City Clerk to Decide Fate of Reform Petition

The ongoing saga of Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan’s government reform initiative took a decidedly political turn Wednesday when the City Council instructed the city clerk to decide whether the petition qualified for the ballot.

The petition to create a government reform panel has been in limbo for days because neither City Clerk J. Michael Carey nor the county registrar-recorder was willing to take the responsibility of certifying the controversial petition.

Although the council put an end to that question, it did not end the political struggle involving the petition drive. The council, which has its own competing reform plan, also directed Carey to use standard municipal election rules in counting the signatures--and those rules could keep the measure off the April ballot.

Under city rules, Carey would have to throw out up to 430 signatures that were collected by petition circulators who are apparently not registered to vote in Los Angeles.

City election rules mandate that the city only accept signatures collected by registered voters. State election rules, however, allow those signatures to be counted.

Carey has said that without the 430 disputed signatures, the petition falls 90 signatures short of qualifying based on a random sample check of 3% of the signatures.