Jul 01, 2016 at 03:45 am

Defending Local Democracy has some Lane County Commissioners scared!

Update posted by Our Community Our Rights

Community Rights Lane County’s Expansion for Local Democracy Scares the Lane County Commissioners Prompting Their Proposal to Block Citizen Initiatives

In the wake of the Lane County Circuit Court’s perceived failure to stop the democratic will of the people, the Lane County commissioners are considering giving themselves the ability to block any Lane County measure that they decide is not to be “of county concern”– thereby eliminating voter participation in the initiative process.

According to the Register Guard article, four of the five commissioners instructed county staff to revise an ordinance on the issue that was originally submitted by private attorney at the behalf of unnamed clients. Pete Sorenson, the only lawyer on the Commission, is notably, the lone dissenting vote against this assault on the people’s democratic rights.

Commissioners are posed to restrict the people’s authority – on advice from the Lane County Counsel – despite June 3, 2016 ruling from the Honorable Charles Carlson of the Lane County Circuit Court who ordered that the Lane County Self-Government Charter Amendment could not be kept from the ballot based on a pre-election challenge that it did not address “matters of county concern” because it is unconstitutional to make the determination at this stage of the initiative process. Commissioners and the County Counsel are ignoring the inconvenient ruling.

The Commissioners’ proposal should be rejected. Read More

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