Here's a one-word statement that says enough is enough!Grab and use this banner as you like. Put it on your web site with a link to your favorite post about the subject of where to play baseball in Richmond. Make a bumper sticker out of it.
Flag for your front porch display? Fine. Tattoo? It's all good.
The politicians and promoters have let the where-to-build-a-baseball-stadium issue run back and forth, hither and yon, for too long. Enough of studies of studies! Our elected officials seem to be afraid to be wrong.
It's time for Richmond's citizens/voters to act on their own behalf. Let's put the question on the ballot in November. A referendum.
Let's allow the taxpayers to declare their preference for Baseball on the Blvd., or Baseball in the Bottom. There are other issues that need our attention. While baseball is important, it's not more important than schools, or the decaying infrastructure, or what's economically feasible. Let's be done with this.
Click here to look at the proposed 2005 ordinance calling for a referendum on the Shockoe Bottom project then being weighed by City Council. Now I wonder why somebody made it go away?
Click here to read more background about the referendum on the baseball stadium issue.
-- Art by F.T. Rea
5 comments:
Bet you a dollar to a doughnut that a lot of these "beisbolistas" don't live in RVA, but in the counties.
Not to rain on your parade, but according to the City, you would have to get the signatures "equal in number to ten percent or more of the largest number of votes cast in any general or primary election held in the City during the five years immediately preceding."
That means you'd have to get about 10,000 signatures to sign a petition to even get the referendum on the ballot.
Are you going to go out and do it? If not, then its a dead issue.
Sean,
Apparently, in Richmond, Virginia, there are two ways to get a referendum going. The way you have alluded to, and another way.
The second way would be for a majority of City Council to call for a non-binding resolution.
In 2005 Council almost did something along those lines. The link to that proposal is in the text on my post.
Perhaps I can interest some members of the current council to think about it again.
We'll see.
But a non-binding resolution would still have to be voted on by Council. If you went with the petition and it got more than 50% at the polls, it would automatically become law.
If Council puts the referendum on the ballot, they could ignore the result and vote the other way. There is no guarantee they would uphold the referendum outcome, whatever it was.
Sean,
I want to convince five members of council that they will look good asking the voters to catch the hot potato and settle the nettlesome stadium issue.
A non-binding resolution would let the voters have their say. I doubt the council would ignore the expressed will of the people.
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