Those who brought the annexation issue to referendum this Election Day have a regional agency and a City Council that ignored a petition bearing more than 7,000 signatures to thank.

Friday, November 03, 2000

Those who brought the annexation issue to referendum this Election Day have a regional agency and a City Council that ignored a petition bearing more than 7,000 signatures to thank.

The city’s controversial entry into the Southern Minnesota Municipal Power Agency in 1981 upset more than a few citizens.

Three referendum votes on changes to the City Charter the next year were the result of that anger. The three amendments to the charter passed overwhelmingly in a special election on July 7, 1982.

The first amendment was a provision for referendum, initiative and recall, giving the people the power to "initiate and adopt any ordinance, except an ordinance appropriating money or authorizing the levy of taxes, to require any ordinance when passed by the council to be referred to the electorate for approval or disapproval, and to recall elected municipal officers." These were called initiative, referendum and recall, respectively.

The second amendment the citizens voted on in 1982 required the Austin City Council to pass an ordinance for expenditures greater than 10 percent of the city’s annual budget or for any action that legally obligates the city by contract for more than five years.

The third called for the election, rather than appointment, of Austin Utilities board members.

The 5,936 citizens, or close to 43 percent of the city’s registered voters at that time, voted almost 2-to-1 to pass each of the three amendments. The first passed by a vote of 4,157 to 1,768. The second won on a vote of 4,244 to 1,674 and the vote on the third amendment was 4,376 to 1,593.

It is the first amendment that allowed this year’s annexation issue to come to referendum; that same amendment may bring a future initiative vote on the staffing level at the Austin Fire Department.

Tim Conway, a member of the group that pursued the referendums, said then that he thought the initiative, referendum and recall powers would be used infrequently. However, he added that they would "act as a reminder to governmental bodies that they are subject to the people," he said. "They will proceed cautiously with governmental actions as they have in Albert Lea. I don’t think it will ‘inhibit’ the running of city government."

Reactions from city officials was mixed at the time, as it is now when people demand their right to vote on an issue. Most of the council members, however, said the referendum votes sent a strong message.

"It proved that there is dissatisfaction out there, that the council acted too quick," then Alderman at-large Tom Kough said. "We will have to do more PR with the issues so there is more explanation and more public-hearing type meetings."

 

The 1982 referendums were not the first or the last for Austin.

There were three referendums on the library that never passed – those were referendums that were on the ballot because of the expense to the city. A similar referendum on the building of the swimming pool did pass a few years before that.

In 1988, Austin voters finally passed the ordinance allowing the sale of liquor on Sunday, after several previous votes had failed.

Three years before that, in 1985, the city’s voters decided overwhelmingly to change the name "alderman" to "City Council member."

"That was a time when we were trying to do away with a lot of gender-specific titles," Ruth Rasmussen, the only female council member at that time, said. "It was time. It would have passed without taking it to the people, but three of the men on the council voted against the change after the charter commission had approved it."