Referendum Petitions Pulled on Girls' Little League Field

The girls' Little League has gone 4-0 this year in its attempt to get a home field on Hoyden's Lane.

But neighborhood opponents of the controversial proposal pulled petitions today in the Town Clerk's Office to try to force a referendum on the Representative Town Meeting's approval of a $350,000 funding request to build the field and infrastructure for a town park, according to Kirk Manley of Hoyden's Lane.

To succeed in holding a referendum, opponents have to collect signatures from 5 percent of the town's voters and submit them to the Town Clerk's Office for verification by 4:30 p.m., July 13. The exact number of voters in town wasn't known tonight, but the most recent tally printed in the Registrar of Voters' Office, and available for public review earlier this week, had the number at 35,310.

Using 35,310 as a hypothetical number, the number of signatures required to hold a referendum would be 1,765. But since some signatures may turn out to be invalid, petition organizers likely would need around 2,000.

Hoyden's Hill residents are said to have requested help from We the People, a taxpayers' group in town that has about 1,500 residents on an e-mail list.

Manley declined comment on the referendum effort tonight, though he did say neighbors had pulled petitions from the Town Clerk's Office to try to hold a referendum.

James Brown, of South Pine Creek Road, who frequently writes letters to the editor, sent an e-mail on Tuesday to Republican members of the RTM who voted against the $350,000 funding request (all 12 Democrats voted in favor) in which he challenged them to lead the effort for a referendum.

"I will be happy to sign a petition if the fiscally responsible Republicans on the RTM are so inclined to organize and lead the effort to have the referendum," Brown's e-mail to the 20 Republican RTM members says. "If not, I will just sit back and watch Fairfield turn into a city with excess active recreational facilities - a very expensive city at that with poor traffic and flood management systems too!"

Brown said tonight that he wasn't involved in organizing or leading the referendum effort and that the feedback he heard from his e-mail was that RTM Republicans who voted against the $350,000 funding request wanted to respect the process and didn't think it was appropriate for them to organize or lead a referendum challenge, which Brown said he understood.

Brown said Hoyden's Hill residents have their work cut out for them in not only getting enough signatures to hold a referendum but in getting the referendum to succeed.

But Brown said they have a chance of winning a referendum - assuming they get enough signatures to have one - if the Board of Selectmen schedules the referendum vote on Aug. 10, which is the date voters go to the polls for primaries for governor, U.S. senator and other high-profile offices.

"I didn't go back and look at the historic numbers, but I think [a primary] has turnout of 35 to 40 percent, and you get two-thirds of the electorate voting against it...," Brown said. "The referendum's totally stacked against them, but I think they have a chance if it's held on primary day."

If Hoyden's Hill residents succeed in getting the required number of signatures by July 13, the Board of Selectmen would schedule a date for the referendum that is between 21 days and 28 days after the Town Clerk's Office certifies the petition signatures. The Board of Selectmen doesn't have to schedule the referendum on the same date as the primary, though it would be an added expense to the town if it were held on another day.

Every voter would be eligible to vote in the referendum, and referendums are held in polling locations that residents normally use for elections. Voting hours for a referendum are from noon to 8 p.m., but the selectmen could lengthen those voting hours, according to the Town Charter. The selectmen would decide if voting is done by machine or printed ballot, according to the Town Charter.

Winning a referendum isn't easy.

For the referendum to succeed, 25 percent of voters have to vote against the RTM's decision - and those votes also must be a majority of votes cast.

Many residents, including town officials, mistakenly think the 25-percent figure pertains only to turnout in a general sense, but it actually pertains to the number of people who have to vote against the RTM's decision.

The RTM voted 22-20 early Tuesday to approve the $350,000 funding request for the girls' Little League field and infrastructure for a town park.

The Board of Finance had approved the funding request on a 6-1 vote, with one abstention, and the Board of Selectmen had approved a $400,000 funding request for the project on a 3-0 vote (the number dropped to $350,000 before it went to the Board of Finance.)

The girls' Little League field also won approval from the town's Conservation Department, but it still faces a final vote by the Town Plan and Zoning Commission.