Despite ‘slim’ odds of success, voter signature drive underway in Logan

A voter signature drive is now underway to place a referendum on the ballot in November that might significantly change Logan's form of government by replacing at-large membership on the City Council in favor of by-district representation.

LOGAN – After more than three years of discussion, deliberation and debate, a campaign to collect voter signatures that might change the City of Logan’s form of government is finally underway.

That voter initiative, spearheaded by former council candidate and local activist Keegan Garrity, must collect 2,000 signatures from registered voters in Logan by April 15 to put that change – from at-large to geographical district representation — up for a ballot referendum in November.

“The challenge isn’t getting people to sign the ballot initiative,” Garrity explains, saying that he was up in the Cliffside neighborhood on the city’s east side in the evening hours of Mar. 22.

Cliffside is among the east side bastions of the Logan City Council’s current at-large members, but Garrity says he was able to collect 25 voter signatures there in about an hour.

“Most people seem to agree with the idea of letting the voters decide on the council’s format,” he observes. “I only had one gentlemen decline, saying that he ‘… works for the city and has to be careful’.

“No, the challenge in what we’re doing is getting all those signatures by the April 15 deadline.”

Garrity admits that his chances of reaching that goal are “slim” unless he can recruit more volunteers to gather voter signatures.

Garrity and seven volunteers are now faced with the task of collecting a specific percentage of voter signatures from all eight of Logan’s designated voter participation areas.

Each of those VPAs include multiple voting precincts and have populations ranging from 2,100 to 2,600 registered voters.

Garrity said he would be more confident of reaching that goal of 2,000 signatures if he had three or four more volunteers.

“For that matter,” he adds, “I’d really like 12 more volunteers. With a total of 20 people, we’d all be responsible for gathering just 100 signatures.”

The initiative that Garrity and his volunteers are advocating for proposes to amend Chapter 2.44 of Logan’s municipal code to create five council districts of roughly equal population. Starting in November of 2024, voters from Districts 1, 3 and 5 would elect three council members to represent their districts. Council members from Districts 2 and 4 would be elected in November of 2027. As proposed, all council members would serve four-year terms.

Advocates argue that change would create a framework for more elective leadership by obligating candidates to live in the neighborhoods they represent. Additionally, voters will only be allowed to vote for candidates from their own district, thus ending the practice of at-large voting for elective offices.

Garritty emphasizes that district representation would also make it easier for diverse candidates to run for the county offices, particularly individuals residing in the less-affluent west side of town.

Four of the five members of the current city council – who all live east of Main Street in Logan – are on record as opposing any change to representation by geographical district, along with Mayor Holly Daines.

At-large representation has been the rule on the Logan City Council since 2009. Despite the fact that nearly two-thirds of Logan’s population lives west of Main Street in the Bridger, Ellis and Woodruff neighborhoods, there has never been more than one at-large council member from the city’s west side on the municipal panel in the past 13 years.

Since his election to the city council in 2018, west side resident Jess Bradfield – now the Cache County clerk/auditor — was a vocal advocate for a return to voter district representation.

At a contentious meeting in October 2019, Bradfield urged city council members to adopt an ordinance implementing by-district election of council members. Instead, his fellow council members appointed a citizens subcommittee to study the issue.

In a report delivered to the city council in January of 2021, representatives of five of the city’s six neighborhoods supported the idea that implementing by-district voting would facilitate broader representation on the city council.

But the city council members elected to consider that report to be non-binding.

Ironically, Garrity acknowledges that, even if the district representation initiative reaches the ballot and voters approve it, that referendum will be equally non-binding.

“Yes, the council members would still be free to ignore the result of the referendum,” Garrity said.

“But I’d like to see them explain that to the voters.”

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