The Truth or Consequences City Commission approved hiring Landis + Gyr to provide smart meters for its 4,100 electric utility customers—with the price tag of $1 million—at the Aug. 27 meeting.
Since then there has been public push-back against the purchase, including activist Ron Fenn drafting a petition and its attendant ordinance that calls for a 10-year moratorium on any smart-meter installation within any of the city’s utilities. The city is also planning on installing smart meters for the water and sewer utilities.
The city’s city manager-commission form of government gives residents the power to put forth petitions for “initiative ordinances” that allow the people to enact local laws. Fenn’s ordinance is an initiative ordinance.
Before an initiative ordinance can be presented to the City Commission, a 20-percent average of those who voted in the last four regular elections or 20 percent of those who voted in the last regular election—whichever is the higher number—must sign the petition, demonstrating local support for the law.
Petition organizers need 154 voter signatures to present the smart-meter initiative ordinance to the City Commission, according to City Clerk Renee Cantin.
Before the petition could be circulated, the city clerk needed to approve the petition “as to form,” according to state law.
City Clerk Renee Cantin refused Fenn’s petition two weeks ago, although it had the proper form, according to the law. It had an understandable header that summarized the ordinance. It had a place for the voter to put the date, print their name and address and to sign their name. It had a clause stating it is a 4th-degree felony to put down false information.
Cantin approved a second petition Nov. 1, brought in by Jack Noel, claiming it passed muster with a city attorney, although it varied very little from Fenn’s.
In a phone interview Monday, Nov. 4, Cantin said, Noel’s petition had no ordinance attached. “When it’s attached it is part of the petition,” she said, giving her the authority to approve the ordinance and the petition as to form in Fenn’s case, although that is stated nowhere in state law.
She said the ordinance “would impair the obligation of the current executed contract,” in Fenn’s case. In Noel’s case, she said “I’m not sure it cancels the contract, I just handle the election.” The petition header states the same 10-year moratorium on all smart meters within the city’s utility jurisdiction in both cases, making it appear Cantin held Fenn to a higher standard nowhere stated in the law.
She said Noel’s petition had some language she requested Fenn add. “I don’t have it in front of me, but it said something like, ‘it [the ordinance] will be presented to the city commission and it could go to special election,’” Cantin said, which also had nothing to do with the petition’s form.
Fenn said almost all the needed signatures were gathered over the weekend, although state law gives petition organizers 30 days to gather them.
Fenn contends Cantin has 10 days after the petition is turned in to certify each signature is a registered voter. Cantin contends she has until Dec. 11; the 30 days after she approved the petition and then 10 days to certify the signatures.
It appears Cantin is correct. According to state law 3-1-5 Petitions; the city clerk or city commission shall “(4) certify, no later than ten days after the petition is filed or after the expiration of the period within which the petition can be filed as prescribed by law, whichever occurs last, whether the petition contains the minimum number of valid names, addresses and signatures as mandated by law.”
After the petition is certified, the City Commission has 30 days to decide whether to adopt the ordinance as drafted. If it fails to adopt, or if it proposes an amended ordinance, then the question goes to special election. If the city has an alternate ordinance, both will appear on the ballot. The City Commission must adopt an election resolution within 90 days after the 30 days expires.