HUNTINGTON BEACH : Quirk in State Law Saves Ballot Measure

A major environmental ballot measure, ruled dead earlier this week for lack of signatures, has qualified after all for the Nov. 6 election, the city clerk’s office said Thursday.

An obscure quirk in state law, discovered only Wednesday, made the difference, city officials said.

The ballot measure is a proposed City Charter amendment that would forbid the sale of park or beach land in Huntington Beach without a vote of the people. A furor over Pierside Village, the city’s proposed lease of oceanfront land for restaurants, is among the reasons why residents circulated petitions for the ballot measure.

City Clerk Connie Brockway said that City Atty. Gail C. Hutton notified her Thursday that the parks proposal does qualify for the ballot.

Brockway said she discovered on Wednesday that a quirk in state law treats proposed charter amendments differently than initiatives. A charter amendment must have 15% of the signatures of registered voters from the last official count, whereas an initiative must have 15% of the registered voters at the time the initiative was launched.

In Huntington Beach, the number of registered voters dropped from 102,000 last fall to about 96,000 this spring. Brockway said that city and county officials earlier had thought that the proposed charter amendment had to secure 15% of the registered voters, based on the 102,000 figure.

But based on the 96,000 figure, “There needed to be 14,420 valid signatures, and this (ballot measure) has 14,751,” Brockway said. “Those signatures have already been verified by the county registrar of voters office.”

On Tuesday, the registrar’s office said the measure did not qualify for the ballot because it needed 15,302 voter signatures--but that was the number needed for an initiative.

Debbie Cook, spokeswoman for Save Our Parks, said Thursday night that she was “delighted” that the measure has now qualified. Save Our Parks, a citizens’ environmental group, was formed in September to battle City Council proposals to lease Central Park land for a commercial golf course.

“All we’ve wanted is a chance to get this on the ballot so the citizens can vote on it, and now we have it,” Cook said. To become law, the Charter proposal must be approved by a majority of those voting in the city’s Nov. 6 election.