2,200 Signatures Dropped Off at Town Clerk's Office Monday: Referendum Supporters

Referendum supporters said 2,200 signatures were dropped off at the Town Clerk's Office Monday afternoon - far exceeding the 1,765 needed to force a townwide referendum on the Representative Town Meeting's approval of a $350,000 funding request to build a girls' Little League field and infrastructure for a park on Hoyden's Lane.

Liz Hoffmann, an RTM member from District 8 who helped to lead the referendum effort, said she hoped another 300 signatures would be dropped off at the Town Clerk's Office by the deadline of 4:30 p.m. Tuesday.

"We're hopeful they'll all check out, but you can't have too many signatures," Hoffmann said Monday evening. "You can never have too much of a margin for error."

Kathryn Braun, also a District 8 RTM member who helped to lead the referendum effort, said she didn't know the historical percentage of signatures that are normally found to be invalid during certification, and she too hoped more people would sign or drop off petitions at her 1212 Post Road office on Tuesday between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. "We're hoping to get more tomorrow. You can never have too many," she said.

If at least 1,765 signatures are verified by the Town Clerk's Office, the effort to have a referendum will be successful and voters will have dealt a stunning rebuke to a majority of town officials who voted in favor of the funding request. The Board of Selectmen voted 3-0 to approve the $350,000 funding request, followed by the Board of Finance, which voted 6-1, with one abstention, to approve it. The vote at the RTM was 22-20, with no abstentions.

Hoffmann said referendum supporters worked hard to collect signatures but it wasn't difficult to find people willing to sign. "This is consistent with the fact we're in a recession. People are making small sacrifices in lots of areas, and, in this economy, $350,000 of borrowed money is a lot of money," she said. "There was an overwhelming response by taxpayers that they don't want to spend any more money. It's not a complicated story."

Hoffmann couldn't say how many people had collected signatures because many stopped by the law office of Braun, who, like Hoffmann, voted against the $350,000 funding request. Residents also could download a referendum form from the Web site, http://nomorebonding.blogspot.com Braun figured 30 residents gathered signatures, though she said that was just an estimate.

Hoffmann said the first question she and others who helped to lead the referendum effort asked a potential signer was, "Are you a registered voter in Fairfield?"

"Everyone said they were, but we still want people to bring in signatures," Hoffmann said. "A couple of people said, 'Could I sign twice?' We said, 'No.' "

Referendum supporters said they faced an uphill battle with a slow start, the July 4 holiday weekend and the heat, but they combined forces of environmentalists, open-space advocates, fiscal conservatives, residents of the town's Hoyden's Hill neighborhood and RTM members who voted against the funding request and who were willing to collect signatures. "There was such a variety. It was really a grass-roots effort," Braun said.

Braun said voters couldn't make a logical connection between the RTM approving $350,000 for an athletic field and park after teachers accepted 0 percent raises this year and the RTM cut $100,000 from emergency responders' budgets and $250,000 to renovate bathrooms at Dwight School and make them handicapped accessible. "The logic did not compute for a lot of people," she said.

Hoffmann said referendum supporters are still collecting signatures because the deadline isn't until 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, but she said they wanted to get the majority of petitions in today.

Hoffmann said the referendum effort, which was supported by We the People, a taxpayers' group in Fairfield, was "a collective effort" and "the effort of many volunteers."

"It was just a focused effort and a simple message and passion for trying to do the best for what the taxpayers want," Hoffmann said. "When you're passionate and you don't quit and you don't give up, that's what happens."

If at least 1,765 signatures check out as registered voters in Fairfield, the Board of Selectmen will have to set a date for a referendum that falls from 21 to 28 days from the date the Town Clerk's Office certifies that the required number of signatures have been submitted. The Town Clerk's Office has a week to certify signatures.

The Aug. 10 primary, in which voters will go to the polls to endorse candidates for federal and state offices, would seem to fall within that timeframe, but First Selectman Ken Flatto has said at least twice at public meetings that the referendum would not be held on Primary Day if he had anything to say about it - and Flatto does, since he is one of three selectmen who will choose the date for the referendum.

Braun said referendum supporters are now hoping for two things - that the Town Clerk's Office certifies enough signatures to hold a referendum and that the referendum is scheduled on Aug. 10. "Voters shouldn't have to go out twice to vote," she said.

Winning a referendum isn't easy and it's not as straightforward as winning an election.

To win a referendum, at least 25 percent of town voters have to vote to overturn the RTM's approval of the $350,000 funding request and those votes also must be a majority of votes cast.

Many residents mistakenly think the 25-percent figure pertains only to turnout in a referendum, but it doesn't - it pertains to the minimum number of people who have to vote against the RTM's decision to approve the $350,000 funding request.

The Registrar of Voters' Office recently said the town had 35,310 voters. Using that number as the hypothetical number on the date of a referendum, 8,827 voters would have to vote to overturn the RTM's approval of the funding request and those votes would have to be a majority of votes cast. If 8,826 voters voted against the RTM's approval, and only one voter voted in favor of it, the referendum would fail because the 25-percent threshold for votes against the RTM's approval would not have been reached.