Petition filed to get commisioner vs. magistrate question on the Pike ballot
A petition with 2,580 signatures was delivered to the office of Pike Judge-Executive Bill Deskins Tuesday afternoon, asking that voters have the opportunity to vote for or against changing the structure of Pike County government.
Greg Blankenship, chair of Pike Countians Against Government Waste, said the petition is the result of two drives to get the issue on the ballot.
The matter PCAGW wants on the ballot is changing the Pike County Fiscal Court to a commissioner-based body. The court is currently a magistrate-based court.
Counties with commissioners, such as Johnson County, have three commissioners and a judge-executive, making a four-member body. Those commissioners represent the districts in which they reside, but they are elected by a county-wide vote.
Blankenship said he hopes the petition, and the potential change, will save the county money.
“We are stating our displeasure with the fiscal court, and the way the county is being run,” Blankenship said. “We want to save some money on salaries and benefits.”
The PAC garnered 1,569 signatures in the first attempt to get the matter on the ballot last year. At the time, Pike County Clerk Rhonda Taylor declared that some of the signatures were not acceptable because they could not be verified. Assistant County Attorney John Doug Hays said at the time that the petition was not presented in time to have the matter put on the November 2015 ballot.
But, a letter that accompanied the petition to Deskins this week, cited laws the group says require the matter to be placed on the November ballot.
“Any attempt to prevent this petition from being placed on the ballot … will be deemed a violation of the civil rights of the citizens,” the letter said. “Failure to comply … will result in any and all legal action necessary to see the civil rights of the citizens of Pike County are protected.”
“We have enough signatures on the petition that we expect to have it on the ballot,” Blankenship said. “We will accept nothing less than to have those voices heard. We will do anything within our legal power to do that.”
By Julia Roberts
Appalachian News-Express
