An Initiative submitted by a group of citizens in Whatcom County was held up by 4 of 7 Council members from being put on the ballot; which is the standard practice.

Background:

In the November 2022 Proposition 5 was placed on the ballot by super majority vote of the Council.

The Proposition passed by 20 votes.

It added a tax of about 19 cents per thousand to all property tax payers and will collect approximately 100,000,000 by the end of the 10 year period.

In the Spring of 2024 a citizen group collected enough verified signatures to get the council to place a repealing initiative on the ballot.

The Whatcom County Council by the County Charter had three choices:

  • Do nothing and let it go to the ballot as written
  • adopt an ordinance that states it will go on the ballot as written
  • propose an alternative that deals with the same subject matter and is consistent with the initiative and both original and alternative will go to the ballot.

At an early June meeting Councilman Donovan noted, before a vote to put it on the ballot, that he thought the initiative was not an initiative as presently defined and was a referendum instead; repealing the Prop 5 Initiative.  A referendum requires many more signatures than an initiative in the Charter.

For those that wish to know the Whatcom County legal differences for a referendum and initiative… A 20 page memo was put out by the Prosecutor’s office in 2013 that attempted to explain the difference.  Its here…

The staff stated that a challenge to the initiative should come after it has been voted on rather than what turns out to be an exclusion of the people’s will to vote on the issue.

The council has so far demurred.  A vote of the council should occur before the August 6th date to get items on the November ballot.

We will continue to cover this issue here.