City council stalls on important ballot issues.
When Albuquerque voters headed to the polls this week for a mayoral election, they also weighed in on other pressing electoral issues on the ballot such as campaign financing, the living wage and voter identification.
When Santa Feans go to the voting booths on March 7, 2006, there's a good chance their ballots will feel considerably lighter.
SFR has learned the city commission charged with overseeing potential ballot items such as runoff elections and requirements for referendums and recall votes is yet to be formed despite a fast-approaching election.
The Charter Review Commission is one of two critical city boards seemingly stuck in a political netherworld somewhere between dream and reality or, more literally, between City Council chambers, the mayor's office, and the city clerk's office [Outtakes, Sept. 21: "
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The Charter Review Commission was actually supposed to have finished its work last month. Created in May, the commission would have considered potential amendments to the city's 1997 charter, which calls for such a review every 10 years. Among the potential charter changes that have been bandied about publicly are the need to improve qualifications for municipal judges; to lessen the number of signatures required for referendum and recall votes; and to create runoff elections in those cases where candidates fail to garner a majority vote.
In order for these or any other potential charter amendments to be placed on the upcoming ballot, they would have to clear City Council approval by Nov. 30, the date by which all ballot initiatives must be finalized, according to acting city clerk Tina Dominguez.
The commission, if ever assembled, will be composed of nine appointees; each city councilor and the mayor are allowed one nomination each. According to Dominguez, only City Councilors Karen Heldmeyer
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and Rebecca Wurzburger have nominated anyone.
"It would be nice if the commission was up and moving," Rebecca Frenkel, board member of the League of Women Voters in Santa Fe County, which has been pushing for a runoff election, says. "At this point, the city councilors should go directly to the Council with charter amendments."
The ostensible feet-dragging and stalling within City Hall also is drawing the ire of two city councilors, David Pfeffer and Heldmeyer.
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"There are lots of issues people want to see on the ballot," Heldmeyer says. "We're up against a deadline here and we need to get this done."
Heldmeyer nominated League of Women Voters member Beverly Busching and Wurzburger nominated retired attorney Fred Rowe, whose appointment to the Ethics and Campaign Review Committee was recently nixed by Mayor Larry Delgado [Outtakes, Sept. 28: "
"].
Pfeffer says he too turned in a nomination-Jill Heppenheimer, owner of the Santa Fe Weaving Gallery-but neither the city clerk's office nor the mayor's office has a record of it. The city last month had no record of City Councilor Miguel Chavez's nominee for the Ethics and Campaign Review Committee, Fred Flatt, despite Chavez's assertion that he'd turned in Flatt's name.
"Sometimes these things fall through the cracks, I guess I'll have to do it again," Pfeffer says.
Pfeffer, for his part, also has been frustrated by the city's Ethics and Rules Committee, which can make recommendations related to the charter but has convened sporadically at best.
The committee, chaired by City Councilor Patti Bushee, met seven times in 2004 but has met only once in 2005, on May 19. During that meeting, Pfeffer introduced a resolution calling for a runoff election, which would have required city candidates to win a majority of votes or face a second election between voters' top two choices for a particular position. Pfeffer says the committee did not act on his proposal.
The idea of a runoff election has long generated interest among Santa Feans; at a Sept. 12 forum both declared mayoral candidates, City Councilor David Coss and Karen Walker, came out in favor of changing the city's charter to allow such elections. Last year New Mexicans passed a state constitutional amendment allowing cities to hold runoff elections if they revise their charters. Albuquerque now requires such elections if a candidate does not generate a majority of the vote.
If the committee had approved Pfeffer's runoff proposal, it would have gone before the entire Council for a second approval and then been placed on the ballot for Santa Feans to decide upon. If passed by voters, the first actual runoff-style election would have taken place, if necessary, March 2008.
Bushee did not return phone calls regarding the sporadic meetings of the Ethics and Rules Committee. According to Dominguez, the committee was supposed to convene on June 23 but its members struggled with scheduling conflicts.
"Councilor Bushee is always quick to say she can't get a quorum to meet, but when other councilors call their committees for meetings there doesn't seem to be any problem," Pfeffer says.
Meanwhile, with the Nov. 30 deadline for the ballot drafting bearing down, it seems less and less likely that either the runoff or any other issue which requires a charter amendment will get ironed out at the committee or commission level.
Because of the Charter Review Commission's stillborn status and the Ethics and Review Committee's barely functioning one, Pfeffer says he's now considering going straight to the Council with his runoff proposal:
"I see no reason why we're putting all this off," he says.
"Why would the Council object to the people voting on these issues?"
