Eugene Gas Tax Referendum Fails to Qualify For November Ballot

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i I, City Manager's Office City of Eugene 777 Pearl Street, Room 105 Eugene, Oregon 97401 NE~VVS ~~ELEASE (541) 682-5414 FAX ~i (541) 682-5045 'r'fY www.ci.eugene.or.us July 12, 2047 III Contact: Mary Feldman, City Recorder, 682-8353 Eric Jones, Public Works Public Affairs Manager, 682-5523 For Immediate Release Ef~gene Gas Tax Referendum Fails to Qualify for November Ballot A referendum drive challenging Eugene's gas tax failed to gather enough valid I''~I signatures tb qualify for a spot on the November ballot, City Recorder Mary Feldman announced today. Several local gas station owners sought to challenge City of Eugene ordinance 20384, approved by the City Council on May 29 and increasing Eugene's local motor vehicle fuel tax to 8 cents per gallon and repealing a sunset provision that would have rolled Eugene's gas tax back to 3 cants per gallon in February 2008. On June 1, chief petitioners Casey Pilkenton, Tim Reed and Jphn Anderson filed a prospective petition with the City to refer this ordinance to Eugene voters. For the petition to succeed, the petitioners were required to submit 6,365 signatures of registered Eugene voters by 5 p.m. on June 29. On .)une 28, the petitioners filed 1,277 signature sheets containing nearly 11,000 signatures. ',As required by state law, the city recorder reviewed the petitions to confirm that each sheet had sufficient circulator certification. Only those petitions meeting circulator certification're uirements ma be forwarded to Lane County Elections for signature verification. q Y Fifty petition sheets containing 437 signatures failed this test. ~I, County elections divisions in Oregon have the responsibility of maintaining voter registration records and cities arrange with county elections officials for verification of signatures. Oregon Administrative Rules require that for petitions requiring more than 4,500 signatures, a statistical sampling process is used to determine the petition's sufficiency. That process uses a mathematical sampling formula and random number generator program to determine how many valid signatures are required and how they are selected from the petition II sheets. On July 2, the gas tax referendum petitions were submitted to Lane County Elections, which had until 5 p.m. on the 15th day following the petitioners' filing to complete the verification ~ process. (more)