Kansas City Star
Officials with Anchorage municipal unions say they have turned in more than enough signatures to place a measure before voters that would repeal a law restricting union powers.
Unions turned in 22,136 voter signatures, more than triple the required 7,124 to place the measure on the ballot, the Anchorage Daily News reported Tuesday.
The Anchorage Assembly voted 6-5 on March 26 to approve what Mayor Dan Sullivan calls The Responsible Labor Act. The law prohibits union members from going on strike and eliminates binding arbitration.
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A Kansas City Council committee today rejected transit activist Clay Chastain’s latest proposal for a light rail ballot measure. The council’s Transportation and Infrastructure Committee recommended against placing Chastain’s light rail plan on the February ballot, saying it is woefully under-funded and is impossible to implement. The full council considers Chastain’s proposal on Sep. 29.
Too late to stand in front of bulldozers, an anti-nuke group has presented a petition to try to defuse a bomb component plant going up in south Kansas City. Voters could see a proposed initiative on the ballot in November. The petition does not seek to halt construction at the billion-dollar Honeywell campus at Botts Road and Missouri 150. Instead, it would divert the plant from its intended use to “green energy” manufacturing.
Clay Chastain is back in Kansas City trying to get light rail back on the ballot. Meeting with reporters Monday at Union Station, Chastain said he had about a quarter of the signatures needed to put a light rail proposal on the November ballot.
A plan to seek a statewide referendum on repealing the earnings tax in Kansas City and St. Louis might actually skip Kansas City, organizer Marc Ellinger said Tuesday. Just before Christmas, Secretary of State Robin Carnahan approved the circulation of five initiative petitions which would put the earnings tax in both cities on the statewide ballot in November, assuming sufficient signatures. (For those keeping score, the petitions are numbers 1,3,5,7 and 9).
In mid-2003 Kansas City Health Director Rex Archer began promoting a smoking ban for city restaurants. It was a great idea, and it helped lead to a campaign on my part and many others for a regional smoke-free law for all public places. Not everyone agreed, led by restaurant and bar owners, plus others who didn’t want to lose their “right” to blow smoke where they wanted.
Secretary of State Robin Carnahan announced today that a new initiative petition met state standards for circulation that would change the state Constitution to repeal the nonpartisan court plan.
A small Jackson County fire district would impose a new half-cent sales tax in the Blue Summit area if a ballot measure is approved on Tuesday. The Inter City Fire Protection District serves about 700 residents in unincorporated Jackson County between Independence and Kansas City. If voters approve the measure, the district would impose the tax to generate revenue for its operation while reducing property taxes.
An effort to recall Kansas City Mayor Mark Funkhouser has stalled because recall proponents do not have funds for legal fees. The group has said it lacks the $10,000 in legal fees needed to court-order a recount of signatures. Petitioners came up just 129 signatures short of the 16,950 needed to trigger a recall election.
Kansas City voters may have a chance to recall the city’s Mayor if recall supporters are successful at collecting the 17,000 signatures necessary to trigger an election. Final petitions are due in to the city clerk on Monday.
The Missouri House has voted to send a proposed constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to a secret ballot in union elections on to a final House vote. Missouri joins 12 other states that are considering guaranteeing secret ballot elections in response to the proposed federal legislation that would allow unions to be certified without using secret balloting.
A Cole County judge has upheld ballot wording for an upcoming abortion initiative. The wording had been challenged by both sides in the debate.