Item 4: Ordinance on Tax on Motor Fuel

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ATTACHMENT D City Recorder’s Office City of Eugene 777 Pearl Street, Room 105 M Eugene, Oregon 97401-2793 EMORANDUM (541) 682-5042 (541) 682-5414 FAX www.eugene-or.gov Date: January 23, 2008 To: Mayor and City Councilors From: Mary Feldman, City Recorder Subject: Potential Referendum Election This is to provide information about the timing of an election on a referendum that could be filed if council approves extension of the gas tax sunset date at its January 28 meeting. Assuming the Mayor signed an ordinance the following day or day after, petitioners could file a prospective referendum petition January 29 or 30. If that occurred on one of those two dates, petitioners would have until February 27 or 28 to gather the requisite 6,365 signatures. Should the Mayor sign the ordinance later, all subsequent dates would need to be adjusted accordingly. Lane County is allowed 15 days to complete signature verification, or until March 13 or 14. Once signature verification was successfully completed by Lane County, the City Recorder would certify the petition, likely on either March 14 or 17. Both of these dates are well past the 90-day deadline for the City Recorder's certification of a petition for the May 2008 election (that date is February 20). In order for the measure to be placed on the May ballot instead of going to a September special election, one of two things would need to occur: 1) The petitioners would need to submit their signatures for verification in less than the 30 days allowed; in fact, no later than February 4. The City has no ability to require that and since it would reduce the likelihood that a sufficient number of signatures would be gathered, there is little incentive for petitioners to do so; 2) The City Council, without knowing the outcome of the referendum effort, could take action no later than March 15 (66 days prior to the election) to refer the ordinance to the May election under the ballot title prepared (and appealed or not) at the beginning of the referendum process. The last opportunity to do that prior to council break would be either March 10 or 12. Please feel free to contact me at 682-8353 if you have questions about the election process and timing issues. May08 referendum deadlines memo