1% petition organizers ready for document resubmission

Organizers of a petition seeking to force a vote on a 1% prepared food tax plan to resubmit the petitions Monday — and their attorney dares the city to reject the resubmitted documents.

On Mar. 26, about 4,460 signatures were submitted to Fort Smith City Clerk Sherri Gard. The effort needs 2,822 valid signatures (registered voters in Fort Smith) to push the 1% tax to a public vote.

The tax was enacted Feb. 24 by the Fort Smith Board of Directors to resolve a more than 10-year search to plug an annual deficit predicted to occur when state turnback money dried up. The state turnback program ended for Fort Smith in June 2010 from which the city received about $1.8 million a year. Barring a successful citizen-initiated referendum, the tax will go into effect June 1.

On April 1, Gard informed organizers of the petition drive of two problems — no ballot title was submitted with the petitions, and each petition sheet did not have attached a copy of the ordinance sought to be referred.

A memo from City Attorney Jerry Canfield indicated that not having the ordinance attached to the petition sheet is potentially fatal to the petition effort. Based upon case law and guidance from Canfield, Gard found the petition forms “insufficient.”

Fort Smith attorney Brian Meadors said the petition forms will be resubmitted with a copy of the ordinance attached to each. Also, Meadors said he will include in the resubmission affidavits from Eddie York and other petition organizers that will explain how the ordinances were attached to the petitions during the signature gathering “in a way that it meets the legal definition of attached.”

“That should be good enough. The city can either accept it and let the voters decide, or they can get sued,” Meadors told The City Wire.

Furthermore, Meadors believes what was submitted to the city initially “was perfectly fine and legal.” He argues that the law does not require petitions to be physically attached to an ordinance, but instead that “they are in unison” with the documents; in other words, the ordinances were physically next to the petitions when they were being signed.

“I think the city needs to rethink it’s position on the definition of attached. … It doesn’t mean they have to be stapled,” Meadors said.

Canfield said the law clearly requires petitions to be submitted with an ordinance attached because “that is the proof that it was attached” during circulation.

“If they (ordinance copies) aren’t submitted when the petitions are submitted, what proof do you have” that they were attached during circulation, Canfield added.

Responding to allegations the city is looking for technicalities to reject the petition, Fort Smith City Administrator Ray Gosack said the city is tasked with following the law.

“The law, the state constitution, protects voters on both sides of these issues. That’s the reason we follow the rules. … Following the law is not a technicality,” Gosack said.