Petition campaign is successful!

The frenetic effort to collect signatures from 10% of Oak Ridge’s voters is drawing to an end. As the Oak Ridger reported today, as of Friday the campaign had 2,400 signatures on hand — probably more than enough to force a referendum, which requires about 2,000 validated signatures. On Monday, a total of 3,172 signatures were turned in to City Clerk Jackie Bernard, and still more will be turned in on Tuesday (the deadline).

Not only does the campaign have many more signatures than were needed, but the total is impressively large when compared with the turnout of just 3,977 voters in the 2005 city election (see http://www.ellensmith.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=118). Willie Golden, the candidate with the highest vote total in that election, received 2,819 votes, which is less than the number of voters who signed to call for a referendum.

Many of the people who signed to call for a referendum have made up their minds against the Crestpointe project, but many others want to be able to vote on the issue — and hope to have more information by the time the election is held. I hope we will also know plenty about some alternatives to Crestpointe — better ways to satisfy Oak Ridgers’ thirst for more shopping and the city’s thirst for more tax revenues.

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