The following is an editorial written by RHS member Dani Loebs. The opinions expressed are her own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Rocklin Historical Society.
Dear Rocklin History Supporters:
Tonight the City Council unanimously voted to "proceed with the demolition of the remaining sheds in order to render the site safe. Salvage whatever wood we can, pending the results of the demolition."
It is important to understand that this may not be the end of this process. When I asked, the city attorney was not sure if this type of resolution was applicable to the referendum process, but he said that it probably was and Mayor Magnuson agreed. We will need confirmation on that. Assuming it is applicable, please read on to learn more about the referendum process.
About a century ago, some great men and women here in California worked very hard to amend our state constitution to grant additional rights of grassroots democratic process. Most of us are aware of the initiative process at both the state and local level. However, far fewer are aware of the referendum process available to us at the local level.
The referendum powers that we have at the city level here in Rocklin grant us the right to force the city council to have their controversial and unpopular decision be ratified by the voters of Rocklin. What's more, the city council has the option to repeal their unpopular decision and avoid the measure being sent to the voters at all. The latter is the ideal outcome, but both are good.
Since Rocklin is a general law city, the laws governing the local referendum process are within the CA Elections Code. The important sections of the Elections Code are 9235, 9237-9243, 9114-9115, and 9210. You can find the table of contents to the Elections Code here:
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/calawquery?codesection=elec&codebody=&hits=20
The last report of registration for Rocklin is 30,752 registrants.
You can find it here:
http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/ror/ror-pages/ror-odd-year-11/
And specifically here:
http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/ror/ror-pages/ror-odd-year-11/politicalsub.pdf
So what this means is that a successful petition for referendum will require 10% of the registrants' signatures. That would be 3,076 needed signatures. It is best to gather about 12% to insure that more than 10% remain after the invalid signatures are removed by the officials when they verify the petitions. So somewhere in the vicinity of 3600-3700 is likely the goal. (That can be verified with the City Clerk, the County Elections office and the individuals that led the successful Clover Valley signature-gathering process a few years ago.)
The number of signatures sounds high, but the Clover Valley folks were able to collect about that amount of signatures in just 20 days! The law allows us 30 days. I was not involved with the Clover Valley fight personally, but we can also speak with them to get the nuts and bolts info on the process.
Lastly, if you read through the sections of the code I referenced above, you will notice that there are significant delays created by the process. First there is the regular 30 days of any ordinance or resolution. Then there is the time the city/county officials are granted to verify that a sufficient number of signatures have been submitted. That can take 30-60 business days. Then if the Rocklin city council decides to repeal their original decision, that requires them to not readdress the issue for at least one year. If they opt to send the referendum to the ballot, then it will take another couple of months before the special election. As you can see, there are many strategic delays involved in the process.
We've got nothing to lose. Will the Historical Society be willing to collect signatures for a referendum? Who will volunteer to talk to the City Clerk tomorrow? I'd do it if I didn't have to work, but we need someone as soon as possible to ask about starting the paperwork! I would be happy to help in any way that I can if the Historical Society decides to move forward with the signature gathering (and assuming that the referendum process applies to the type of resolution adopted by the city council tonight).
This may not be over yet!
All the best,
Dani Loebs
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