Constitution conflicting on number of petition signatures for reform plan

The 15-member study commission envisioned by Lucas County Commissioner Pete Gerken to overhaul county government will require every candidate to collect thousands of signatures — even though the exact number was in doubt yesterday because of two conflicting paragraphs in the Ohio Constitution.

That hurdle of signatures — at least twice as many as were needed to run for mayor of Toledo last year — means finding enough people to qualify to run for the 15-member commission could be a very tall task.

Mr. Gerken, president of the board of county commissioners, has proposed putting a county charter commission on the Nov. 2 ballot. Such a commission would require electing 15 people.

But getting those people on the ballot is the hard part.

One paragraph of Sec. 10.04 of the Ohio Constitution says that a candidate for the charter commission must obtain signatures equal to “1 percent of the electors of the county.”

A simple reading of that would indicate that, based on the county's 314,892 registered voters, a minimum of 3,149 signatures would be needed to qualify for the ballot. Prudent politicians running for office typically collect as many as twice the signatures required because a large number usually end up being thrown out.

However, under an interpretation issued yesterday by the Ohio Secretary of State, the number is based not on the total electors in the county, but on the total number who voted for governor in the last election, which was 142,887.

Under that interpretation, a candidate would need 1,429 signatures, and a large cushion of back-up signatures.

Kevin Kidder, a spokesman for Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, pointed to the second-to-last paragraph of Sec. 10.04 of the Constitution to clear up the confusion. The paragraph says that all references to “electors” in the section are based on the most recent gubernatorial vote count.

John Borell, an assistant Lucas County prosecutor and adviser to the Lucas County Board of Elections, said that was the advice given yesterday to elections Executive Director Linda Howe.

“If there's no court ruling, and we couldn't find any, we defer to the interpretation of the secretary of state,” Mr. Borell said.

He said that the Board of Elections always favors interpretations of the law that make it easier for people to get on the ballot.

A recognized Ohio election lawyer contacted by The Blade, who did not want to be named, said he agreed with Mr. Borell based on the second to last paragraph in Sec. 10.04 of the Constitution indicating that all references to “electors” in that section of the Constitution are based on the number of voters in the last gubernatorial election.

Mr. Gerken said the new interpretation of the number of required signatures doesn't change his plan, which is to have the issue of a charter commission discussed in two public hearings.

“My goal is to start the conversation and bring the public in, and whether it's 1,400 or 3,000 isn't the point. The point is engaging the public in a real-time discussion on the importance of it,” Mr. Gerken said.

He added that regardless of whether voters approve a study commission in 2010 or actually vote to overturn the county's row-office style of government, nothing will change until January, 2013, anyway. He said the next time county elections can be held is in the next even year, which is 2012.

According to Ms. Brunner's office — and outlined by the Ohio Constitution, the question of adopting a county charter may only be placed on the ballot by collecting signatures from 10 percent of the electors or through the recommendation of a charter commission.

County commissioners can, as outlined in the Ohio Revised Code, place on the ballot the adoption of an “alternative county government” — which includes creating an elected or appointed county executive. But simply adopting an alternative county government does not grant a county home rule or eliminate the commissioners and row offices of treasurer, auditor, sheriff, clerk of courts, engineer, recorder, and coroner.

Gene Kramer, a Cleveland-area attorney who was a principal architect of the charters in Summit and Cuyahoga counties, said there have been a few unsuccessful attempts in the state to have an alternative county government without a home-rule charter approved by voters.

“I find it hard to believe that most people who are seriously in favor of substantial change ... will ever find this option acceptable,” Mr. Kramer said.

Mr. Konop and Mr. Gerken, in competing news conferences Wednesday, laid out contrasting plans for getting voter approval of a revised county government.

Mr. Gerken proposed to put a question on the Nov. 2 ballot to establish a county charter commission.

Mr. Konop's proposal is also to put on the Nov. 2 ballot a county executive-county council form of government similar to that being adopted by Cuyahoga County, and to abolish most of the other elected administrative and commissioner offices.

In the Gerken plan, Mr. Konop said it would take an experienced politician 300 hours to collect the needed 1,429 signatures, along with another 1,000 to be used as backup.

“That's almost a full-time job. How many people are going to be interested in devoting 300 hours in going door to door for a position that is unpaid and you don't even know if anything's going to come out of it?” Mr. Konop said.

But Mr. Konop's proposal also would require a lot of signatures to bring to fruition — more than 14,000, with another 14,000 or so just to be safe in the likely circumstance that many signatures will end up being thrown out as invalid.

Mr. Konop said the signature requirement for the Gerken plan is so high that it could result in fewer than 15 people getting elected, which could mean the commission fails. He said he believes that is the goal of Mr. Gerken and his supporters because it avoids abolishing their jobs.

Mr. Gerken denied the motive of the study commission is to kill the budding reform discussion.

Lucas County Treasurer Wade Kapszukiewicz, one of those supporting electing a 15-person study commission on the ballot, acknowledged that collecting a couple thousand or more signatures will be a challenge.

However, he noted 29 people qualified for the ballot in Cuyahoga County when voters there were asked to elect a 15-member charter commission. The proposal to establish a study commission was voted down in November in favor of a specific plan to abolish most row offices and implement an 11-member county council and county executive.

“I wish the signature requirement was not so daunting, but we're creatures of statute and that's what the state law is,” Mr. Kapszukiewicz said. “It's not ideal, but I don't think it's prohibitive, and I don't see any other way to do it.”

For Mr. Konop's proposal to go directly to the ballot, it would have to be supported by a petition signed by just over 14,000 Lucas County voters. He said such a petition drive is going to cost money, possibly to pay for petition circulators, as well as for advertising.

“They got the business community to support this financially, and they had a large volunteer base,” Mr. Konop said of the Cuyahoga County campaign. “This is something people will rally around.”

He added that the county reform plan also benefited from a lot of legwork on the part of the Cuyahoga County Republican Party.

Jon Stainbrook, the chairman of the Lucas County GOP, said he's already discussing with his leadership team the possibility of taking part in a petition drive.

Mr. Kapszukiewicz said his support of the Gerken approach is based on a desire to investigate the options thoroughly rather than to protect his job. He said the county has only in the last three weeks, since the start of stories published in The Blade, been publicly discussing government reform.

“I support this reform effort even if at the end of it it means eliminating my position. I just believe there's a right way and wrong way to do it,” Mr. Kapszukiewicz said. He said county government is the one of the few local governments that's avoided a deficit by downsizing over several years.

“This is one layer of government in our community that is working and working pretty well,” he said.

Lucas County Commissioner Tina Skeldon Wozniak said she began work on proposing alternatives to the existing county government in 2008, and she met with representatives of the University of Toledo's Urban Affairs Center to begin analyzing the alternatives. She said that effort stalled when the county's budget economic crisis unfolded.

“I was being aggressive that we should look at alternative forms of government and I wanted the Urban Affairs Center to be the body that assisted us in looking at options,” she said.

A call to the UT center was not immediately returned yesterday.

Contact Tom Troy at:tomtroy@theblade.comor 419-724-6058.