Iola voters will decide Nov. 2 the fate of a charter ordinance to put in place a five-member city commission in April.
Petitions to force the referendum had more than enough valid signatures, Allen County Clerk Sherrie Riebel said Tuesday. “They had 103 signatures and 87 were of registered voters,” she said, or 38 more than the 49 required to force an election.
The referendum will be Iola’s third in 19 months regarding its governance.
Iolans in April 2009 voted to disband the city’s existing three-member commission and in April of this year, in a non-binding vote, favored a five-member commission over those with seven or nine members. A council form of government was not on this April’s ballot.
Ken Rowe, who spurred the petition drive, said this April’s vote was not necessary because the 2009 decision automatically triggered a state law to establish an eight-member council. The city relied on its constitutional home rule authority to set the size of its governing body.
Sitting commissioners passed a charter ordinance proposing a commission of four members, one elected in each of the city’s wards, and a voting mayor elected at large. That body is set to be seated through an April, 2011 election, unless November’s vote changes that.
On the Nov. 2 ballot, a yes vote would leave in place the charter ordinance and Iola would have four commissioners and a voting mayor. A no vote would dismiss the charter ordinance and pave the way for a governing body of eight councilmen and a mayor who would vote only in the case of a tie.
Another vote slated for city
