Petitioners Force May 28 Budget Referendum

By Dottie Evans

A third townwide referendum on a 2003–2004 budget proposal will take place Wednesday, May 28.

The date was set Tuesday night at a town meeting attended by a little more than 70 of the town’s 14,511 registered voters. The meeting was held in the Newtown High School auditorium and was moderated by Attorney Robert Hall.

Thanks to a lot of legwork and determination by a diverse group of petition workers, Newtown residents will once again be able to vote by machine on the $79,437,162 proposal as they have for the two previous budget proposals.

In addition, they may vote throughout a 14-hour period as is customary for a machine referendum instead of having to come out in the evening for a paper ballot vote at a town meeting.

The petition drive to gain the necessary 826 signatures –– a number that represented five percent of the town’s registered voters plus 100 more, in case any names proved invalid –– was begun Friday, May 9, the day after the new budget number had been set by the Legislative Council.

The first budget vote was held April 22 to approve an $80.7 million proposal. It failed by 738 votes with 4,250 voters participating.

The second vote was held May 6 to decide upon a $79.7 million proposal and it went down by 160 votes. A total of 5,026 participated.

On May 8, the Legislative Council cut a little more than $300,000 from the bottom line ($200,000 more from the education budget and $104,800 more from the town budget) to reach the latest combined 2003–2004 budget proposal of $79.4 million. The council also raised the level of tax relief to the elderly in the form of rebates. If this third proposal passes, the mill rate will be 23.4.

Town charter allows for two referendum votes but stipulates that subsequent votes must be decided by town meeting unless there is a successful petition drive.

Petitioners Respond To The Call

Like many other petition workers, Paul Fortugno of Philo Curtis Road spent the week before the deadline hanging out in several places around town, including Dunkin’ Donuts and Bagelman. He spent his Friday morning at the town recycling center.

Efforts to gain signatures “got off to a slow start,” Mr Fortugno said.

“It was hard to know how many people were out there with petition sheets, working on their own.”

By Tuesday afternoon, only 60 signatures had been turned in to the town clerk’s office and only a little more than 300 came in by Wednesday afternoon.

By Thursday, Sue Schpunt at the town clerk’s office reported the number of validated signatures was up to 601 and she said there was “a big pile still to be checked.”

“As the week went on, the volunteers really did their job. They spread out into the community,” Mr Fortugno said.

Kevin Fitzgerald, who is spokesman for the Concerned Citizens of Newtown group but who worked independently to gather petitions, was very pleased with the successful outcome of the drive. When he arrived at Edmond Town Hall on Friday at 2:30 pm with his sign and more petition forms, it was already too late. The necessary numbers had been reached and the referendum was assured.

Town Clerk Cindy Simon said that as of 2:30 pm Friday, a total of 1,831 petition signatures had been submitted and 823 of those names had been verified. She continued receiving petition signatures until the 4:30 pm cutoff time and promised to count them all by Monday.

Mrs Simon said, “Seven hundred twenty-six is a sufficient number to hold a referendum,” so the remaining names beyond the additional 100 needed for backup would not need to be verified.

On Monday morning, Ms Simon said that a total of 2,113 signatures had been turned in.

“This was the best participation I’ve seen in awhile,” said Ms Simon, who noted that she had seen many petition drives throughout her years as town clerk.

“The sheets kept coming in, some with just a few signatures and some totally filled up. Many individuals seemed to be working independently on this, and all ages and groups were represented,” she added.

“We’ll be on a tight schedule now to get to referendum by next Wednesday,” Ms Simon said.

With the holiday weekend coming up, she and others in the town clerk’s office would be working Saturday morning to distribute absentee ballots and she hoped the banners for the voting machines could be printed by Friday.

“Since Monday is a holiday, we’ll need it first thing Tuesday morning to get the machines set up for Wednesday,” she said.

Ms Simon also noted that during a budget referendum, absentee ballots could be submitted as late as noon on the day of the vote.

“And it’s OK if there is a designated person to deliver the ballot that is not the voter,” she added.

Town Meeting Budget Vote Called ‘Inappropriate’

Mr Fitzgerald commented that in a town the size of Newtown, “a town meeting format is inappropriate. There is no space that can hold the 5,000 people that turn out to vote.”

He pointed out that many voters are older and “they don’t drive at night.”

“They may be voters who have young children and would have to get a baby-sitter to come out. Or they work late.”

Mr Fitzgerald credited town officials with putting out the sandwich boards around town to raise awareness about upcoming referendum votes, and he applauded the Support Our Schools group for their postcard mailing urging people to get out and vote.

Another resident who worked on the petition drive was Bob Hennessey.

“This shows the charter needs to be changed,” Mr Hennessey said.

“Also, I would have to say that the town’s population of seniors is a most tenacious group,” he added, after watching the determination with which many of the retirees worked to gather signatures.

“They showed real willingness to help and it turned out to be a little more coordinated than we had anticipated,” Mr Hennessey commented.

Mr Fortugno said that many who signed his petitions were younger residents who agreed that the referendum was a fairer way to decide.

“Many were in support of the schools even though they felt the budget was high and times were tough,” he added.

First Selectman Herb Rosenthal also agreed that voting by referendum was “a fairer way” to decide upon a budget, but he said that in order to change the current format of having a town meeting vote after two failed referendums, there would need to be a change to the town charter enacted by a charter commission.

The charter was changed two years ago; it must be reviewed once every five years.

Mr Rosenthal said that every time a referendum is held, the cost to the town is approximately $8,000. That figure includes $6,500 in registrar’s costs to administer the vote and set up the machines,  and $1,500 in advertising and traffic control costs.