I will give David an ‘A’ for effort on this one;
• Approximately 5,750 valid signatures (5 percent of registered voters) are required to send an issue to a vote.
• The City Clerk will conduct a random sampling process to validate the petition. Five percent of the signatures must be reviewed according to South Dakota Administrative Rule. This entire process can take up to two weeks or longer, depending on various factors. Even if a petition is validated, any interested person could then challenge the petition, alleging specific deficiencies in the petition. If so, the City Clerk would need to review each of the specific deficiencies and make a determination regarding the validity of each of the signatures in question.
• Assuming the petition contains sufficient valid signatures, the City Clerk would then deem the petition “filed†with his office. The City Clerk would then present the petition to the City Council for further action. The City Council can either place the item on the April 2018 ballot or order a special election by ordinance.
• An election ordinance requires two separate readings at least five days apart.
• State law requires any special election to be at least 30 days from the effective date of the order calling for a special election.
• Election results must also be canvassed before any proposed measure would become effective, if approved by the voters.The City is authorized to sell bonds for the proposed City Administration building effective October 1, 2016. The existence of this possible initiative effort does not prevent the already authorized bond sale from taking place. SDCL 9-20-3 prohibits the use of the initiative process to nullify the purpose for which bonds have been sold.
We don’t care if it it takes a decade to verify the signatures, that’s neither here nor there (realistically it should only take a couple of hours, since they only have to make sure about 288 sigs are valid), the real clencher here is Fiddle’s interpretation of election and petition law.
The existence of this possible initiative effort does not prevent the already authorized bond sale from taking place.
Problem is, the bonds haven’t been sold yet.
I think you know the city clerk will take longer to verify the signatures, he’s clearly a Huether minion.
My question is, why aren’t the 5 Council members doing anything to delay the issuing of the bonds?
Pass an ordinance to change the bond sale date.
Trying to wiggle out of state law shows how stubborn 3 Councilors and the mayor are. Their ego is more important than people they represent. The 3 Councilors always go along with the mayor. They could be replaced with up/down bobble heads. When there’s an overwhelming citizen coup, time for Ctrl-Alt-Del. The only way to rid the 3 viruses is reboot. At some point, citizens must realize Home Rule Charter is a dictatorship. Start by dismissing this city attorney. New government must be a city attorney and council of, by, and for the people. Not for the emperor mayor who declares himself God and paints Jesus on snowplows.
The key word in the City Attorney”s response is the word, YET.
“……it will not interfere with the selling of the bonds yet.”
A similar situation came before the Council in the past, and the bond seller testified that once it is verified there are enough signatures to set a public election, the bonds then have what is called, a “story” attached to them and the sale cannot feasibly move forward until the public has weighed in.
The petition reduced the favorability of the bonds. They’re based on future uncollected sales tax that is down this year because of Internet barter. Our boy Mike might still offer them. It’d be an embarrassing mistake from lack of interest. Apparently, everyone but he knows municipal bonds are the next financial crisis. Cities are overextended and destined for doom similar to the mortgage or S&L busts from the past.