6 days ago
Survey released on proposed new Luzerne County home rule charter
Jul. 17—In This Together NEPA Voting and Elections Manager Beth Gilbert said the organization's recent survey found 70.8% of Luzerne County voters who responded are unlikely or very unlikely to vote in favor of the proposed charter in the November general election.
Approximately 1,000 voters completed the survey, Gilbert said. It was sent by text to more than 124,000 voters with cell phone numbers available to the organization, she said.
Gilbert said the respondents were a "diverse sample" — 50.4% Republican, 37.9% Democrat and 11.7% Independent/other.
Ted Ritsick, chair of the seven-citizen government study commission drafting the proposed charter, said he has issues with the survey because he believes the questions were "biased" in their wording and did "not tell the full story" of the reasoning behind the proposed changes.
Ritsick also noted that there is no information on how many of the 1,000 voters regularly cast ballots in non-presidential election years. He said he would have to see the full data set for the survey to determine if conclusions can be drawn from the responses. He said he never received a dataset from the organization's last survey in May.
"We will have extensive lead-up to the election, where we will have an opportunity to make our case as opposed to sensationalized surveys to people who don't necessarily have the context of what's going on," Ritsick said.
"If anything, this tells us we have some work to do in communicating what we're doing and why we're doing it," he added. "I think we have a good product, and when people have an opportunity to understand the reasoning behind this they can make an informed decision."
Gilbert's release said the survey was an opportunity for voters to "weigh in on major proposals" related to the proposed charter.
"These changes would impact the independence of our Election Board, the future of ethics oversight and term limits for local elected officials," her summary said. "The results are clear: Luzerne County voters, regardless of their party affiliation, want accountability, not more political control."
Election board
Legal analysis from commission solicitor Joseph J. Khan, of Curtin & Heefner LLP, that said the Pennsylvania Election Code, or Title 25, is clear that election boards have employee appointment authority and other responsibilities currently performed by this county's administration.
As a result, a commission majority concluded council must have flexibility to change from an all-volunteer, five-citizen board if the board's powers must increase to comply with state election law, which could include authority to hire the election director, choose the voting system and prepare annual election budgets.
The proposed charter would keep the board at five members, require at least two Democrats and two Republicans and allow the four council-appointed members to then choose someone to serve in the fifth seat — all provisions in the charter.
However, it would permit council to eliminate prohibitions barring county employees and elected officials from serving in these board seats.
To make such a change in composition, council would have to amend its administrative code. Majority-plus-one council approval would be mandated for code changes related to the election board.
In This Together said 91.9% of survey respondents believe the election board "should remain independent and bipartisan and should not be subjected to changes by county council."
Also, 91.3% "support the current protections in place for the Election Board and do not support allowing political figures to serve on the Election Board," the organization said.
Ethics commission
Under the current charter, the county district attorney, controller, county manager or his/her designee and two council-appointed citizens (one Democrat and one Republican) serve on the commission that enforces the council-adopted ethics code.
The proposed charter would keep the current commission structure plus two more citizens for at least the first two years. A majority-plus-one council vote would be required if council wants to change the composition after this two-year trial period.
The proposed charter also would create an advisory committee, including citizens, that would make nonbinding recommendations on ethics code changes to council.
In This Together said 90.5% of survey respondents "believe we should continue to have an independent ethics commission."
Term limits
The three-term limit in the current charter would be kept, but elected or appointed terms of two years or less would not be counted toward the limit in the new proposal.
The revised charter provides a clean slate to the DA and controller by not counting terms prior to the new charter's effective date toward the three-term limit.
In This Together said 91.7% of survey respondents support term limits for local elected officials, and 86.2% support "keeping existing term limits in place for current elected officials."
Reach Jennifer Learn-Andes at 570-991-6388 or on Twitter @TLJenLearnAndes.
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