Galena electoral board upholds objections, removes three Parker referendum questions from April ballot

The Galena Electoral Board voted 3-0 on Jan. 13, 2025, to sustain objections and remove three nonbinding referendum questions about the Parker commercial development from the April 1 consolidated election ballot.

The board’s decision came after attorneys and witnesses for both sides presented arguments at a hearing in which objectors said the petition questions were legally deficient or misleading and proponents said they sought only to give registered Galena voters an anonymous advisory vote.

Board attorney Joseph Nack opened the hearing and recorded procedural matters, saying the petitions were filed Dec. 19, 2024, and the objections filed Jan. 6, 2025. The case was designated 2025-MOEB-01 and the board adopted hearing rules before taking testimony and argument.

Craig Brown, attorney for the objector, told the board the petitions failed required statutory content and did not state a public-policy question as required by state election law. Brown argued the text did not give voters the policy information the statute requires and asked the board to dismiss the petitions. “Nowhere is there any information regarding the public policy question,” Brown said during his opening argument.

Proponents Elizabeth Boggess and Kathy Elwell said they and other residents gathered signatures to give voters a way to express opinions on the project. “We are simply 2 of the people involved in gathering signatures of registered Galena voters who were interested … in having an opportunity to express our opinions by ballot in April,” Boggess said.

Several witnesses testified about the substance and likely effects of the questions. Larry Wiedenheft, who testified as an objector-witness, said the proposed questions were biased and lacking specificity: “When I read the proposed questions for the … referendum ballot, I thought the questions were all quite biased.” Laura Edmonds, the county supervisor of assessments, and school superintendent Tim Vincent described tax and revenue considerations and said the petition questions were too vague to produce a useful advisory result for the council.

Proponents also disputed a conflict-of-interest argument that had been raised against the objector, and the board’s attorney allowed the hearing to proceed after denying two pretrial motions to dismiss. After hearing testimony and argument, the three-member board — Mayor Terry Renner and two other board members — took individual roll-call votes to sustain the objections to each of the three petition questions. The board did not adopt the referendum questions as submitted.

During testimony proponents said the city had incurred legal fees tied to litigation over the project; Kathy Elwell pointed to the city-council minutes and said the city had spent legal fees and reported a figure in the meeting record that she cited as “more than $177,000 to date on … legal fees related to the Parker.” Board members discussed whether the petition language reasonably described a discrete public-policy question and whether voters would receive accurate, nonmisleading information from the submitted wording.

The board’s attorney summarized procedural rulings on the record and said written findings would follow. The proponents said they would continue to press for voter input and indicated they might seek judicial review of the board’s decision.

The hearing record shows the board took the actions on the single case (2025-MOEB-01) and then opened a short public-comment period; several residents addressed the board after the votes.

The board’s written decision and any further filings will be part of the case record for judicial review or subsequent administrative steps.