Last week, Cory Madville did a great post about the technicality of the petition’s oath (thanks for filling in for me);
SDCL 2-1-11 requires that statewide petitions be†liberally construed, so that the real intention of the petitioners may not be defeated by a mere technicality.†If the spirit of that law applies to municipal petitions as well, then Danielson’s mis-oathed petition should stand, and the will of the voters should be heard.
Besides a bunch of armchair politicos, bloggers and attorneys, Mr. Danielson may get his day in court (details to come soon). A judge will ultimately have to decide the fate of the petition oath.
It is clear this will have to be settled in court, the city attorney, the SOS and the city clerk, Tom Greco did the right thing in invalidating the signatures, and Danielson admits he grabbed the wrong form. But what I take issue with is the defense of the city clerk in what he did before the petition was circulated.
Several councilors last night decided he needed defending, while I will defend him on invalidating the signatures, I WILL NOT DEFEND HIM on stamping the petition. Yes, Danielson has fully admitted he screwed up, he should have had an attorney review BOTH sides of the petition, he has admitted it was a mistake. But ultimately, Bruce is NOT the public official who has to verify a petition before moving forward, that is the job of the city clerk. There has been a lot of he said-she said in what happened. Bruce said he offered to show Greco the back of the form, and he said he didn’t need to see it, Greco offers that Bruce told him he didn’t need to see it. Either-or, doesn’t matter. The city clerk’s job is to verify a petition (both sides) and stamp it for approval. Greco did not do his job, period. Even if Bruce refused to show Greco the back of the form, Greco could have refused to stamp the petition. Pretty simple.
I still think the city clerk deserves a reprimand for what he failed to do at the beginning, but as of right now, it looks like that may be a judges decision.
The city has been to court half a dozen times and lost. City ordinances are blatant disregard for constitutional law. Greco stamped the petitions making them legal but this is for a judge to decide.
Only my opinion: Huether will authorize the bonds sale. The city charter allows him to without council approval or a public vote. A bigger embarrassment will be when a broker will not sponsor them or there’s lack of investor interest.
If the bonds sell, I’d say the next petition be for the bond money to be spent on specific projects OTHER THAN an Admin Building. What’s expected from this judge is an order to make available the petition form that didn’t exist.
Finally, there’s enough evidence now to circulate a petition or appeal into State Court an action to recall the mayor.
The mayor has already awarded the contract for the Admin Building without council approval and competitive bids. Instead of ‘STOP THE FUNDING’, it’ll be ‘JUST DONT BUILD IT’. What the mayor’s done is prevented construction now or ever. It’s how you overcome a prevailing contract. City offices will be tents with personnel wearing pink underwear. Not a reference to Arizona Sheriff Arpayo, because the location is next to Romantix.
Perhaps Huether doesn’t realize petitions can be produced in a matter of days given signers contact information. There’s an army of volunteers ready to go door to door. Why not one to recall the mayor?
WARNING: Some of the following comments are Huether trolls.
Honestly, it’s foolish for Greco not to demand to see the back of the petition since it’s obvious Bruce has been out to get him. I have to wonder why neither you or Bruce are yet to run for public office since you seem to think nobody else is competent enough.
Doesn’t matter if it was Bruce or the Tooth Fairy, he should have demanded the back side of the petition before stamping it. I have talked to several public officials who work in similar capacities of government. They all just shake their heads and say, “He should not have stamped it until he reviewed both sides.” As the story goes, it wasn’t even Greco who saw the oath was incorrect (that should be obvious since he didn’t catch it initially) it was another city council employee who saw it right away and pointed it out to Greco.
As for saying public employees are incompetent, that’s a stretch, I try to look at things as a case by case basis, sometimes they make incompetent decisions, case in point, but to say everything they do is completely incompetent, I don’t think so. Their are several things Mayor Huether and councilor Erpenbach have done in their tenure I support. In fact, Erpenbach would be a much more affective councilor if she would do as she says. She will often argue she doesn’t like something, then vote for it anyway. That’s just silly.
What’s up with Michelle Erpenbach crying on the radio (KELO)?
If she can’t handle the current discourse over the 25m administration building, she would never be able to effectively handle the heat of being SF mayor !!