Council considers changing City Charter’s referendum, initiative timeline
LAKEWOOD – City Council will decide in late July whether to ask voters to approve a proposed City Charter amendment that could keep referendum proposals from the same voters for 18 months and nearly two years for ballot initiatives from citizens.
The idea moving forward, but subject to change, would make a distinction between initiatives – which are ordinances introduced by citizen petitions – and referendums – elections called to overturn Council action. It would place referendums on a 180-day track to the ballot, but hold initiatives until the next scheduled coordinated county election the next November.
The proposal, from City Clerk Margy Greer, would eliminate the current Charter requirement that all special elections be held within 90 days of certification by the Clerk’s Office, instead requiring that all issues put to a vote by petition would be delayed until the next November election. The plan also would increase from 90 to 180 days the time Greer’s staff would have to arrange and set the election after the petitions are certified. The Clerk’s Office has 30 days before that to verify that the petitions contain the signatures of enough active Lakewood voters to qualify.
When added to the 180-day petition period, the run-up to an initiative election could take as long as 390 days. Should that push the proposal into mid-December or later, it would be the following November before the initiative went to voters, more than two years after the petition drive began.
In the case of referendums, which seek to nullify Council-approved ordinances, the lag time could be nearly 18 months.
Only City Council would be allowed to employ special elections under the proposal before Council, which would give them the power to decide which referendum issues would go to voters sooner than later by ordering special elections.
Most City Council members supported moving Greer’s preferred option to a vote, despite earlier consensus to consider changing only the timeline for initiatives.
Many of them said they were swayed by the potential cost savings of avoiding stand-alone special elections.
Greer said the cost of the last single-issue special election – the 2007 “Switch for the Ditch” election that overturned a controversial Council-approved land swap – was $270,000. The cost of a November election coordinated through the county in the same year was about $30,000, she said.
“ It lets us decide, as a governing body, whether we want to spend $240,000 for an election or whether we want to spend $30-some thousand,” said Councilman Ed Peterson.
Councilman Adam Paul voiced concern that the process could be manipulated so referendum issues important to Council members could be put on a fast track to special election while those Council deems less important could be sidetracked for more than a year.
“In a citizen-driven referendum, it puts the power with Council and lets Council decide (the timing.) I think it is important for the citizens, if they go through the work to do a referendum, that they have their opportunity to circumvent Council and have their election,” Paul said. “If they want to go through the process and try to change our decision, then we shouldn’t have anything to do with setting it.”
In a Ward 4 meeting over the weekend, a number of citizens told Paul and Councilman Dave Wiechman the uncertainty over when referendums would come to the ballot is a double-edged sword: It could harm citizens’ chances of passing a referendum and it could dampen potential development by allowing projects under challenge to languish for as long as 18 months.
But in last week’s City Council study session, Councilwoman Karen Kellen said she likes having the timing of elections in the hands of Council.
“People would have the opportunity to lobby us like they do on anything else if they really felt it was a big issue,” Kellen said. “I like having the flexibility and the discretion.”
Paul, though, said it all boils down to the right to individual democracy and the work the city’s founders put into compiling the City Charter.
“I think it’s important to respect that and part of that is there is a citizen’s right to appeal and that is a ‘direct democracy’ form and they have that right,” Paul said. “I have confidence in my Council, but the system can be manipulated by both sides.
“I feel its good to take us (Council) out of the equation and let it go to a vote on its own,” Paul added.
Mayor Bob Murphy said he found a lot to agree with in all the remarks made by Council, but strategically, pragmatically, I think there’s a lot to be said about (Paul’s) proposal,” Murphy said.
Council will decide whether to send the issue to voters during a July 26 public hearing.
