At the March 13 2007 meeting, the Berkeley City Council decided to restrict service on the Planning, ZAB, Landmarks and Housing commissions to a cumulative total of 8 years, after which, a resident would have to spend two years off the commission before he/she could be reappointed.

Council also decided to remove the 8 year limit on the remaining 34 or so commissions. This ordinance was passed on first reading with Mayor Bates and Councilmembers Capitelli, Moore, Olds, and Wozniak voting in favor and Councilmembers Anderson, Maio, Spring, and Worthington voting in opposition.

Between the first and second reading, a number of residents and commissioners contacted the Council and asked for a delay in the implementation of the ordinance. In addition, a diverse group of concerned citizens came together and decided to file a petition for a referendum on the ordinance, should it pass on second reading, as was expected. (For full disclosure, this writer was one of those concerned citizens.) That petition was filed with the City Clerk on the day before the second reading was to take place.

After a brief discussion during the March 20th Council meeting, Councilmember Olds, who co-sponsored the ordinance along with Councilmember Capitelli, moved to rescind the first reading. Her motion was seconded by Councilmember Maio, and it passed with the support of the entire Council, except for Councilmember Capitelli, who abstained. This ordinance or one like it may be reintroduced at any time.

Question and Answer

Was a referendum petition filed, and so will this go onto the ballot?

Yes, a referendum petition was filed, but the issue will not go on the ballot. Three things would have had to have happened for the issue to go onto the ballot:

1. It would have been necessary for the Council to pass the ordinance. That takes a first and a second reading of a bill with a passing vote on both. In this case, the Council rescinded the first reading, so the bill never became an ordinance. (Usually, a second reading is routine and takes place a week or two after the first. But it can take place much later. If the Council had simply removed the item from the agenda, the first reading would have stood, and the bill would have been in legal limbo waiting for a second reading. Rescinding the first reading means that they are back to the beginning of the process.)
2. If the ordinance had passed, citizens would have had 30 days to file a petition for a referendum with the City Clerk and get valid signatures of Berkeley voters in a number not less than 10% of the people who voted in the last mayoral election for the referendum to qualify for the ballot. In this case, a petition was filed after the first reading, but there was no signature drive, because no ordinance was passed.
3. Had there been an ordinance passed and a successful signature drive against it completed, the Council could still have rescinded the ordinance on its own. If that had happened, there would be no need to put the referendum on the ballot, and the Council would be forbidden from enacting the same ordinance or a similar one for a year. But if the Council had refused to reconsider the ordinance, then it would have had to have been placed on the ballot.

This is what has happened so far with the Mayor's Revised Landmarks Preservation Ordinance. It appears that the referendum against it will go on the ballot, unless the Council rescinds it or the lawsuit against it succeeds.

When a referendum on an ordinance makes it onto the ballot, the voters decide if the ordinance should go into effect or not. A voter who wants the ordinance passed by the Council to go into effect would vote "yes." A voter who wants to stop the new ordinance from going into effect and keep the current law, instead, would vote "no."