It’s official.

Tuesday, May 30, 2000

It’s official. The process of getting the first referendum vote in 12 years on the November ballot has officially begun.

City Clerk Lucy Johnson received 35 signatures declaring their intent to petition for referendum on Friday morning, and all but one of them checked out. That one, according to Johnson, didn’t count because the person didn’t sign their given name, the one written on their voter registration form.

Now the group opposing the city’s annexation by ordinance of 55 acres of land west of the J.C. Hormel Nature Center have until June 29 to get 972 signatures. Several started collecting today, according to Mike Pratt, a key player in the referendum movement.

Other central players in the fight against the annexation include Dr. Mark Reeve, Dean Dykeman and Vernon Gavin. The group oppose the annexation of the 55 acres because developers want to make the land – now farmland with a serious erosion problem – into a housing development. Those opposing the annexation would like to see the land turned into a natural habitat for wildlife, in keeping with the nature center across the street. The Austin City Council approved the annexation by ordinance at its May 15 meeting, but the intent to petition for referendum effectively put that ordinance on hold.

Pratt said efforts to get more people to sign would likely begin in earnest later this week, after the petition packets organized by Reeve are handed out to volunteers at a meeting at 7:30 p.m. Thursday at the nature center.

"We took our time because we want to make sure every step is done correctly," Reeve said. "We don’t want anything coming back to us."

The other reason for the meeting is to make sure all the volunteers understand how to correctly collect the signatures.

"People have to sign the same name that’s written on their voter registration," Johnson said. "They can’t use nicknames: if your name is William, then you have to sign that way, not ‘Bill.’ Women can’t write Mrs. Joe Smith, they need to write their own name. We also want people to print their names as well as sign, because if we can’t make it out, it doesn’t count."

Gavin isn’t too worried about getting the required number of people to sign.

"I’ve had enough inquiries, just walking around, that I don’t think we’ll have any trouble," Gavin said. "People are pretty anxious to get started on this."

Gavin didn’t know whether there would be petitions at specific businesses or simply volunteers collecting signatures.