From Aberdeen Mayor Patrick McGrady:
Statement on Petition Drive for Aberdeen Charter Amendment Referendum
Hi there–
I’m Patrick McGrady, the Mayor of Aberdeen, and I’m coming to you today with an update on the Petition Drive to bring to referendum the Charter Amendments passed by the Aberdeen City Council on May 8th, 2017.
To get up to date on the changes made and how we got to here, you can go to www.aberdeenpetition.com.
First, let me say how proud I am of the response from our community to push to bring this charter amendment to referendum. Community involvement is the only way that we can achieve the kinds of changes we want to see in Aberdeen– we want a stronger community that’s attractive to families and businesses.
Almost universally, the response that I got from people was surprise that it is legal to change the powers of the elected Mayor and Council between elections, and that the Council would take these steps without asking the voters to approve.
State law establishes how these kinds of changes are to be made, and how a referendum process would work. Specifically, when a charter amendment is adopted by a simple majority vote, the voters of the Town or City have 40 days to collect signatures equal in number to 20% of the registered voters of the town or City.
If these signatures are collected and validated by the City board of elections, then the petition is successful, and the issue is brought to the voters by referendum– the voters can have a say in whether or not the changes take effect.
In Aberdeen’s case, that means 20% of about 10,000 registered voters need to sign a petition.
This is a very high hurdle to achieve on any issue. This was something that I felt obligated to attempt, given that I was elected to stand up for the voters of Aberdeen.
By the 40th day, June 17, 2017, I had received just about 1,178 petitions signed and returned to me– mailed to my house, dropped off on my porch, at my office, and at City Hall 🙂 That’s just about 30 per day!
Some of these, of course, will not be valid registered voters of Aberdeen– some folks who live outside of town limits signed, and some people who haven’t registered to vote yet in Aberdeen signed too.
This is a photocopy of the original petition signatures. Look at this impressive stack. This is your voice being heard, Aberdeen! Good work!
To everybody who signed the petition, thank you. Thank you to all of those who circulated the petition in their neighborhoods. And thank you to all of those who called me and wished me well on the effort.
On Saturday, June 27, I mailed the petitions to City Hall at about 4:45PM. After I submitted the originals, another 93 or so came in– that’s a total of about 1271 signatures!
This is short of our legal requirement of 1,990, so this issue will not be placed on the ballot at this time. The Charter Amendment as adopted by 3 members of the Council on May 8 will take effect on June 27, 2017.
However, this number of signatures represents a huge portion of the voters in Aberdeen elections.
In 2015, when I was elected with a total number of 602 votes, only 1788 votes were cast for Mayor. In that same election, the City Council Candidate who received the most votes got 899 votes.
That number of signatures, 1178, is impressive to me because compared to voting, it’s a lot of work.
People had to get the petition, sign the petition, and return the petition. The intensity of support for this referendum effort is impressive.
So, of the people who voted in the last Aberdeen municipal election, that is, 1799 voters, 1271 signed and returned this petition. That’s a number of signers equal to 70.65% of the number of voters who voted in the last Aberdeen election.
That’s more than 2 times the number that voted for me. This issue goes beyond support for me, or support for the Council– it’s bad policy to change the form of government between elections, and Aberdeen voters understand that.
That number of signatures, 1178, is almost 1.5x the number who voted for the highest vote-getting Council Candidate.
It’s clear that the voters of Aberdeen want to have a say in these kinds of changes to the City Charter.
It’s clear that the voters of Aberdeen have a problem with a simple majority of the City Council changing the form of government between elections.
I look forward to working with the City Council to fix the action that was taken on May 8.
Going through this referendum process has also made me aware of a problem that I promise to fix– the process for filing a petition to referendum is confusing, murky, and requires legal expertise to understand.
It took me the first 10 days after May 8, when the Council adopted the Charter Amendment, to put together a petition in a format that would be legally permitted. This delay is unacceptable for future petitioners of the City government.
I promise that the City will produce a template for future petition efforts– it is a fundamental right of the voters of Aberdeen to be able to petition the government, and it’s crucial that the City government makes the process transparent and clear. We will get this done.
On another front, I plan to lobby our state legislature to change state law to permit municipalities to locally control the process of referendums and changes to the form of government.
State law requires a referendum for changes to the State Constitution and County law requires a referendum to change the County Charter.
It’s unreasonable that the kinds of changes to the form of government that were adopted by the City Council on May 8 can be done without a referendum, and if we have to change state law to prevent these kinds of things happening to the other 150+ towns in Maryland, that’s what we will do.
As always, you can call me on my cell phone anytime at 410.357.1234.
So, thanks again to all of you who supported the petition effort, and have a beautiful day!
Walk with the Mayor
Join me for a neighborly stroll across Aberdeen’s historic downtown every Friday all summer, at 5PM for a 25-35 minute stroll where you can talk about anything you would like. Meet at Festival Park at 5:00PM sharp.
Aberdeen Farmers Market
First and Third Thursdays from May through September
Aberdeen Festival Park, 60 North Parke Street
4:00 p.m. through 7:00 p.m.
Come shop local produce, vegetables, wines, perennials, herbs, eggs, meats, soaps, lotions and baked items!
Sad what the other council members did. I hope things get turned around. Keep up the good fight and work Mr. McGrady.
Mr. McGrady, you’re a noteworthy exception to lousy politics. Fight the fight, sir.
Aberdeens registered voters overwhelmingly oppose referendum on democratic charter reforms. 8,822 voters refuse to sign petition. l,l78 sign petition. Majority accepts democratic charter reform. Democracy is fair. Majority rules. Sore loser Mayor calls democratic referendum concept “unreasonable”.
Who cares?
Aba’deen. Home of empty office space, road construction that can’t get done, barber shops, nail salons, storefront churches and soon to be second hand grocery stores.
And told as only a total loser like Art Helton would state it.
Keep up the good work, Mayor McGrady! The 3 Council people who did this will have a difficult time getting re-elected — the citizens won’t re-elect some of them after this stunt that they pulled.
One of them is a pastor. He should be ashamed of himself!
http://harfobama.wordpress.com/tag/route-40-republican-club
Wasn’t Joe Fleckstein the Abingdon fundraiser for the White-Nationalist Route 40 Republican Club? Wasnt he in charge of raffling off an AR14 semi automatic rifle to keep Route 40 White Nationalist Club going?
Democracy wins again and the Harford Tea Party Republicans (C4L) are ready to riot!
Wasn’t Mike Callahan a Harford County socio-Marxist? I believe he’s the guy who served one term in the state Senate and was so bad that the entire Harford delegation worked against his re-election. Oh yeah, that guy who had to form his own democrat club because the central committee wanted nothing to do with him.
That’s the problem with being an old guy – your memory sucks and you get things all mixed up. Hell, you could be talking about your own brother for all you or I know.
Ah, good ol. Mike “Invalid YouTube Embeded link” Callahan.
Democracy won in the Presidential election and you flakes still can’t get over it either. The only rioting and protesting out there is coming from the left. Get over it. Have your Morning Joe. MAGA.
Cry me a river. Sounds like a Trumpanzee tantrum to me.
No crying or tantrums here. We won.
MAGA
MAGA
Yeah, MAGA! Make America Grope Again!!!
Frosh & Mosby. LOL. Trying to further their careers on the backs of Md.Taxpayers.
You want to make Baltimore City Safe again?
1. Curfew
2. Bring back a swift death penalty.
3. Make it easier for law abiding citizens to have a gun to protect themselves.
Curfews would destroy the bars, casinos and night clubs, yet alone kill jobs of those who work at night. Baltimore already has a swift death penalty. Just go to the right or I guess I should say wrong neighborhood, at the wrong time and you’re dead. Law abiding citizens don’t need guns. Remember, they got all the police there that are so willing to protect the citizens that they take an hour to respond to cries for help, ignore crimes that happen all the time and all those cameras watching every street corner. They’ll get the guy, after your dead….. Trusting the police will get you killed as well. So might trusting Trump….
If this is what winning looks like, I can’t wait to see the orange shirt clown show meltdown when the losing ramps-up.
Dear Mayor McGrady:es : Democracy is good. Majority rules. The public doesnt want to second guess democratic charter reform. Public supports the democratic Council vote. Public opposses need for referendum!
Dear Mayor MAGA:
1. Curfews are totalitarian and racist!
2.Death penalty is totalitarian and racist!
3. States with more guns have more gun related crime (6.8X) and more gun homicides (2.8x)!
http://www.livescience.com/51446-guns-do-not-deter-crime.html
http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2013/09/jeremy-s/newsflash-guns-involved-gun-violence/
You Libs play the race card on everything. Fine. Keep throwing good money after bad. Let the killing sprees continue.
Come out of the basement. You’ve been irrationally ranting all day on the computer. Your blood pressure will get too high with all of your misplaced anger. Don’t you think you should to pay some attention to me. After all, I pay all the bills around here.
I don’t know Mike Callahan but what I do know is if you can’t see how anti democracy this situation is your an idiot! This situation speaks to personal agendas, feeling butt hurt, and I don’t like it so I’m going to take my ball and go home. The fact that the council pulled this off is appalling but in the end may just be the spark that lights the fire needed to get more voters/citizens involved with how their city is run. What I find most interesting is overwhelmingly a lot of people have written that they don’t agree with Mayor McGrady per se, but also know this move was just plain wrong and quite juvenile. Best of luck citizens of Aberdeen as the future is now speak out let your council members know first hand of your disapproval and when the next election comes around be sure your voices are heard with the power of your vote.