PROTECT OUR CHARTER

“We, the citizens of the City of Bellingham, wishing to establish a government more responsive to the people, more efficient in its operation and more open to that essential ingredient, the concerned participation of citizens, do hereby adopt the following Charter.”
(Preamble to the City Charter)

IT'S GET BUSY TIME! ALL SIGNATURES MUST BE RECEIVED BY JUNE 15TH

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RESOURCES - Most links open in new windows. Simply close them to return. (+ = Most relevant links)

BELLINGHAM CITY CHARTER (all) ARTICLE 10 DIRECT LEGISLATION (relevant sections) 01 General Power + 02 Initiative-Petition Method + 03 Initiative-Provision As To Source Of Revenue 04 Initiative-Council Action 05 Initiative-Submission To Electorate 06 Initiative-Passage And Effective Date 07 Initiative-Conflicting Bills 08 Referendum + 09 Referendum-Petition Procedure + 10 Referendum-Submission To Electorate 11 Referendum-Approval Or Rejection-Effective Date 12 Amendment Or Repeal By City Council 13.01 Amendments Proposed By City Council. +

CITY LEGISLATIVE ACTION ORDINANCE 2006-05-042 + May 1, 2006 Agenda Bill + Minutes (NA) May 23, 2005 Agenda Bill Minutes May 9, 2005 Agenda Bill Minutes May 1, 2005 Agenda Bill April 18, 2005 Agenda Bill Minutes August 23, 2004 Agenda Bill + Minutes Committee

STATE RESOURCES OVERVIEW OF DIRECT LEGISLATION IN WASHINGTON SEARCH STATE LAWS Check RCW & WAC BOXES, search for "city charter", "charter amendment", "charter city", etc. 35.22.050 Election of freeholders to frame charter. + 35.22.060 Submission of charter -- Publication. 35.22.070 Election on adoption of charter -- Notice. 35.22.120 Petition for submission of charter amendment. + 35.22.140 New or revised charter -- Petition -- Freeholders. 35.22.150 Submission of new charter. 35.22.160 Election on adoption of new charter. 35A.09.010 Amendment of charter -- Initiated by legislative + 35A.09.020 Petition for submission of charter amendment. 35A.09.030 New or revised charter -- Charter commission. + 35A.09.040 Submission of new or revised charter -- Election. + 35A.09.050 Publication of proposed charter. 35A.09.060 Conduct of elections. 35A.09.070 Effect of favorable vote.

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What’s the fuss? ~ Protect your right to protect your neighborhood!
The City is changing the way its citizens can challenge or propose laws. The right to do so is fundamental and such changes must usually be approved by the voters. The City was going to, but decided not to let citizens approve the current changes. The referendum asks for that vote to be taken.

Why be concerned? Many citizens were surprised when the City decided against using a Growth Management Act compliant Public Participation Process for the Comprehensive Plan update as required by RCW 36.70A.140. Their piecemeal approach to planning was leaving many neighborhoods in the dark.

Then the City announced a radical shift in planning policy. They would no longer plan by neighborhoods as required by BMC 20.04.030.

Now the City has adopted pages of new requirements that force the "simple referendum" authorized by our City Charter to comform to the strictest rules for statewide initiatives, making it much harder for citizens to protect their neighborhoods from bad planning.

On May 1st, 2006, the City Council approved Ordinance # 2006-05-042, imposing new procedures and requirements to the process of citizen initiatives and referendums in Bellingham. Some of the changes are from state law, and some are just ideas invented by the City Attorney. The problem is that all are changes to the City Charter, and voters are supposed to approve charter changes. The new restrictions limit how petitions may be titled, how they will be formatted, when signatures will be collected, petitions submitted, when they can be voted on and more.

In the opinion of many citizens who have worked on such measures, the ordinance substantially restricts, complicates and confuses these basic rights so simply outlined in the City Charter. Use the links in resource section to see for yourself. Compare the plain language of the Charter to the ordinance.

The City's argument is that the ordinance will fix past initiative problems. That is disingenuous. Past problems have resulted from the administration's hostility toward citizen petitions, not vagaries of the Charter.

BACKGROUND: The City knows that amending the charter requires citizen approval. The original council agenda bill intended to submit amendments to election on the November ballot of 2004. The council approved the formation of a citizen committee to recommend Charter amendments for the ballot. That is the procedure proscribed by State law. However, further consideration of the matter was then postponed, pending results of a court decision related to the city's challenge of a previous initiative. Eventually, the committee was comprised solely of city administrators that met without public notice and, when council approved the ordinance subject to this referendum, the voters were deprived of their right to approve the amendments to the Charter - without so much as a public hearing!

What began as a, "RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE SUBMISSION OF CERTAIN SPECIFIED AMENDMENTS TO THE BELLINGHAM CITY CHARTER...TO THE VOTERS..." suddenly became, "AN ORDINANCE RELATING TO THE PEOPLE’S POWER TO DIRECT LEGISLATION BY INITIATIVE AND REFERENDUM...", with no citizen involvement. That's wrong!

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What is the Charter?
Charters are the permission, granted by citizens, under which our city governments operate. They are created by citizens, for citizens and spell out the specific franchise that citizens grant their representatives. It is a fundamental principle that citizens control this process. "Freeholders" are elected to create charters and draft amendments. These must always be approved by a vote of the people. This Referendum asks for that vote to be taken.

Our Charter specifically reserves the right of "Direct Legislation" for the people. The people can "ratify or reject" measures either proposed by citizens (initiative) or passed by representives (referendum).

The City has over-stepped its authority in approving the ordinance and is making it more difficultfor us to vote on issues we feel are important.

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Why are these rights so important?
Our government is intended to be of, by and for the people. However, it is not uncommon for the government to forget, or even subvert, this essential principle.

For this reason charters are written by "freeholders" (citizens elected for the purpose) to establish the framework for city government. Our Charter clearly states that the initiative and referendum processes (together referred to as "Direct Legislation") are “The first right reserved by the people”. Our system is representative, but democratic. Citizens elect representatives but do not surrender their right to "ratify or reject" any legislation (referendum) or to initate change in the absence of appropriate legislation (initiative).

These democratic processes are the ultimate checks and balances to our system of government. They are the means through which the people can act to instruct or correct the direction of their government. Ideally, they don't need to be used. But history has shown that citizens must preserve these rights and that government must not be allowed to usurp them.

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Have we had initiative or referendum problems here?
Under the current city administration, four of the last five citizen-sponsored measures have been systematically obstructed, challenged, tampered with and/or ignored. These include the Hoag's Pond Referendum, the Lake Whatcom Initiative, the G-P Water Rate Referendum and the Boat's Off Initiative. Only the Fluoride Initiative made it to the ballot. Many thousands of citizens have signed petitions asking that these measures be voted, only to be ignored.

The ordinance being questioned states that, "...the lack of specific procedures...has caused significant confusion in the past". This is not true. The confusion has been spuriously imposed by the city administration, whose opposition to direct legislation is evident in the strictures recently passed by the council.

Citizens have every reason to be concerned that the ordinance was crafted to make it more difficult to exercise their rights. The last episode of administrative obstruction of a citizen initiative involved a police investigation of petitioners that included citizens being interrogated at police headquarters. This signaled a new level of citizen intimidation and the administration's willingness to impose chilling effects on our democratic process. Under this administration nearly sixty people have been arrested and prosecuted for expressing their political dissent in ways that formerly would have been merely supervised. The subject ordinance is this administration's latest move to limit citizen participation. This is categorically at odds with the sentiments expressed in the preamble to our City Charter.

A Brief Review of the Past "Confusion"

Hoag's Pond - The City concocted a lopsided property trade that would have allowed a retiring Bellingham Public Works official to consolidate his property around Hoag's Pond, effectively tripling or quadrupling his property value and closing public access to the pond. Only the administrative architects of the deal knew the property was already on the confidential greenways acquisition list. A referendum was qualified in record time, but the Council ignored the Charter, choosing to rescind the subject legislation rather than suffer the embarrassment of having the matter go to election. This achieved the general aim, but did not follow the letter of the Charter.

G-P Water Rate Referendum - The City devised water rates that would deliver water to the Georgia-Pacific pulp and chemical mill for one tenth what other businesses would pay. The rates were necessary at the end of a long-term contract with G-P and continued a policy of essentially free water for the mill. After citizens easily qualified the petition, the City ignored its obligation to put the matter on the ballot. A cockamamie legal theory was asserted in which citizens have no right to referendum with regard to utility rates because it could interfere with financial commitments to bond holders. The reality that ditching the freebie would have instead added millions of dollars to the water fund was ignored.

Lake Whatcom Initiative - A group of citizens proposed a mechanism through which the City would factor watershed acquisition funds into water rates. The Mayor issued a gag order to Council members and instructed them not to sign the petition. The City Attorney then attempted to extort proponents into changing their initiative into an advisory-only measure, threatening to otherwise sue them personally. They refused and the City sued to block the measure. The court threw the City's motion out, saying the matter was moot until voters had made a decision, so the City fiddled with the title, changing the wording from preservation to tax hike. The bum publicity in numerous slanted news stories tipped the balance. The measure failed by 224 votes.

Boats Off Lake Whatcom Inititative - Citizens qualified their initiative to limit motor boat activity on the municipal water supply. The City Council voted to put it on the ballot. Then the City attorney, who lives on Lake Whatcom with a dock and motor boat, worked cooperatively with a County Prosecutor, also a property owner on the lake, and other citizen opponents of the measure to retroactively hold the petition acountable to criteria never before used by the County Elections Officer. The Council again tried to place the matter on the ballot, but the administration refused and the measure was ignored. Meanwhile, police investigated the petitioners, interogating signatories at their headquarters.

Please also see a thoughtfully researched, three part article previously published in the Whatcom Watch: see parts 1 | 2 | 3
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What needs to happen?
The City Charter provides that citizens can refer any ordinance, or part thereof, to a vote of the people for ratification or rejection. Petitioners have thirty days from the effective date of any ordinance to produce signatures of "a number of qualified voters equal to not less than eight (8) percent of the total number of votes cast for the office of Mayor at the last preceding municipal general election". That means that 1,460 valid signatures of registered city voters are needed for this referendum.

Qualifying a petition automatically abates the subject ordinance and requires that scheduling a vote is the council's top priority.

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How can I help protect our Charter?
Please download the petition. That’s it—just make copies and get signatures.

Please fill them out and return them as promptly as possible. This allows us to more accurately track our progress. We must acquire at least fifty valid signatures per day to succeed.

Please advise your friends to visit www.protectourcharter.com and download their own petitions and get going. Follow up to make sure they get filled out and returned! All signatures must be received before June 13th.

Thanks, and let’s vote on it!

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Printing Instructions
It is best to print the petition with the Statement page on the flip side. This is usually pretty easy to figure out how to do on your home printer, If it's not, you can take a one-sided copy of each to a copy place and have them make a few two-sided copies. Make a few more and pass them out! If you don't mind making a bunch, let us know and we'll pass them out. ;-)

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Petitioning Instructions
Be well prepared. Have your paperwork in order. You'll need two-sided petitions showing the statement and signature pages. You must also have a copy of the ordinance. Keep a few extra petitions to pass along to folks interested in helping. A good clipboard (or two) makes things a lot easier. Tie a pen on with a string. It saves a lot of bending over! Keep a list where folks who want to volunteer or be kept informed can write down their email or phone. Some places will let you set up a table. The main thing is to find a busy place and get a bunch of signatures. It's actually fun and a good way to met people.

ASK AND MAKE SURE SIGNERS ARE REGISTERED CITY VOTERS.

Persuasion and argument are unnecessary. The issue is not whether direct legislation is good or necessary. It isn't about what requirements are appropriate. The issue is over who will approve the rules, citizens or the government? Citizens of many difering views will still agree on this:

Let's vote on it!
(That's what America is all about)

Be sure to return your petitions, even if it only has your name. Please don't fail to turn in the signatures of others. When we ask folks to stand and be counted, we have a duty to make sure that they are.

It’s important for the person who is passing the petition around remember to sign the bottom on the “circulator” line.

Send them in by June 13, even if all the lines aren’t filled: every signature counts!

If it’s too late to mail, bring it directly to 1114 Finnegan Way and drop it in the mail slot. If you have signatures and a problem getting them to us, send us an email with "signatures" in the subject field. We will find a way to get them from you.

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1114 Finnegan Way - Just south of the intersection with 11th and north of the
Fairhaven Public Library, on the west side of the road.

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