The Greenfield City Council is doing a first-rate job of crippling the citizen referendum process in our Charter, leaving voters with no recourse to challenge any vote of the City Council or of the School Committee.
Voters in Greenfield have had referendum rights for at least the past quarter century. I worked on a referendum campaign in 1993 which overturned two town council votes on big box stores.
Over the past six weeks, the city’s attorney has denied at least five referendum petitions, and possibly a sixth if he denies the library referendum petition signed by more than 400 voters. If voters can’t commence a referendum by gathering 10 names to get a determination to proceed, and voters can’t gather 320 names (10 percent of the voters in the last biennial election) and proceed to the ballot — then the city has closed off all avenues available under section 7-8 of the Greenfield Charter. Our historic right to protest Council measures is dead.
Citizen referendums and citizen initiatives are the purest form of democratic process imaginable. Over the years, the direct voice of the people has been weakened. Our open town meeting was the purest expression of the people’s voice, our representative town meeting the next best, our 27-member town council was another step removed, and our current 13 member representative government concentrates power in the fewest hands ever. A council of 13 people often represents the voices of 13 people only.
The referendum remains an important check on the power of elected officials. In that regard, the referendum process itself is more important to the future of Greenfield than any issue of the day whether it be a new library or the French King overlay zone/MDR. As a small community of 17,000 people, we still can maintain such checks and balances–and our population has not changed since 1950 when we operated with a town meeting. Some municipalities are already experimenting with “instant democracy,” verified online voting to get an immediate gut check from the voters on any issue.
We the people should have the right to protest the vote of our legislative branch — the City Council — without chastisement, and without recrimination.
Our basic First Amendment right to petition government for redress of grievances is being throttled. As one City Councilor admitted recently about the referendum process: “We all know this section of the charter is messed up.” And yet no one has lifted a finger to correct it. It is a dark day when the message coming from a City Council meeting is: “Sue us” if you don’t like what we are doing.
The referendum process in Greenfield is truly “messed up” but it’s not hard to fix it. The version we had in 1993 works fine. If we need a Charter Commission to write two sections in the Charter, then put it on our shortlist to get done. In the meantime, we should welcome all opportunities to have the voice of the people ring loudest, and stop sending citizens on a fool’s errand to gather signatures on petitions we have no intention to honor. We should not shame those who gather signatures, we should celebrate them.
Citizens should always have the right to challenge a vote of their 13 elected legislators. Our City Council is not infallible. Referendum power is at the core of any government that claims to be a “government of the people, by the people, for the people.” Whether it be Gettysburg or Greenfield, we should ensure that such a right “shall not perish from the earth.”
Al Norman is a Greenfield-based land use activist and author.