Petition seeking vote on how to elect Fayetteville City Council members remains unsettled

Editor's Note — This story has been updated to add comments from a spokesman for the Vote Yes organization.

The validity of a petition asking for a vote on whether to change the way members of the Fayetteville City Council are elected is still in question after the Cumberland County Board of Elections took no action on the issue Tuesday.

The board discussed a petition filed by the Vote Yes organization that asks for a voter referendum to change the council by reducing the number of districts from nine to five and adding four at-large seats.

City Attorney Karen McDonald sent a letter on behalf of the City Council to Interim Elections Director Angie Amaro asking for a document and an opinion.

The letter, dated Aug. 9, asked for a copy of a filed notice of circulation and date of registration for the petition and an opinion on whether or not the petition is valid. McDonald said in the letter that a question had been raised regarding whether the petition met the requirements under state law — General Statute 163-218 — that calls for a filed notice of circulation and the date of registration.

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“During a telephone conversation with County Attorney Rick Moorefield, who also serves as the attorney to the Board of Elections, I was advised that a filed notice of circulation does not exist,” she said. “Since the petition was not registered with the Board as required by statute, it does not appear that the statutory requirements for this citizen initiative have been met. Therefore, the petition is invalid.”

Amaro said at the meeting Tuesday that she responded to McDonald in a letter sent late that afternoon. She said the State Board of Elections maintains information and guidance for filing petitions, and that neither the state board’s website nor the only petition form on its website mentions a notice of circulation.

“Neither a document identified as a notice of circulation, nor a North Carolina Petition Request was filed in my office for this petition,” Amaro said in the letter.

Amaro said she supervised the verification of signatures for the petition, which initially determined that 5,009 of the 5,721 submitted signatures were qualified. She said at the meeting that one of the signatures was later determined to be invalid, reducing the number that qualified to 5,008.

In the letter, Amaro said the determination of qualified signatures is her certification of the petition.

“This petition is to the Fayetteville City Council, not the Board of Elections,” she said. “I am advised by the counsel to the State Board of Elections and the county attorney that whether the petition is valid is a question for the city council.”

The state board's counsel and the county attorney cited another state law — General Statute 160A-104, the letter said.

Moorefield told the board Tuesday that he had spent a lot of time researching the issue. He said that even if the board decided the petition was valid or invalid, the City Council could reverse the decision.

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Most petitions come to the Board of Elections, but this petition went to the council, Moorefield said.

“The City Council has to make that decision as to whether this goes on the ballot,” he said.

Fayetteville Mayor Mitch Colvin said after the meeting that Amaro’s letter doesn’t seem to address the legal question at issue. He said the City Council will have to discuss the issue after hearing McDonald’s opinion on the matter.

The council was set to vote on whether to put the issue on the November ballot at its Aug. 8 meeting, but tabled the issue and asked McDonald to get information from elections officials.

Bobby Hurst, a spokesman for the Vote Yes organization, said Wednesday that the notice of circulation does not apply to the type of petition that his group filed. He said the organization did everything it is supposed to do.

"It's up to the City Council now to put it on the next general election," he said. "The ball's in their court."

Hurst said he isn't concerned that the number of verified signatures is close to the 5,000 that are needed. He said the organization had went through the names before they were submitted.

"We had cleaned up the rolls quite a bit," he said.

Local news editor Steve DeVane can be reached at sdevane@fayobserver.com.

This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: Fayetteville City Council elections: Petition seeking vote unsettled