Group wants a county road board

Stutsman County officials met with sponsors of an initiated measure Tuesday to discuss the procedures for gathering petition signatures and placing the issue on the ballot. The measure seeks to create a public board of directors to provide oversight of the Stutsman County road system.

The board would make decisions concerning the expenditure of road funds as well as define the county road system.

“The county can’t write the petitions but we can tell the groups what is allowable,” said Noel Johnson, chief operating officer of Stutsman County. “We need to work out the processes.”

Stutsman County has never had a measure initiated by the public on the ballot. The county’s home rule charter specifies a minimum number of signatures equal to 15 percent of the total votes cast in the governor’s race of the last general election. That means 1,491 signatures are required for an initiated amendment to the Stutsman County Home Rule Charter.

While the home rule charter specifies the necessary number of petition signatures, it is silent on many other areas of the initiated measure process, said Fritz Fremgen, Stutsman County state’s attorney.

“The charter says in absence of any specifics to use state law,” he said. “I’m in the process of researching what the state law specifies and I don’t have those answers now.”

Issues to be decided are the number of necessary sponsors for the measure and the filing deadlines. However, a general ballot deadline is rapidly approaching.

“We need to have the ballot finalized 60 days before the election,” Johnson said. “That is our drop-dead deadline for the ballot to go to the printer because absentee voting starts shortly thereafter. We obviously can’t go past that.”

Johnson said the county would also have to review and approve the signatures and publish the measure before the deadline. He suggested the county use 90 days before the election as a deadline although he said he would work with filers to extend that date as much as possible.

This means petitions with nearly 1,500 signatures would have to be returned by Aug. 4 or shortly thereafter.

“We can get this done,” said Judy Graves, measure organizer. “We just need to know where we’re at and get started.”

Dan Buchanan, attorney for the group, expressed hopes the county would expedite the necessary decision-making process.

“I think it behooves the county officials not to impede the process of the people,” he said.

The draft of the measure would create a road board of five members from each of the four quadrants of Stutsman County. The members would be elected during the townships’ annual meetings in March. In addition, five members from the city of Jamestown would be appointed by the City Council and the two Stutsman County commissioners holding the road portfolio would also serve.

In addition, another initiated road measure was discussed although no representatives of the sponsoring group were present.

That measure seeks to specify a set percentage of all county revenues be dedicated to road projects. The draft proposal available did not specify what percentage the group was seeking.

Sun reporter Keith Norman can be reached at (701) 952-8452 or by e-mail at knorman@jamestownsun.com