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Home Rule Petitions Due Monday |
Teddy Herzog | 7/4/08
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We are near the end of the time period for gathering signatures on the petition to place County Home Rule on the November ballot.
The Home Rule Study Committee will conduct one more big push at the July 4th parade and over the weekend to collect signatures.
 Right now we have over 600 signatures in hand. To place County Home Rule on the ballot in November we need 435 legal signatures. On Monday morning the signatures will be turned into the County Clerk's office. The County Clerk will review each signature to ensure that it is a valid signature. Ultimately, some signatures will be found to be invalid. So it is important to have as many "extra" signatures as possible. Maybe someone signed twice. Maybe someone forgot that they are not really registered in Archuleta County. Maybe the signature gatherer fails to follow the protocol for gathering the signatures.
On Monday July 7, we will hand in our signatures to the County Clerk's office. Then we wait to see if June Madrid's office accepts at least 435 petition signatures as valid.
After that, either the Home Rule Study Committee disbands and says "well, we tried our best," or else we move into a new phase where Home Rule is on the ballot and we need to figure how how to educate another 2000 to 3000 voters about County Home Rule, before the election in November.
In case you haven't heard, here is the short explanation of what County Home Rule is. Right now our County operates under rules and under an organization set forth in the State Constitution. But, if we want, we can take a blank piece of paper and begin writing our own County charter here at home -- this is known as the County Home Rule Charter writing process. We can organize our County organizational structure and set up rules for running our County that could work best for us.
In November you would get to vote on two things: (a) should we start this process of writing a County Home Rule charter and (b) who should we elect as the temporary eleven member charter writing commission.
If we start the process, then there would be public hearings and and eight to nine month process to write a draft Home Rule charter. In June or July of next year, we would then have a special election to either accept the charter as written or to not accept it. In November you will vote to start the Home Rule charter writing process. Next year you will vote to accept or reject the charter as written.
For more information about County Home Rule or to sign a petition before Monday, call Teddy Herzog (970) 264-2021. More detailed info about County Home Rule can be found at the Archuleta County Home Rule website and also in the archives here at the Pagosa Daily Post — just enter the words "home rule" in the SEARCH window at the top of any page. |
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