Residents of Gulf Shores, Orange Beach can petition for school vote

200-signatures needed to petition board to call for election

BY JOHN MULLEN johnm@gulfcoastmedia.com
Posted 8/5/16

GULF SHORES – Resolutions from city councils asking for a vote on a 3 mill tax for schools aren’t really necessary. If 200 citizens from either Gulf Shores or Orange Beach signed a petition …

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Residents of Gulf Shores, Orange Beach can petition for school vote

200-signatures needed to petition board to call for election

Posted

GULF SHORES – Resolutions from city councils asking for a vote on a 3 mill tax for schools aren’t really necessary. If 200 citizens from either Gulf Shores or Orange Beach signed a petition calling for a referendum on the tax, it could go before voters.

“But we wanted to do the right thing,” Kevin Corcoran said. “We wanted to get everybody on board.”

While maybe not necessary, resolutions do gauge the mood of the community for county officials who would have to carry forward requests for issues to be placed on the ballot.

On July 18 that mood would have been downright giddy in council Chambers in Gulf Shores. The mayor and council favorably received a presentation by Corcoran and the Education Advisory Task Force by Corcoran of Gulf Shores and Doug Warren and Jim Caldwell of Orange Beach.

And the council appeared poised to proffer up that resolution to Probate Judge Tim Russell in a vote on July 25.

On July 19, in a council chamber a few miles east, the mood wasn’t the same in Orange Beach.

The task force wasn’t allowed to make its full presentation and then sat back as Mayor Tony Kennon listed his objections to the plan. No consensus of support emerged from the meeting. Any resolution of support would have been voted on in a specially called meeting the week of July 25-29 since Orange Beach wasn’t scheduled to meet until Aug. 2.

Kennon objected to Orange Beach having three seats on a nine-seat board of trustees when 47 percent of the taxes would come from his city. He wanted the board to have four seats from each city and no voting representative from the Baldwin County Board of Education. He added that had no object to Gulf Shores placing a member of the school board be among its four representatives.

“I have no intention of supporting anything where we have one third of the vote when we’re giving up almost 50 percent of the money,” Kennon said. “I made that clear some time back.”

If the tax were passed 33 percent would be collected in Gulf Shores, 19 in unincorporated areas of Fort Morgan and Ono Island and Orange Beach’s 47 percent.

On July 22 Russell gauged there wasn’t enough time to place a tax proposal for the Gulf Shores High School feeder pattern Special Tax District on the ballot. He sent an email to interested parties saying it would not go before voters on Nov. 8.

“It’s been within the last two weeks they contacted us and said ‘hey, we want to get it on the November ballot,” Russell told Gulf Coast Media on Wednesday. “When I did some checking there was no way we could get it all done.

“This all happened within the last two weeks. It just was not manageable to get it on the November ballot when it came to our attention.”

But that doesn’t mean the chance for a vote has been totally squashed, just postponed.

Russell said all that’s necessary is for 200 citizens in either city to sign a petition requesting the vote and a special election can be called.

Corcoran said that petition has to include precise legal language as to date and purpose for that election. Both the school board and the commission would have to accept the petition before it ends up on Russell’s desk.

“Since both cities haven’t agreed they are going to have to get their 200 registered voters, if the school board and county commission decide to accept those petitions,” Russell said. “It is a requirement of (the school board) to OK the election, as I understand. The formality would be the county commission signing off and we would accept it from both and then move forward.”