By George Fallar 
Today is July 18, 2013. As of today, ANY signatures collected for the R13-01 referendum are invalid and should not be considered. There are multiple reasons for this.
This is the third time around for Mr. Jones with the anti-Coyotes crusade. He had more significant partners during his first try that failed. Ironically, had he and his partner Mr. Cobb simply followed the directions in the Secretary of State’s handbook AND expended just slightly more effort, they would have succeeded in ridding Glendale of the Coyotes. They gathered 1,568 of the required 1,862 signatures. While they would have probably required closer to 2,500 signatures for a successful attempt, that was well within their grasp despite the best efforts of Glendale First! to suppress their signature gathering process through voter education. Make no mistake, they “had us” and didn’t get it done.
Read “Deja Vu All Over Again” for the story of the second referendum failure, read “Too Little, Too Late, Too Mistakey” for the story of the first. Please note the details of the failures and the provision of the facts in those posts.
Committee Filing
(click to embiggen)
The committee filing is incorrect. Again.
The “NAME OF COMMITTEE” is “Ken Jones”. Once a serial number is assigned, the committee name MUST be amended to include the serial number, without exception. In this case, the committee name should have been amended to “Ken Jones in support of R13-01”.
Page 6 of the Secretary of State’s “Initiative, Referendum, & Recall Handbook” states in BOLD lettering with a hand icon pointing at it:
“Update the name of the committee in the campaign finance system to include the Serial Number assigned to the initiative or referendum. [A.R.S. 16-902.01(D)]”
Therefore any signatures gathered up until the time Mr. Jones corrects this error will be thrown out immediately.
Mr. Jones used “SAME” as the name, phone, and email address of the committee treasurer. This is a legal document to be scrutinized closely. “SAME” is not a legitimate entry for any of those form fields and the committee filing is invalid.
Mr. Jones filed his committee checking the “COMMITTEE REGISTRATION” box. The assertions made by Mr. Jones upon filing with that box checked include:
- “The committee intends to receive or expend less than $500”
- “The committee will file a Statement of Organization within five business days after expending OR RECEIVING (emphasis mine) monies over the $500 limit pursuant to A.R.S. 19-902.01 and 16-903(A)”
Intentions are debatable, although if a meeting took place at CM Alvarez’s house prior to Mr. Jones filing his committee on Monday, July 8 as we have been told, and fundraising took place or was even discussed at this meeting, Mr. Jones is in violation of the first assertion listed above.
Regardless of intentions, Mr. Jones was present at a press conference called by Rev. Maupin on Thursday, July 11. At that press conference, Rev. Maupin stated (we have it on video) that significant monies had been raised and the committee intended to hire paid petition circulators to further their cause. At that time, a “five business days” clock started running. That clock has already expired or, being generous, will expire at close of business today.
Petition Sheets
The petition sheet we saw that was being circulated by Mr. Jones’ erstwhile partner Robert “Cotton” Rebich had significant errors on it. One of those errors is likely to affect every petition sheet eventually turned in.
Because the “no more than 100 word description” of the purpose of the referendum must be printed on every sheet AND it must match the “no more than 100 word description” filed with the referendum, any sheet that was printed to match the sheet we saw will be immediately rejected. The signatures will not even be considered.
The 100 word description filed (click here) is:
“This Referendum is to give Glendale, Arizona citizens an opportunity to vote on the arena lease approved by the Glendale city council by a 4 to 3 vote July 2nd, 2013.
The Referendum we seek to have a public vote for is City of Glendale Ordinance #2855.”
The description printed on the petition sheet we saw and, we assume, all the other petition sheets is:
“ARENA LEASE BETWEEN CITY OF GLENDALE AND ICEARIZONA MANAGER CO, LLC AND ICEARIZONA HOCKEY CO, LLC”
Ironically, in the photo, Mr. Rebich is holding a sheet of paper and pointing to the “PURPOSE OF REFERENDUM”. That doesn’t satisfy the law, and any petition printed in the same fashion will be summarily dismissed without signature verification.
Either “PAID CIRCULATOR” or “VOLUNTEER” must be selected on any sheet at the time the petition is being circulated. While it would be difficult to ascertain when the selection was made, assuming it was corrected after the fact, this sheet will certainly be voided. IF petition sheets are actually submitted to the City, and this sheet in the photo has been modified to have the correct selection, an immediate objection to the veracity of any signatures collected by this circulator would be in order.
A copy of the ordinance referred to by the referendum must be attached to every petition sheet at the time of circulation. It’s obviously not in this case. It’s acceptable to remove the copy of the ordinance once a sheet has been completed. Typical review would count the number of staple holes in sheets, more than one instance of attachment, for example, would disqualify the entire sheet. Again, should this sheet appear at City Hall with magical staple marks, an immediate objection would be made about the circulator.