The Chelsea Standard
A Heritage Newspaper
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Clerk's office still counting S.O.S. Committee signatures
Report on petitions for county proposal likely to be issued in December
By Steve Ricci, Staff Writer
PUBLISHED: November 10, 2005
The Washtenaw County Clerk's Office is still counting petition signatures from a grassroots organization that wants to bring a $29.9 million county proposal for a new jail and courthouse to a public vote.
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The Citizens to Save Our Sheriff's Department Committee turned in more than 20,000 signatures to the clerk's office Sept. 26.
It needs 15,000 signatures to bring the county's attempt to issue $29.9 million in bonds to a referendum.
According to state law, citizens can force a countywide referendum if at least 15,000 signatures are collected within 45 days of the announcement of a bond sale.
The S.O.S. Committee is made up of residents and township officials from across the county, as well as some Washtenaw County Sheriff's Office employees.
The group is trying to thwart efforts by the Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners to cut subsidies to sheriff's patrols and pay for proposed improvements to the county correctional facilities that the group says are too expensive.
County officials have attempted to come up with funding alternatives to improve the facilities after voters defeated a $314 million proposal for the projects last February.
The scaled-down $29.9 million proposal would include expanding the county jail by 96 beds, building a new probational residential center, funding inmate mental health programs, building new 14-A District Court facilities and making courthouse security upgrades.
Chief Deputy Clerk Derrick Jackson said Monday that the S.O.S. Committee handed in a total of 20,065 petition signatures, all of which were entered into a database, and that 15,221 of the signatures have been unofficially verified as coming from registered voters.
Preparations for Nov. 8 local elections, as well as a time-consuming verification process, have slowed the issuance of an official report, Jackson said.
The clerk's office will attempt to verify every signature, Jackson said, including the 4,844 names computers rejected as coming from unregistered voters.
Workers at the clerk's office will examine all of those signatures to make sure they were not misspelled or otherwise entered incorrectly into the voter database.
Jackson said the clerk's office has set a goal of Nov. 16 for issuing an official report on the petitions to the County Board.
Kerry Sheldon, management analyst for the County Administrator's Office, said Monday that because the verification process is not complete, it's "extremely unlikely" the report can be incorporated into the agenda for a County Board meeting scheduled Nov. 16.
Instead, the report will probably be presented at a Dec. 7 County Board meeting, Sheldon said.
The state law regarding the bond referendum does not guarantee a vote because the County Board has the authority to make the final decision.
If the 15,000 signatures are presented, the County Board could give the go-ahead for the referendum, or it could scrap the bond sale plan and fund the correctional facilities improvements with an approximate $5.5 million in annual revenue generated by cuts to the sheriff's patrols.
Despite S.O.S. Committee opposition, the board is moving ahead with a plan to charge 6-percent annual cost increases to municipalities contracting for sheriff's patrols, and to end sheriff's subsidies by 2008.
Scio Township Trustee Chuck Ream, spokesman for the S.O.S. Committee, said he expects new county commissioners will be voted into office next year, making recall campaigns against some of them unnecessary.
"The people of Washtenaw County have spoken clearly with their votes and now with their petition signatures," Ream said, adding that the county administration, "as always, continues to do whatever it wants to do."
Ream said recall campaigns are not needed because subsidies will not end until 2008.
"Following the 2006 elections, the majority of the County Board will probably be reversed," Ream said.
"I imagine the new board will support some sort of compromise or middle ground on the cost of deputies and the provision of 'core services,' so we can preserve our sheriff's department and not compromise our public safety."
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