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Citizens want more say? Good for them

By HOWARD TROXLER
Published December 11, 2005

Can there be such a thing as too much voting?

This is an old question. It goes back to the day when the people of ancient Athens gathered on a hillside to decide everything.

Ever since then, people have argued about whether direct democracy is bad. Some folks fear the mob can be reckless or easily misled. That's why they favor a republic, with elected decisionmakers.

This ancient struggle is alive and kicking in St. Pete Beach, a barrier-island city off the southwest coast of Pinellas County. A group of citizens there is trying to move their city toward direct democracy.

This group seeks direct voter control over (1) the city's comprehensive plan for land use, (2) city redevelopment plans and (3) building heights.

And the group wants to require a unanimous City Commission vote to approve any changes too small for an election (five parcels of land or fewer).

This is dramatic stuff, especially for Florida. Imagine, letting the voters decide for themselves whether to allow more development in their community!

The group, Citizens for Responsible Government, got enough petition signatures to force a referendum to amend the city charter. The City Commission is fighting in court, and a decision is pending from Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Judge Walt Logan.

The judge is not in charge of deciding whether the citizens group has good ideas. His only job is to decide whether it is entitled to put the ideas to a vote.

After all, the citizens got enough petition signatures. They met all the rules in the city charter for holding an election. Why shouldn't they be allowed to vote?

The answer, the city says, is that what the citizens seek to do would be illegal. There is a big, hairy, complicated state law that controls how cities are supposed to do their planning.

The city argues that St. Pete Beach could not possibly obey that complicated state law if everything had to be put to a vote. The city argues that the state law even makes holding such elections illegal. (Naturally, the citizens disagree.)

If you have stuck with me so far, I hope you will think I have given a fair presentation. Now I will confess my bias and argue on behalf of the citizens group.

The city is correct in that the state law, the Growth Management Act, is complicated and has many requirements. But there is nothing about the citizens' ideas that automatically violates that law.

Maybe, over time, holding elections will prove to be too cumbersome. Indeed, maybe it is a flat-out lousy idea. Maybe the city will fail, in the long run, to meet all the law's requirements.

But none of that takes away citizens' right to try it - if that's what they want.

The St. Pete Beach fight is another example of government attempting to block a citizen petition to change the structure of that government. The same issue recently came up at the state level, where our state House is spending tax dollars to fight a citizen petition on how our voting districts are drawn.

My own prejudice has always been that the government's job is obey the Constitution (or in a city's case, the city charter) as it is enacted by the citizens and not to try to tell those citizens how to enact it.

Friends on both sides of this fight will accuse me of leaving out many important points. These points boil down to (1) whether the citizens' ideas are bad, and (2) why I don't realize that somebody else in town is a no-good, lying so-and-so.

As to (1), there is no sense debating the ideas until the judge rules on holding the election. They are separate matters. No election, nothing to debate.

As to (2), about who is the biggest liar, and who is in cahoots with whom, I do not care in the slightest.

Some of my friends on the side of City Hall ask, in frustration: Are we really supposed to have an election every time some bunch of malcontents gathers a few petition signatures?

The answer is, well, yes. That's what your city charter says. If the city charter is too generous in that regard, it can always be changed by an election. Maybe you could get up a petition to try it.

[Last modified December 11, 2005, 02:00:33]