Damascus ‘no’ votes show confidence in leaders

Measures to limit government powers failing

By Mara Stine

The Gresham Outlook, Mar 9, 2010, Updated Mar 10, 2010 (5 Reader comments)

Jim Clark / The Outlook

From left, Debbie and Jim Butler look at the election results for the Damascus special election on the computer belonging to Debbie Frassetto, right. In the center background is Damascus City Councilor David Jothen. All four measures failed.

Damascus voters failed to pass four measures on the March 9 ballot.

The initiatives proposed prohibiting light rail in Damascus without a vote, limiting the city’s use of emergency clauses to put ordinances into effect faster, limiting city spending increases to no more than 2.5 percent a year and requiring voter approval for intergovernmental agreements.

About 20 members of Ask Damascus, which campaigned for the measures, gathered at Pub 212 on Tuesday night to await the results. Ask Damascus founder Dan Phegley was most surprised that 51 percent of voters cast ballots against the measure to prohibit light rail — and that it failed by the closest margin.

Approximately 53 percent of the nearly 3,600 ballots cast were against limiting the city’s use of emergency clauses, nearly 56 percent voted no to requiring voter approval for intergovernmental agreements and 53 percent voted against the city-spending limit.

Phegley was disappointed, if not downright shocked, by the results.

“How do you express how you feel when your city votes to put itself under Metro control?” he asked.

1 | 2 Next Page >>

Facebook	Digg	Del.icio.us
Newsvine	Stumbleupon	Reddit