EDITORIAL: City Hall doesn’t want vote on soccer stadium

Talk about moving the goal posts. City Hall is determined to subsidize a downtown soccer stadium the public doesn’t want to pay for. So determined, in fact, that city officials are actively working to deny voters the opportunity to kill the project.

In December, the City Council voted 4-3 to approve a development agreement with The Cordish Cos. and Findlay Sports &Entertainment to try to attract an expansion Major League Soccer franchise. The deal, which would void if the companies fail to land a team, provides the partners with city land, city infrastructure, stadium construction funds and revenue from a parking garage. Mayor Carolyn Goodman and Councilmen Ricki Barlow, Bob Coffin and Steve Ross ignored the protests of taxpayers in supporting the plan.

On Jan. 6, the three City Council members who opposed public funding for the project — Bob Beers, Stavros Anthony and Lois Tarkanian — joined community activists in launching a petition to give voters a chance to block the stadium plan in June’s municipal election. Acting City Clerk LuAnn Holmes accepted the filing and told the petitioners they needed to collect 2,306 qualifying signatures — 15 percent of the number of votes in the most recent city election, the April 2013 municipal primary — by Jan. 24.

That figure was an easy target for Mr. Beers and his allies, one that would require minimal resources.

Then, on Jan. 13, one week into the petitioning process, Ms. Holmes changed the rules. She notified Mr. Beers that he would, in fact, need 8,258 signatures. In a complete misreading of the state constitution, she said the signature threshold had to be determined by the city’s previous general election. Because there was no general election in 2013 — all city races were decided in the low-turnout primary — the total had to be based on the June 2011 ballot. It’s not a coincidence that the 2011 election had much higher turnout and, therefore, established a much higher petition signature requirement.

And Mr. Beers was told he had one day less to collect all those signatures. He had to turn them in Friday — with the help of paid gatherers and many more volunteers than he initially required. His request for a one-week extension was denied.

If Mr. Beers and company fail to reach the city’s new mark, they’re expected to challenge the city’s action in court. And if they do, they should prevail. The idea of setting a petition threshold based on four-year-old turnout data is absurd. It’s entirely possible that the city might not require a general election for a decade or more — candidates win election outright in municipal primary elections if they capture more than 50 percent of the votes, no matter how many people are in the race. Might petitioners in 2027 still be required to meet signature requirements based on the June 2011 ballot? Such an interpretation defies the plain language and intent of the constitution.

Isn’t it interesting that Ms. Holmes needed a whole week to re-examine her decision? And does anyone believe she would have reached such a decision if it reduced the petition’s signature requirements? Of course not.

Voters now have one more reason to oppose the stadium plan.