How Many Citizens Need Sign on the Line?

By Mark R. Smith, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Turf Valley Town Square was going to happen. Or a great mass of folks thought it was, anyway.
The 120,000-square-foot mixed-use project was slated to rise, anchored by a 55,000-square-foot Harris Teeter grocery store, on land adjacent to Turf Valley Resort. It had been approved last fall, initially and unanimously, by the Howard County Planning Board. Ditto with the Howard County Council.
When the plan was shown to the residents of Turf Valley, their approval was nearly unanimous, too.
But a relatively small community faction decided to oppose the plan, so it began working on thwarting the bill. Its task was to obtain the 5,000 signatures on a petition from registered voters that are required in Howard County - the same number that was required 40 years ago - to bring the bill to referendum.
The signatures were garnered by early February. And the referendum concerning County Bill 58 will be on the ballot for the next election in November 2010.
However, concern is brewing about why the number of signatures required on a petition to bring a bill to referendum has not increased in four decades - despite the population of Howard County increasing from approximately 56,800 (with 22,681 registered voters) then to a present total that is projected to reach 272,452 (with 175,115 registered voters) by next year.
A number that "is in relation to the general population and the number of registered voters," said Joe Rutter, a partner with Land Design & Development in Ellicott City and the former head of the Howard County Department of Planning & Zoning, "might be more indicative of what is needed today than an arbitrary number."

Signers in Question
"The frustration here," Rutter said, "is that [the ease in obtaining 5,000 signatures] is somewhat of an abuse of the system when it enables a group or person to say that, whenever a land use issue arises, they intend to take the bill to referendum."
Heidi Gaasch expressed similar emotions. "The important thing to remember is that we don't have anything against referendums," said the director of government affairs with the Howard County Chamber of Commerce, "but the number of signatures required should reflect the overall population of the county."
Also in question, Gaasch added, is how the signatures are collected and just who signs a petition. Although, those heading up the petition efforts deny any fraud or irregularities.
"I've seen people collecting the signatures for petitions at planning board hearings and other public forums," Gaasch said. "However, I've also heard the stories about soliciting people from unaffected parts of the county who did not know the details of a given issue and were being asked to sign anyway.
"The important thing to know," she said, "is that there is a threat of too many land use decisions/bills going to referendum."

Repeat Process
The overriding concern is that the time involved in passing a bill can too easily be all for naught if a small group of citizens is allowed to create a roadblock, which results in voters deciding what to do all over again.
That's why Greg Lowe, part owner and vice president of Lowe fs in Columbia and co-chair of the chamber's legislative committee is concerned about the impact such actions have on the business community.
Lowe echoed Gaasch's observation that the majority of the signers are often not properly informed about what it is that they're signing. "One would have to believe that we have entrusted the Planning Board and the County Council to do adequate due diligence to research issues," he said.
In the case of the supermarket slated for Turf Valley, he is also concerned about the problem of representation.
"My wife was in the Safeway at the Enchanted Forest [Shopping Center] and one of these petitioners, a woman, approached her to sign the petition against building a big box store [like Best Buy] at Turf Valley," he said. "My wife asked the petitioner if she lived in Ellicott City and she answered 'no.'"
From an economic development perspective, Lowe said that the Turf Valley situation "has essentially delayed potential jobs and tax revenue for two years. I'm not sure that that was the intent of the people who signed the petition or if they even understand that."
And developers can clearly see that waving red flag. "What developer will want to come to a county where projects that have approval and have gone through proper channels are constantly delayed by anti-development groups," he queried, "that may or may not be properly informed themselves?"

Nailing the Issue?
To further complicate the issue, delay by the system can be accentuated by the courts. Lou Mangione, president of Mangione Family Enterprises (which owns Turf Valley Resort) is not only in accord with Lowe and Gaasch; but the company and the developer of Turf Valley Town Square, Greenberg Gibbons Commercial, have filed lawsuits against the Howard County Board of Elections and a group of citizens via the local law firm of Talkin & Oh.
"This is a neighborhood issue," said Mangione. "The opposition has made it a countywide issue and, on top of that, did not properly explain to the people who signed the petition what the bill was about.
"I do not believe that all of the people who signed the petition truly understood what they signed," he said. "They were told the issue was about preventing big box stores from being built and preventing suburban sprawl. In fact, this bill does the exact opposite; it does not include big box stores. Its emphasis is on building a viable mixed-use property that is intended to reduce sprawl."
When asked about the viability of the present petitioning system in light of today's greatly expanded population figures, Betty Noordas, the director of the Howard County Board of Elections, said that she "doesn't have a position on that topic" because her job "is to implement the law so what the legislature mandates is the process that we will follow."
However, Noordas did allow that "We might want to take a look at [the issue], but I don't know if it should be increased or not." However, County Councilman Calvin Ball (D-2) was anything but vague.
"There is always a question about the veracity of the claims that individuals make in soliciting signatures," Ball said. "If we had a greater number of signers on petitions, more people would be reviewing the [topic in question]. That would bring more legitimacy to the issues."

Attention ... Please
Other observers in the political arena are in accord with Ball, including Jack Fruchtman, professor of political science and director of the Program in Law and American Civilization at Towson University.
"The fact that 5,000 votes were required 40 years ago and has not changed suggests that the Howard County officials, long ago, did not really want to make petitioning to referendum a reality," said Frutchman, noting that state law requires that a petition be signed by 3% of voters from the most recent gubernatorial election before going to referendum.
"Because the population was a lot less [in 1969], it may well have been impossible to petition a Howard County statute to referendum. Today it's a lot easier, though even now there is no guarantee."
Similar thoughts were voiced by Matthew Crenson, professor emeritus of political science at The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. "The 5,000 signatures required in Howard County does seem like a small number and it's arbitrary in any case.
"A referendum is supposed to be a mechanism of democracy," Crenson continued, "but in some states, they get hijacked by special interests that spend lots of money to get them passed. Obviously, if more than 90% of the community in Turf Valley supports the development, the referendum may well not pass."
He added that people who have an interest in an issue are much more likely to vote on the referendum, but added that "people who signed the petition may not care either - especially if the main point was misrepresented in the first place.
"Some people just are congenital activists," he said. "You don't know if they're involved to get attention or if they're just doing it for the activity."
To Gaasch, the point is to steer clear of Howard County getting a reputation as a difficult place to do business.
"You can't change the rules," she said, "while a company is the midst of planning to locate here."