|
Voter Squeeze
Time limit puts pressure on the polls
A new state law limiting the time a voter may spend in the voting booth has the Knox County Election Commission and its administrator Greg Mackay, worried. It allows voters only five minutes in the voting booth if there is a line, no more than 10 minutes in any circumstance. “With the eight County Charter changes, six City Charter changes and an ordinance, I am hoping that voters will read the proposals before going to vote,” Mackay says.
That’s not the worst of it. Though some of those changes are simple “housekeeping measures” that have little impact on the public at-large, their arcane, legalistic wording may mean that people will puzzle over them beyond their limited time in the booth.
To help remedy the situation, Mike Moyers, the county law director, and Debbie Poplin, the city’s assistant law director, helped us unscramble them in the order that they appear on the ballot.
First the county’s Charter amendments:
1.) Changes the term “executive” to “mayor” to conform with state law.
2.) Allows Board of Education (school board) candidates to run if they reside in the district on the day they file their petitions to run.
3.) Sets the same residency requirement for County Commission candidates.
4.) Permits the law director to hire outside counsel, as needed and budgeted.
5.) Dissolves the county’s Code Commission, which has not met since 1992 and is obsolete.
6.) Puts the law director’s office on the same footing as other county elected offices.
7.) Allows the County Commission to develop purchasing regulations and procedures that all county government offices must follow.
8.) Adopts the state’s teacher tenure law, superseding the county’s private tenure act.
Then, the city’s Charter amendments:
1.) Establishes that the federal law prohibiting discriminating for reasons of race, sex, age, religion or national origin is a matter of city policy, assuring equal access to all city programs and requires annual reports on equal access from the mayor and all city departments, agencies, boards and commissions.
2.) Includes in the Charter the provisions set out in a city ordinance that requires public disclosure of all city records in compliance with the state’s Open Records Law.
3.) Establishes in the Charter a trust fund for parks, greenways and historic preservation and providing for its funding as set out in the city’s recently passed “Penny for Parks” ordinance, committing a penny on the property tax rate for that purpose. The ordinance also requires Council to pass an ordinance to spend any part of the trust fund.
4.) Gives Council 30 days, rather than the present 20 days, to consider measures raised by petition before the Council must put the measure to a vote in ordinance form or submit it to referendum vote.
5.) Amends the city’s pension plan to allow credit for employment service for retirement purposes to be calculated on a daily, rather than a monthly or annual basis.
6.) Amends the pension plan to even out the employer contribution requirements and create a default provision that makes the employee’s spouse the pension beneficiary in the event no beneficiary was named.
And last, the City Ordinance:
Already passed by Council, this referendum is required by petition initiative. It prohibits city funding or use of the city’s credit for the construction of a new convention center hotel or any garages, bridges or land acquisitions or related facilities or improvements that would be part of such a hotel, except under the city’s existing authority for tax or lease abatements.
The Legislature meant well when it put a limit on the time voters can spend in the booth, but the lawmakers must have forgotten it’s not just their names and the names of local candidates that the voters must pick out on the ballot. There’s all this other stuff to read. Read those amendment and referendum items yourselves first or look over the summaries, then go to the polls. But do go. And vote!
July 15, 2004 • Vol. 14, No. 29
© 2004 Metro Pulse
|
| 
