The Clearwater city clerk has tossed out more than half the petition signatures gathered by a group seeking a ballot referendum that would require voter approval before the city transfers ownership of downtown public roads.
The group, Save the Garden, has limited time to get more signatures for the petition. It needs to secure at least 4,365 more valid signatures by April 17.
Save the Garden sent the city clerk 8,051 signatures on March 17. But City Clerk Rosemarie Call determined only 2,702 were valid.
The clerk found that more than 4,000 signatures were invalid because the committee formed to advance the petition included a member who was not registered to vote in Clearwater. This ran afoul of a city charter rule that requires five voters on a petitioner’s committee. This was remedied in October, but the clerk determined that petitions collected before then were still invalid.
More than 1,000 signatures were disqualified because they were signed by people not registered to vote in Clearwater.
The committee disputes the clerk’s decision. Anthony Sabatini, a former state representative and lead counsel for the Save the Garden petitioners, wrote in an email to the city that the petition signatures comply with city charter.
Sabatini wrote that upon the committee member learning they were not in compliance, they immediately registered to vote.
“This is precisely the type of curable, non-fraudulent clerical error that Florida courts have repeatedly held does not defeat a citizen initiative,” Sabatini wrote.
Sabatini added that “the Clearwater City Charter itself contains no provision declaring an initiative invalid if a committee member was not registered on the precise filing date but immediately cures the defect.”
Sabatini said the committee is prepared to seek legal action if the signatures are not verified.
On Monday, the group notified the clerk that it’s planning to amend its petition and acquire the necessary number of signatures. It has less than two weeks.
City charter requires that initiative petitions have signatures from at least 10% of people registered to vote in the previous regular city election. Based on this number, the group needs at least 7,067 valid signatures.
The Save the Garden coalition formed last year to provide an alternative proposal for a roadway the Church of Scientology was seeking downtown.
The petition proposes a city ordinance that would add guardrails for transfers of publicly owned rights-of-way in Clearwater’s downtown Community Redevelopment Area. It would require the City Council to document that the transfer serves a public interest. The transfer would also require a supermajority vote of at least four out of five city council members.
The group collected 4,306 signatures prior to Oct. 7 last year.
In October, a person named Terrence Lightey emailed the city, saying one member of the petition committee, Jessica Andujar, wasn’t a registered voter.
Lightey did not respond to multiple emails from the Tampa Bay Times seeking comment. Lightey does not appear to be a registered voter in Florida, according to public voting records.
Save the Garden added two new members on Oct. 7. An additional 3,745 signatures were collected on or after that day.
In addition to having too few valid signatures, the clerk said the group did not attach or contain the full text of the proposed ordinance to its petitions, which the charter requires.
Once the group amends its petition and gets the requisite number of signatures, the petition goes to the city.
If the city deems the amended petition insufficient, the group can request the City Council review it.
If the city deems the amended petition sufficient, the City Council would vote on whether or not to adopt it. If the council doesn’t adopt it, the initiative would go on the Aug. 18 ballot.
The deadline to make it on the ballot is June 12, the clerk said.
