How to bankrupt your local government

[Cancel 2016.2]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...-initiative-process/?wprss=rss_national&clsrd

Mayor Richard Berry (R) told the Albuquerque Journal last week he wants to see a citywide discussion on amending the city’s charter, including the number of signatures required to get an initiative on the ballot and how quickly the city must hold an election after a proposed initiative qualifies.

Supporters of any given initiative must collect about 12,000 valid signatures — 20 percent of the average turnout in the last four municipal elections — within 60 days to qualify for the ballot. Once an initiative qualifies for the ballot, the city must hold an election within 90 days, an expensive proposition at a time when cities are squeezing their budgets ever tighter.

The three ballot initiatives that have qualified in the past year have cost Albuquerque $1.2 million. The city has an $870 million annual budget.

City leaders worry the money they spend on special elections might be wasted. The way the minimum wage increase was written, for example, would have put the onus on both employees and the city attorney to enforce the higher wage, leading to confusion — and almost certain litigation.







Is the right helping this city or harming it?


why are they trying to BANKRUPT the local government ?

So the mayor, who is a REPUBLICAN, is trying to SAVE the city money by changing the way the special ballots are done and you are accusing the republicans of harming the city?

 

[Airstrip One]

Jefferson loved our government so much, he didn't believe the Constitution would last more than three generations. That's why his proudest accomplishments were the Declaration and the U of VA. These sort of things are timeless, and won't be torn down easily.