City Clerk Folds to Machine Pressure and Rejects Fulop Ballot

The Journal reports that city clerk Robert Byrne refused to certify petitions that would have placed an ethics reform bill on the ballot as a referendum in November.

The ordinance in question would have prevented council members from collecting more than one salary from taxpayers. Downtown councilman Steven Fulop first proposed the ordinance in a council meeting, but the other council members, all of whom collect at least two tax payer funded salaries, soundly rejected the bill. Since then Fulop worked to send the ordinance to a referendum vote.

First the city set the required number of signatures around 1,500, but when it became apparent that threshold would easily be met, the city than decided to require more than 12,000 signatures. Byrne's failure to certify the petitions ultimately will lead to a court battle.