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Opponents of a Milwaukee streetcar have launched a petition drive that they say would kill it.
But the Milwaukee Common Council could approve the project even if the opponents submit at least 30,800 valid signatures that would put a binding referendum on a ballot.
The council voted 10-5 on Jan. 21 to approve four files that would implement the initial phase of the $123 million streetcar project. But Alderman Tony Zielinski, who’d voted with the 10 supporters, then moved to delay it until the next council meeting, Tuesday, Feb. 10. The vote to delay only required three affirmative votes; it generated seven—the five original opponents, plus Zielinski and Common Council President Michael Murphy.
Murphy said he supported the delay to give the petition supporters enough time to gather their signatures.
The petition—spearheaded by Common Council members Bob Donovan and Joe Davis with organizational support from the CRG Network and the state chapter of the Koch brothers-financed Americans for Prosperity—calls for a binding referendum that would create a city ordinance. That new ordinance would require a referendum on any rail system that uses $20 million or more of municipal funds or tax incremental financing.
So the petition being circulated now wouldn’t stop the streetcar. Rather, it would propose an ordinance that would mandate a referendum for any light rail system that uses $20 million of city funds or financing.
The proposed ordinance could be approved by a majority of the council or the council could choose to put it on the ballot for voters to decide. If it decides to put it forward as a referendum question, the council could call a special election or it could place the proposed ordinance as a referendum question on the ballot at the next election. That would occur next spring—either the February 2016 primary, if there is one, or the April 2016 general election. Donovan and Davis both want to challenge Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett next spring.
Streetcar Opponents on a Tight Deadline
What’s interesting about the petition drive is that it’s being promoted as a way to stop the streetcar but the streetcar could still be approved even if streetcar opponents manage to collect enough signatures.
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“The petition drive is proceeding on what amounts to a parallel track from the streetcar legislation,” City of Milwaukee Clerk Jim Owczarski said.
That’s because petition gatherers are on their own timeline but they’re bumping up against the Common Council’s calendar.
Streetcar opponents need to collect tens of thousands of signatures in a very tight timeframe—just 60 days. Only city residents 18 and older can sign the petitions.
They launched their petition drive on Jan. 5. Their 60-day deadline is March 5—well after the council’s next scheduled vote on the project on Feb. 10.
CRG Network chief Chris Kliesmet said he plans to submit the petitions on Feb. 8—a Sunday—giving Owczarski two days to verify the signatures.
Kliesmet said he’s shooting for 35,000 signatures to ensure that 30,800 signatures are valid and he was fully confident that he’d get them, saying that public opinion was running 80% in opposition to the project.
However, the law gives Owczarski 15 days in which his office, working with the Milwaukee Election Commission, can vet the signatures and addresses of the petition signers. If the petitions have deficiencies that require correction, the petitioners have 10 days to fix them.
The petitions will be available for public inspection and Owczarski said he anticipated that attorneys from both sides would take a close look at them.
If the petition organizers meet the 30,800-signature threshold, the language of the proposed ordinance would be introduced just like any other proposed ordinance.
“Once I certify those petitions, the council has 30 more days to act,” Owczarski said.
Owczarski said it would go to two Common Council committees, the Public Works Committee, next scheduled to meet on Feb. 18, March 18 and April 8, and the Judiciary and Legislation Committee, set to meet on Feb. 2, prior to the end of the petition drive, as well as on March 23 and April 13. Once those committees debate the matter, it would go to the full Common Council for a vote. The full council is scheduled to meet on Feb. 10, in the midst of the petition verification process, and then again on March 3, March 31 and April 21.
Headed to Court?
But even if streetcar opponents can gather 30,800 valid signatures by Feb. 9, the Common Council could still move ahead with the streetcar.
On Feb. 10, the council will likely take up the four files it approved and held on Jan. 22 to implement the first phase of the streetcar. Opponents were able to delay its approval twice through parliamentary maneuvers that only require three votes. But they can’t use those minority votes to stall anymore. Any new moves to delay those four files will require at least eight votes. And only seven council members supported the previous delay.
“There are no more super-minority options,” Owczarski said.
If eight or nine supporters stick together, the streetcar will likely be approved Feb. 10. And no proposed ordinance to be adopted in the future could undo the council’s approval of the streetcar, Bauman said.
“We are perfectly within our legal right to take up the four streetcar files and pass them,” said Alderman Robert Bauman, a streetcar supporter and an attorney by profession. “And if that happens—game over. A referendum cannot undo legislation that’s been passed.”
But Kliesmet said he was confident that a successful petition drive would override any Common Council action. He also predicted that the matter would get tied up in court.
“In order to prevail [in court], our attorneys said as long as we file the signatures with the clerk it doesn’t matter what the Common Council does after that,” Kliesmet said. “They said we will likely prevail in court and if they try to move ahead we can probably get a restraining order.”
Bauman felt that the streetcar was unstoppable if supporters stick together, although he said that a successful petition drive could force a referendum on future extensions of the streetcar system if they require more than $20 million in city financing.
But he said he didn’t think that the petition supporters were really concerned about the streetcar itself.
“When you really dissect the dates and the timelines and how you’re really pushing decision-making out months and years, that was the tipoff to me that this whole petition drive is a political stunt aimed at attacking the mayor and defeating the mayor,” Bauman said.
