For a No vote on the referendum
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HURON — Bob Jones, who moved with his wife Sharon to their new twin home on 26th Street in the past year, wants to make one thing very clear to voters heading to the polls on May 16.
He has no issue with a new apartment building in the Southtown Addition. His concern, and it is shared by others, is the placement of what may become WheatGrass Village.
“We property owners on Frank Ave., and on 26th Street went to the planning commission meeting where the rezoning was discussed,” Jones said last week, “and we stood up and said that we support the apartment building; we know the city needs it. All that we asked is that it be moved to the north part of this vacant area, and that the south two-thirds be left as single family housing.”
The planning commission, which is an advisory board to the city commission, deadlocked on the issue. It was passed on to the city commission without a recommendation. The city commission approved the rezoning.
And it is the rezoning, how it was handled, that prompted Jones and his son-in-law Todd Smith, to take out and circulate petitions, to refer the commission’s decision to a public vote.
“Right or wrong - mostly wrong - this whole thing has morphed into a vote for or against the apartment,” he said.
Nearly all votes made by a governing board - city, county, school or even the state legislature - can be referred to a public vote, if enough signatures are collected on petitions to do so. Recently, the S.D. Legislature opted to change a voter-generated law on minimum wage in the state. Voters collected a sufficient number of signatures to bring it to a vote and the majority of people in the state again voted for the original proposal.