danforth suggested that confusion over one of the initiative measures could cause voters to “vote ‘no’ on the whole slate.”