We don’t know if the charter revisions proposed for Crestview would be good for the city or not. But we do know this: To shelve those revisions on the basis of a vote that was supposed to be nonbinding — a vote that the city attorney promised would be “irrelevant” and would “have no effect” — seems like political sleight-of-hand.
Now you see it. Now you don’t.
Indeed, the City Council is poised to keep the charter issue off the March 12 election ballot, where it would have faced a binding vote of the people. Councilman Tom Gordon said last week he is ready to “let this die.”
How did the council get to this point, where three years’ worth of work by charter proponents is about to be erased?
It started with a clerical error. A hearing on the charter ordinance wasn’t held as advertised. When the glitch was discovered, the council repealed the ordinance — but it was too late to take the charter proposal off the Nov. 6 general election ballot. City officials decided to aim instead for the March ballot.
As for the question on the Nov. 6 ballot, everyone understood it wouldn’t count. City Attorney Jerry Miller said: “It will just be an irrelevant ballot item. It will have no effect.”
More than 8,000 people voted on it anyway. The tally: 3,795 said yes, 4,319 said no.
And suddenly the “nonbinding” vote was … binding.
Councilman Charles Baugh Jr. pronounced the vote a “straw poll” and said: “I cannot ignore the votes that were cast. … If the citizens say no, I think we need to listen to the citizens.”
This, despite the city attorney’s assurance in October that the results would be irrelevant.
We can’t help but wonder how many charter supporters, taking the city attorney at his word, simply didn’t vote on the question Nov. 6. If voters had been told the charter’s future was at stake, would the final tally have been different?
The charter proposal deserves a final, formal vote. One that really counts.
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EDITORIAL: A charter 'straw poll' turns lethal
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