PORT TOWNSEND – The City Council will consider rescinding its call for a Nov. 6 election on a proposition to abandon the city manager-council form of government on Monday.
Mayor Mark Welch has called a special council meeting for 6:30 p.m. Monday in the council’s chamber, 540 Water St.
The city administration called in private attorney Steve Di Giulio, an expert in state elections law, as an independent counsel to distance the city administration from the inquiry, city attorney John Watts said late Friday.
“He found number of irregularities in the process,” Watts said, “including the voter registration process used by the auditor to county voters based on the voters address shown on the petition.”
Watts said Di Giulio found 30 names of voters who gave a Port Townsend address when they were actually living outside the city limit in Jefferson County.
One of those who signed the petition, Watts said, was found to be living in Port Ludlow.
Di Giulio also said that the Jefferson County Auditor’s Office should not have accepted signatures after July 13.
Jefferson County Auditor Donna Eldridge could not be reached for comment on Friday or Saturday.
Eldridge was required to state a date when the voter count on the petition would begin and state law says that after that date, no new signatures could be accepted, Di Giulio said.
“They may have erroneously included names they shouldn’t have included,” Welch said.
It would cost the city about $10,000 to put the measure on the ballot, Welch said.
“We want to make sure we do this correctly,” he said.
John Sheehan, chief proponent of the proposition to abandon the council-manager form of government, came up short of the needed signatures when he submitted 523 signatures and only 404 were validated by the Auditor’s Office.
The office then issued a certificate declaring the needed signature count was insufficient.
Sheehan needed 455 validate Port Townsend voter signatures, or 10 percent of the city’s registered voters.
Sheehan submitted 67 more signatures on July 30, which the auditor certified that day, validating the needed signatures to go to the council to call an election.
The council called the election, required by state law, last Monday.
Watts said the Municipal Research and Service Center of Washington reached the same decision on the issue.
