Petition recheck under way

A county clerk ordered to re-examine signatures that were discounted and kept the open space initiative off the Nov. 2 ballot said the re-examination process would be done within a week.

"We re going to go back through and look at the petition again and see if we can come up with enough names to certify it in District 14," Utah County Clerk Kim Jackson said Monday.

Petitions for the initiative were rejected in both Utah and Cache counties because both county clerks threw out names when they didn't match or couldn't be verified against addresses.

"The lack of an address match, standing alone, should not be grounds for rejection of the signature of a voter whose name appears on the voter list," the Utah Supreme Court wrote Friday in ordering the names back for re-examination.

Utah and Cache counties are to resubmit the petitions to the state elections office for approval and placement on the Nov. 2 ballot, if warranted.

"We're within 40 signatures of certifying in that Senate district," Jackson said. "Under new clarifications, we think we'll come up with those names."

He said that re-examination should be done by Monday (Aug. 23). The state has said its deadline to include the initiative on ballots would be Sept. 3.

Cache County Clerk Jill Zollinger did not return phones calls left Friday and Monday at her office.

Amanda Smith, president of Utahns for Clean Water, Clean Air & Quality Growth, said the petition was short 221 signatures in Cache County. She said the group found that Cache County invalidated 646 signatures because of address differences.

Smith's group is seeking a 10-year, $150 million bond for conservation projects. The Elections Office rejected the plan in early June, ruling that the petition failed to meet state standards.

The petition was signed by 133,000 Utah residents, almost double the state law requirement. But it didn't meet a threshold intended to ensure geographic diversity.

The petition was signed by at least 10 percent of registered voters in 24 of the state's 29 Senate districts — two short of the number of districts demanded by state law, said Elections Office Director Amy Naccarato.

The proposal would repay the bond through a one-twentieth of 1 percent sales tax — about $14 per year for the average Utah family earning $51,000 a year.

The money would be administered by the state's Quality Growth Commission, which would use the bond proceeds to issue grants. Once the bonds are retired, the tax would end.

The bond has broad backing from environmentalists, farmers, ranchers, rural city and county leaders and hunting and fishing organizations. That gives the proposal an unusually wide spectrum of support which blurs the state's historical philosophical lines.

Utah has fallen behind surrounding states in conserving critical lands. Nevada voters have passed a $200 million open space bond. Colorado residents have approved three different open space measures totaling $172 million.