Minimum wage committee contests legal determination

I just spoke to Jim Boyett, co-chair of the Greensboro Minimum Wage Committee. He said he hadn’t yet been informed of the city legal department’s determination on the committee’s citizen initiative to raise the city’s minimum wage to $9.36. He wasn’t too surprised that the petitions were determined to be insufficient.

He argued that the city council has the power to override a certification of insufficiency by the city clerk based on the legal staff’s advice.

“We’ve got a determination by a staff agency,” Boyett told me. “The clerk and the legal department work for the city council and they can give all the advice that they want. [The council is] the ones who make the decision. Just like if I’m your lawyer, I can advise you, but it’s your decision. I ultimately think that this is a political issue.”

Anticipating the outcome, co-chair Marilyn Baird, has called the legal department’s determination “foolish” in a post over at the Greensboro Minimum Wage Campaign blog, and has urged supporters to contact council members and “ask them to do the right thing.”

Boyett told me he believes that a state law giving petitioners a limit of one year to gather signatures does not “coordinate” with a city ordinance requiring petitioners to come up with signatures equal in number to 25 percent of those who voted in the last election. I’m not sure I follow, but here’s how he puts it in the aforementioned blog post:

“A lack of clarity exists in the present City rules regarding initiatives, referendums and recall petitions. This lack of clarity was caused by the State of North Carolina passing two statutes that added the requirement to register an initiative petition with the County Board of Elections prior to obtaining signatures and setting a time limit of one year on the gathering of signatures. These State changes have never been addressed by City ordinance to clarify their effect upon the City’s Initiative Procedure.”

Confusion engendered by state and municipal law aside, I harbor strong skepticism towards the claim that the city council members have any latitude to override a decision by the city clerk. Here’s what Section 275(a) of the Greensboro code of ordinances states: “If a petition is certified insufficient under Section 2.73(d)(1), a majority of the committee of petitioners may elect to amend the petition; but if a majority does not so elect to amend the petition, the clerk shall present his certificate to the council at its next meeting and that certificate shall be a final determination as to the sufficiency of the petition.”