Williston City Council President Charles Goodman discusses the referendum issue with council members.
By Terry Witt – Spotlight Senior Reporter
The Williston City Council’s efforts to ask voters for a pay raise hit another snag this week when someone forgot to notify the elections office in Bronson that the city wanted a referendum question placed on the Aug. 18 primary ballot.
Supervisor of Elections Tammy Jones said she mailed out 650 primary absentee ballots a day or two after the City Council gave final approval to the referendum on July 7.
She said City Clerk Latricia Wright contacted her by email on July 8 or July 9 to notify her that the council had approved the referendum. Jones immediately responded it was too late to put it on the ballot.
Jones isn’t certain whether the referendum question can be added to the November ballot due to space concerns. There are six state referendum questions on the ballot that may take up too much space to add the city’s pay raise issue. Council members learned of the snafu at Tuesday’s council meeting and it wasn’t the first time they had been told by staff that a referendum that could potentially give them pay raises had missed an election deadline.
The mayor’s salary and council president’s salary would increase from $250 to $500 per month and the council salaries would rise from $200 to $400 if voters approve the charter amendment for the pay raise.
The council originally planned to place the referendum question on the March ballot but Wright informed the council at a Jan. 14 workshop that City Attorney Fred Koberlein told her the same day that a referendum must be approved by ordinance.
Former City Manager Scott Lippmann told council members the requirement for the pay raise referendum to be approved by ordinance put the March election out of reach due to advertising requirements. The next eligible election date would be Aug. 18.
Jones said she wasn’t pointing fingers at anyone but she said she has to be notified by the city of its plans to place a referendum on a ballot well in advance of the election.
“I didn’t get an email from Latricia until after that last council meeting two weeks ago and we had already mailed the ballots out,” Jones said.
Wright conceded after the meeting that it was her mistake that resulted in the council not getting the referendum on the Aug. 18 primary ballot.
City council members can only get a pay raise by amending the city charter. That’s why voters would need to say yes to the raises.
Jones said she talked about the mistake in a Zoom conference call with Wright, City Council President Charles Goodman, and Koberlein.
“I told them let’s not look back and put blame on anybody. We had a discussion – Latricia, the lawyer, and President Goodman. I said let’s not look back and point fingers. That’s not productive. It wouldn’t matter because it couldn’t happen. The ballots are printed,” Jones said.
Jones said she would have needed to know the city’s intentions before the end of candidate qualifying on June 12. After local candidates qualified, the process of building the Aug. 18 ballot began at an accelerated pace. Everything that would go on the ballot locally must be final by then.
In Williston, and in many small towns, the clerk serves as the official who runs city elections. But this year was a little different. The COVID-19 pandemic started in mid-March. Williston City Hall shut down for 2 ½ months. Two or three city council meetings were broadcast by internet. When the council did start meeting again at City Hall, Koberlein attended by online connection for several meetings before returning to his seat with the council. City Manager Scott Lippmann resigned.
It wasn’t an ordinary year.
That doesn’t excuse what happened. Wright is relatively new to the job. In recent years there haven’t been city elections. City council members rarely have had opposition. But the city must go through all the motions of preparing for an election and letting Jones know of the city’s intentions well in advance of Election Day. That didn’t happen this time around.
Jones said she remembers speaking to Williston officials in March about the referendum. She said if she had remembered those discussions, she could have reached out to Wright to ask whether they were preparing a referendum question. But she said she got busy and didn’t think about it.
“Could I have reached out to them and said, hey, didn’t we talk about the referendum in March? But I didn’t, so that’s why I said let’s not point fingers. I’m not going to blame anybody,” Jones said. “It is Levy County’s ballot, so if a city wants something on the ballot, I need to know. They need to let me know.”
Jones added, “The point is this was a miscommunication. Somewhere along the line, obviously, they did not know when the deadline was. I’m not angry. They’re not angry. It was a very productive discussion we had. It told them pretty much the obvious; it won’t be on the primary ballot.”
Jones said she was a “little shocked” that the council voted on the referendum question without telling her.
“The cities need to understand to be on the ballot it has to be pushed through me. I have to be part of the approval,” Jones said. “I don’t have to be present but maybe someone, the mayor or city clerk, could contact me and say hey, we got something we’re looking at putting on the ballot and we want to swing it by you. To be honest, I did not know they were moving forward. I did not know there was something in the newspaper. I have been extremely busy and I haven’t had time to read the paper from front to back. I knew Scott Lippmann had left. I didn’t call to double-check, so we’re not going to look back; we’re not going to point fingers. Unfortunately, it can’t happen.”
Jones said the November ballot may not be available to the city. The state has approved six ballot questions for the Nov. 3 general election but hasn’t sent her the final wording of the constitutional amendments. When she receives the approved wording of the amendments, she will know whether there is enough space for the city’s referendum question.
As it stands, Jones said the ballot will consist of two pages – the front side of the ballot and the backside. She said the ballot will have English wording and Spanish wording. Thirty-two Florida counties are required to have Spanish language ballots.
Jones said if the city’s referendum question forces a third page, which would be a separate page, it would cause voter confusion. Some voters would turn in just one of the pages. She said the election is too important to have that sort of confusion. She wouldn’t be inclined to add the city’s referendum question if an additional page was needed. The city would have to wait until its March election four months down the road.
“With the importance of this election and the logistics of this election, we have to make sure we have to get it right. This could throw another little technical deal into the election,” Jones said. “You create more ballot styles. A city voter (in Williston) would get this style. A county voter would get another style. So we would have to let our poll workers know to give the right ballot. There’s more logistical issues with a split.”
Jones said Bronson has also contacted her about the possibility of adding one of two amendments to the ballot. Bronson’s clerk, Shirley Miller, resigned recently. The deputy clerk, Melisa Cook, is doing Miller’s job and her own.
“I said I would get back with them,” Jones said.
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City of Williston Regular Meeting July 21, 2020; Posted July 22, 2020
