History...
All politics is ultimately local. From the neighborhood grocery to the city council, these community institutions are the forums where people may still have an advantage over big money and big media. We live in Greensboro, we work we, we've built families, businesses and community here. And it was out of a desire to affect change in our community that we began to search for tools and tactics that would put before the people issues that can actually make a difference in their lives.
In November 2006, a group of five registered voters in Greensboro established an Initiative Committee to begin a Citizens Initiative. On December 1, 2006 the committee filed the Minimum Wage Committee Petition with the county election board asking that the minimum wage in the city be raised to $9.36 an hour. This figure was chosen because in 1968 the minimum wage was a $1.90 an hour. The United States Department of Labor has adjusted the minimum wage to take in account the effect of inflation. They find that the minimum wage would have to be $9.36 an hour today to equal the purchasing power it had in 1968.
[Pictured above: Marilyn Baird, Donny and Billy the Blogging Poet in a local grocery store parking lot getting petition signatures and commanding a great deal of attention with Billy's plane.]
When we filed the petition, the County Board of Elections told the committee that based upon the City Election in 2005 we needed to gather 4,972 signatures of registered voters within one year to have a valid citizen's petition. At the end of the year period, we presented our signed petitions to the city. We turned in more than 6,400 signatures. The city attorney immediately said that we needed 8,338 signatures because the number must be based on the election held in November 2007. According to this interpretation of the statutes involved, a petitioner seeking to initiate a local initiative would have to guess at the number of names needed, then proceed to gather signatures for what was in our case over 11 months before finding out in the last three weeks of the allotted year whether or not their guess had been correct. Clearly, that was not the intent of the ordinances. We were particularly concerned since we asked the city attorney's advice about the interpretation of the regulations for an initiative and were told that he worked for the city and therefore couldn't advise citizen petitioners.
On December 18, 2007, at the city council meeting, the city attorney recommended that the petition be denied because we didn't have the more than 8,000 names of registered voters on the petition. Thankfully, the city council had the opportunity and the authority under the charter to declare its own interpretation of the charter's language, and they granted validity to our 6,412 signatures.
The petition was then sent to the election board to review the signatures and to certify if these were indeed registered voters in the city. After reviewing them the board of election determined that we are still short 1,000 valid signatures. (Several of the signatures were not registered voters or were not in the voting district.)
The good news here is that we were given 10 days, until January 17, 2008 to get the additional signatures. We felt certain we could get the required number of signatures. Then on Tuesday, January 15, the next city council meeting, the opponents of the minimum wage initiative passed a motion to rescind the previous vote, which would have allowed the initiative to move to the next phase.
[Pictured left: Greensboro Minimum Wage Committee Members Rev. Walter Richmond, Jim Boyette, Deborah Compton-Holt, and Fahiym Hanna look over petition signatures before submitting them to the City Council.]
On January 17 we still presented to the city an additional 1541 signatures. Immediately, the city requested a meeting with the committee. They recognized that there needed to be some clarity brought to the process. Currently, the city and the citizen committee are meeting to re-write the city charter as it relates to recalls, referenda and citizen initiatives for clarification. Once the re-write is completed they will develop a how-to brochure that outlines the steps in their simplest form.
As we await these changes moving through the City Council and State Legislature (changes in city charters must go through the State), the Campaign has turned its efforts to building our capacity through education and infra-structure. We intend to re-engage the petition process as soon as changes are finalized and demanding that the voices of the over 8,000 signers of the original petition and the voices of the signers of the new petition be heard.
[Parts of this article, written by Marilyn Baird, first appeared in the North Carolina Justice Center's Community News under the title "Greensboro Minimum Wage Campaign Battling Hurdles"].
