Posted by Peter Carpenter, a resident of the Atherton: Lindenwood neighborhood, on Dec 20, 2011 at 9:37 pm
Peter Carpenter is a member (registered user) of Almanac Online

When our elected officials are hopeless deadlocked (3-2 and 2-2-1) on a critical policy issue it is totally appropriate for the matter to be submitted to the citizens for a decision.

Ideally the decision to submit this matter to the citizens would have been made by the Council. As I told the Council on Nov. 11 " I believe that it would be much less divisive and more elegant if the Council took the leadership on placing this matter before the voters."

Sadly the Council ignored this advice and will now be faced with a citizen initiative not of the Council's making. How much better it would have been had the Council framed the question and also provided articulate pros and cons.