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Residents and critics press council over term‑limit ballot language and process
Summary
Speakers at the Ridgecrest City Council meeting accused staff of procedural shortcuts and a drafting error that appears to reference another city's municipal code; the city attorney said impartial analysis is required by law and that typographical errors were corrected before county submission.
Tom Wignick and other residents used the council's public‑comment period on March 18 to challenge the process that placed two term‑limit measures on the ballot, saying the initiative text appeared to amend another city's municipal code and questioning whether the city attorney's impartial analysis was truly neutral. "How can you change their municipal code?" Wignick asked, reading passages he said showed the ballot language referencing a different city.
The complaints focused on procedural steps: speakers said they saw no second reading before the measure was forwarded to the county and argued the measure did not get committee review or sufficient public input. "The whole point of public comment is so there can be an exchange of ideas," Ryan Porter told the council, adding that residents deserve more opportunities to be heard.
Council and staff responded that some concerns were addressed by practice and legal constraints. The city attorney said state rules require the city attorney to prepare an impartial analysis for measures and described that analysis as factual rather than opinion: "There is no angle," the city attorney said, adding that, to his knowledge, a typographical error in the ordinance had been corrected before county submission.
Speakers urged the council to consider withdrawing or remediating the initiative if statutory errors remained. Public commenters also alleged a conflict of interest because the attorney prepared the impartial analysis while also advising on ordinance language; staff said the impartial‑analysis duty is statutorily required and the analysis is intended to be factual.
No formal decision about withdrawing the measures was made at the meeting; councilmembers and staff said they would check details and follow up with the county as needed.
