According to a S-B story this morning, the Stop Rail Now folks say they’re going back to court to argue against the city’s requirement that they have about 44,000 signatures to get their question on the ballot.
Stop Rail Now contends it needs about 30,000 signatures, an amount equal to 10 percent of the number of votes actually cast in the last mayoral election.
“We’ll try to get the court to reconsider or get a final judgment to go to the Supreme Court,” Partington said yesterday. “It says very clearly that we only need 10 percent of the voters that voted in the last general mayoral election, not 10 percent of those registered.”
Clearly? When I looked up the relevant provision of Honolulu’s City Charter, this is what I found:
Section 3-402. Procedure for Enactment and Adoption –
1. Petition. An ordinance may be proposed by petition, signed by duly registered voters equal in number to at least ten percent of the total voters registered in the last regular mayoral election.
So where is the confusion? I really don’t know.
Could this be true? Attorney Mike Nauyokas, on Howard Dicus’ PBS Hawaii program last night, said the Honolulu Advertiser layoffs were made while there was no contract in place because the existing contract expired last year.
That’s contrary to my understanding that the Advertiser has been operating under an extension of the prior contract, a extension provided by a contract clause.
I don’t think the Hawaii Newspaper Guild and the other ‘Tiser unions would be so mellow if there were no contract in place.
I’ve emailed Nauyokas for clarification and hope to have a reply soon.
Now that Sen. Biden has been selected as Obama’s vp, things may be a bit more active in our hotel way down in Littleton, where the delegations from Hawaii, Arkansas, and Delaware will be staying.
My sister is sending me off to Denver with the name of my cousin’s son, who is believed to be a Denver police officer. I have never met the man, and hopefully I won’t have an occasion to seek him out next week.
On the other hand, a comment here yesterday by Larry Geller linked to a story noting Denver’s police have been advised to keep an eye out for people with potential terrorist materials such as maps (guilty!) because they are “frequently used by violent protester [sic] to plan direct actions against conventioneers.”
From the blog Fire Dog Lake, a few more questions about Orson Swindle.
If you missed yesterday’s long profile of Obama and his Hawaii roots by David Maraniss, read it now.
The piece takes a bit of thunder away from the new book by Jerry Burris and Stu Glauberman, “The Dream Begins: How Hawaii Shaped Barack Obama”, being issued by Watermark Publishing.
Burris is scheduled to sign copies of their books next week at the convention, according to a press release from the publisher.
Jerry Burris, Hawai‘i’s foremost political analyst and co-author of The Dream Begins: How Hawai‘i Shaped Barack Obama, a new book that examines the impact of Hawai‘i’s unique culture on Obama, will sign advance copies of the September release at the Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colo. A limited number of copies will be sold, with Burris on hand to sign them, at the Denver Convention Center on August 28, from 11 A.M. until noon. The book signing booth will be located across from the convention center’s main merchandise sales area.
The word from Manoa is that UH has outsourced campus towing services, according to an email notice from the UHM Parking Office.
The Parking Office has closed the impound lot at 1980 East-West Road. Beginning with the Fall 2008 semester, all campus towing will be sent to an off campus site managed by a towing vendor. The University will not be involved with the towing process once the vendor has taken control of the vehicle. The Parking Office will utilize more boots to immobilize illegally parked vehicles on the upper campus.
At the same time, several parking zones have been consolidated and the so-called “overflow” system, that a back-up if your assigned zone was full, has been eliminated.
It sounds like there are going to be some surprised students (and faculty, most likely) next week who will rudely discover that they’ve got to bail out their cars from an off-campus tow lot run by a surly contractor.
I fly out this evening to Denver with a stop on the west coast. I’ll do tomorrow’s entry while I’m waiting in LAX between flights, and will tweet from time to time where possible. Here we go!
I have been really disappointed with how slippery the Stop Rail Now campaign has become. First they say they say they want to, as the name of the group boldly states, stop rail now. That’s cool, it’s our right as citizens to make our voice heard on public issues (and frankly I wish more of us would do that). But then they change tacts and say, hey we want to give the people the right to choose. Okay, even with the obviously biased group name, I can buy that. But they put forward a choice that with tricky wording — “Honolulu mass transit shall not include trains or rail”. Essentially a yes votes mean you oppose rail and a no vote means you support it. Huh? If they were sincere about giving people a choice, they would have worded the question in a way that yes means “I favor rail” and no means “I don’t want rail.”
And then there question of a special election or a general election and how many signatures are needed. The website and public statements from the leaders all indicate they want a question on the general election. yet the wording of the petition included the phrase “special election.” It feels like they were trying to get two bites of the apple — if they didn’t get the numbers for a general election bid, they wanted to give a go for a special election in the spring of ’09. Be honest about what you want, fellas.
And as has been pointed out on this blog and other forums, the wording of the charter is simple when it comes to this issue — 10 percent of registered voters in the last mayoral election. A simple statement of fact. Yet stop rail now public statements continue to muddy the waters with the claim of 10 percent of those who voted. Is there an additional argument they can make? Perhaps, but I guess they are saving it for the judge instead of explaining it to us, the people and the voters.
It is becoming very frustrating, tiring and brings about an unwelcome air of cynicism. My ultimate worry is this kind of slippery voter initiative process behavior, which is rampant in states like California, Florida, Texas, etc., will take root here.
Comment on previous comment, initiative process in Hawaii –
Yes, that’s one objective of some who want a constitutional convention. Given initiative, special interests with moneybags for PR can saturate tv and the newspapers with ads (when do bloggers begin to collect??) and have their way via the initiative process.
Initiative and recall magnify the power of PR firms and those who hire them.
Voter-owned (“clean”) elections are a far better deal, since they do the opposite — they take away control from those corporations and interests who win by using their money power.
FWIW, the letter, dated 7/7/08, from SRN attorney John Carrol to Denise DeCosta (http://www.stoprailnow.com/pdfs/Denise_DeCosta_DEMAND_LETTER_final.pdf) cites to section 3-404 (http://www.co.honolulu.hi.us/refs/rch/rc030404.pdf). Paragraph 3 says:
FOR INITIATIVE SPECIAL ELECTIONS. A special election for an ordinance by initiative power shall be called within ninety days of filing of the petition if signed by duly registered voters equal in number to at least fifteen percent of the votes cast for mayor in the last regular mayoral election, and if such petition specifies that a special election be called; provided that if the clerk certifies less than fifteen percent but at least ten percent, the proposed ordinance shall be submitted at the next general election or scheduled special election. No special initiative election shall be held if an election is scheduled within one hundred eighty days of submission of the proposal.
I think the original point stands…stop rail now has not been straightforward with their intentions. The letter to city clerk copied above quotes chapter & verse on special elections. Look at stop rail now’s website & it speaks only to the general election.
Plus the question stop rail now put forward is confusing at best, misleading at worst.
happy travels. hope the exciting part outweighs the sucky part. take plenty of pictures, too.
and i want to see a denver cat or two.